By Kevin Lavery, KWMU
St. Louis – Missouri's top school official says the state's high schools do a good job educating students, but adds more should be done to make the curriculum relevant to the needs of the workforce.
State education commissioner Kent King is in St. Louis this weekend to attend a regional conference on improving high schools.
King says standards must be more rigorous to reach at risk students.
"If we don't expect that they have to learn much, I guarantee you they won't," King said. "We have to make sure that we set expectations for kids that are reasonable but also attainable. Kids have to be pushed, and you don't push them by setting real low expectations, because they'll live up to what we ask them to do."
The U.S. Department of Education is co-sponsoring the conference.