State requirements for high school graduation, in Carnegie units: 2001

This is interesting. It is the breakdown by state of how many credits, based on Carnegie hours are needed per each state for a high school diploma.

State requirements for high school graduation, in Carnegie units: 2001

What’s a Carnegie hour? Per the House of Education Yahoo Group File:

A. There are different ways of accounting for credits. A Carnegie Unit is 150 clock hours of instruction, which can be broken up in several different ways. 150 regular 60-minute hours of time spent in a history class would equal one Carnegie Unit.

Q. Clock hours and 60 minute hours…What’s the difference? Aren’t all hours 60-minute hours?

A. No. Public education does things differently. All hours are not 60 minutes long. In educationese, they usually are less. Some states have laws that state that 180 50-minute hours of class time make up one high school credit. One father, who was a supervising social worker for the state of California and oversaw a good many teens in group homes whom he had to help get through school, says that 180 45-minute ‘hours’ make up one year of a high school course in California (CA).

The 180 X 50 minutes credit equals out to about 150 full sixty minute clock hours on a subject for one full credit- the same as a Carnegie Unit. CA, apparently, doesn’t do Carnegies anymore. As a general rule, if your state is no longer using Carnegies, then the instruction time for their ‘hours’ has been reduced.