Over the next decade, a lengthier school year and modified graduation requirements will improve the level of education in Ohio, according to Gov. Ted Strickland's 10-year plan for education.
 Instead of passing the Ohio Graduation Test, all students will have to take the ACT college entrance exam in order to graduate.
 Social studies teacher Paul Brisker said that by teaching to the OGT, he cannot focus on some important aspects of history.
 “If it's not on the test, we didn't teach it,” Brisker said, “so there were some things that we left out.”
 The missing parts of the curriculum dealt with “the hidden agenda—honesty and hard work and all that,” he said. The change will be a positive one “unless we start teaching to the ACT.”
 Some like the simplification of standardized testing by cutting the OGT.
 “I'd only have to take one [test] because I'd take (the ACT) anyways,” freshman Amber Huston said.
 Lead science teacher Jerry Post said that emphasizing the ACT would be “killing two birds with one stone.”
 In addition to the ACT, students will complete end-of-course exams, a service learning project, and a senior project.
 The plan also calls for phasing in an additional 20 school days over the next decade in order to bring “Ohio’s learning year up to the international average of 200 days,” according to the governor's State of the State Address on Jan. 28.
 Many students naturally meet that proposition with staunch resistance.
 “I think it's a bad idea because who wants to go to school for 20 more days?” junior Emily Roush questioned.
 Math teacher Jennifer Maite sees the additional days as a mixed bag.
 “Educationally, I think it's good... so I think to compete (with other states and other countries), something like that has to be in place,” Maite said. “From a personal standpoint, I like my summers. I hate to cut into the summer time, but what will be will be.”
 Post said he thinks summers will remain “pretty much as-is” and the breaks will be modified.
 “In all honesty, we get a lot of breaks,” Post said, “and when you're in the middle of the school year, sometimes those breaks work against you instead of for you.”
 Maite also said the additional pay would be nice, but Brisker expressed concern over the funding of a longer school year.
 “Where's the money going to come from?” Brisker asked. “That's the thing—(the governor)'s counting on the federal government to give him some extra money, and this may not always be there.”
 The budgetary burdens–increasing salaries and maintaining buildings–will be paid in part by increased state funding to schools despite Ohio's $7 billion deficit for the upcoming 2010-2011 operating budget, according to Strickland.
 Freshman Katie Cahill likes none of the planned changes. She said the ACT is harder than the OGT.
 “I think that’s dumb,” Cahill said. “I’m happy with the way school is now.”