“Kansas will lead the world in the success of each student,” said the Kansas State Board of Education when unveiling of the Kansas school system, which will focus less on academics and more on character traits.

Jim McNiece, Chairman of the State Board of Education, released they will be changing the plan from the “No Child Left Behind” program, where it is a “one size fits all” as some put it, to a system based on leadership skills and teamwork.

The Kansas Board released a statement through McNiece which was released on “cjonline.com”.

“The data collected challenged the status quo and gave the board a new exciting direction. Kansas are demanding higher standards in academic skills, as well as employability citizenship skills.”

Hiram Hendrich, an undeclared freshman, is in favor of the change. Growing up in Goodland, Kansas, he saw the “No Child Left Behind” run its course, but thinks some aspects of character building are more important to learning than some aspects of academics.

“I think team work is very important,” said Hendrich you have to know how to work in a team to be successful in life. I think I would’ve learned more because I’m horrible when it comes to team work, I have no teamwork skills.”

Graham Bartunek, freshman business major who attended Basehor-Linwood High School in Leavenworth County, Kansas, says he might have learned skills that would be more useful in his daily life.

“You won’t necessarily be learning more,” says Bartunek. “But you’ll be learning different skills, different skills may help in different aspects of life. For example, I’m a business major, I’m probably not going to use science very often at work.”

Freshman business major Alex Lasher also thinks the change may benefit students and future generations.

“I think it’ll be a different type of learning,” said Lasher. “It’ll be helpful in life after school. In our current education system we learn so much and we don’t pick and choose. None of the stuff we come out of high can generally be helpful. I know how to do trigonometry and that may never help me in life. I think it’d be a good thing to do more character building and leadership qualities and instill that in the next generations. I’d really like to see them teach life skills instead of this mandatory program as a senior where it teaches you what you need in life rather than what we’ve been learning. I took a biology class in high school, I’ll never use that again, and I’m a business major.”