Over at The 74, John Arnold penned an op-ed reminding us that getting more students to graduate from high school is not necessarily a good thing. It depends on how we do it. He writes: “If boosting graduation is the goal, one way to get there is to lower standards.”
High school graduation rates are up across the United States, but there is mounting evidence that we are achieving these gains by lowering standards. Arnold points to international assessment data showing that U.S. students are performing worse academically, even as more of them graduate.
As an example of misguided policy Arnold turns to New York, which recently announced it would eliminate the requirement that students pass Regents exams to graduate. This is a clear policy choice aimed at producing more diplomas at the expense of credibility. Arnold writes:
Shielding students from high standards is not compassionate; it simply delays the consequences. It also signals to students that you don’t have to do the work to still graduate. That message is particularly dangerous: Why try if it isn’t going to matter? The result: more students unprepared for what comes next.
Missouri doesn’t have a high school exit exam, so we’re already operating in a system where academic standards are relatively easy to circumvent. Last year, I wrote about Missouri’s rising graduation rates. The statewide graduation rate increased from 76 percent in 2001 to 85 percent in 2010, and to almost 90 percent by 2023.
During the first decade of the 21st century, our rising graduation rates were accompanied by academic gains. But since then, the trends have diverged. Graduation rates continued to rise even as student achievement began to decline. Missouri’s scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress started falling before the pandemic, and the decline accelerated when the pandemic hit. The average ACT score in Missouri was 21.5 in the early 2010s; by 2023, it had fallen below 20 for the first time in recent history.
In other words, Missouri is awarding more high school diplomas even as the academic skills of its students deteriorate. We should be deeply concerned about what these diplomas actually represent.
The problem is that we have confused getting students through school with educating them. Graduation rates are easy to measure, and rising graduation rates make schools and policymakers look successful. But a diploma is supposed to certify that a student has acquired the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in adult life. When we award diplomas to students who lack those skills, we aren’t helping them. We’re simply concealing the problem until they leave school.
Arnold is right that lowering standards is no kindness to students. The purpose of our education system is not to produce diplomas. It is to produce educated young adults who are prepared for what comes next. A diploma should be evidence that we’ve accomplished that goal, not a substitute for accomplishing it.
