The Problem with Four-Year Graduation Rates
Last month, the Washington Post wrote an article called “Why Alabama and West Virginia Suddenly Have Amazing High School Graduation Rates.” Immediately, the title of the article should raise some eyebrows–but the Post took a rather uncritical view of West Virginia and Alabama’s graduation rates.
The article starts with the assumption that graduating from high school is an inherent good: that a higher graduation rate means that the quality of schools has increased. What is more likely the case, however, is that schools, administrators, and teachers—under pressure from politicians—have pushed more students through the system without actually having demonstrated competence.
Indeed, at each of the three schools I have worked, come May, there is an immense amount of pressure on teachers to make sure that every student passes—which might mean allowing students to turn in work that is 6 months late, curving assignments heavily, or dropping assignments altogether. Oftentimes, this is not necessarily to the student’s benefit—they get pushed onto the next grade without having learned foundational skills, and the students’ struggles get passed on to the next teacher.
The article continues to look at whether or not Alabama cooked the books with astonishing credulity, concluding that “it wasn’t smoke and mirrors.” For instance, the article claims that Alabama’s “college and career readiness” measures also increased while graduation rates increased–without noting that a student can be deemed college and career ready if they “successfully enlist in the military.” This isn’t to say this is an unworthy path–but just that it may not be a good measure or whether or not a school has done its job.
If students were actually receiving a higher quality education, we might expect community colleges to graduate more than 40% of their students (noting, again, that graduation rates can be inflated by schools); instead, many secondary schools fail to adequately prepare students and send them onto tertiary education just to drop out, saddled with debt and lost time.
So much of high school education has become about compliance and serving time. Students spend a certain amount of time in a classroom, and therefore they ought to receive a degree. Schools should instead focus on meaningful personal development and helping students develop a robust understanding of the liberal arts. Indeed, we haven’t actually increased the number of students leaving high school ready for life: we have just reduced the meaning of a high school diploma.
And that seems to be the point of the article: that it is inherently good that students are spending more time in classes. “Even if there was some relaxation of standards where they’re giving D’s instead of F’s, that’s keeping kids in school longer,” Harris said. “There’s more class time — they’re taking more courses as a result.” But this notion turns the goal of schooling into compliance and serving time rather than actually learning anything–and that’s bad for kids, bad for teachers, and bad for society.
One of the biggest problems in American education is the obsession with four year graduation rates. Schools and policymakers should become more comfortable with the fact that it may take some students more (or less) time to graduate high school. Schools should also be more flexible in terms of course completion—if a student is only able to complete half the algebra curriculum in 10 months, schools currently are faced with two bad choices: either fail the student and making them start over (even though they have learned half of the content), or send them to the next grade (even if they have only learned half of this year’s content).
Finally, schools would be wise to lower the consequences of “failing” a class. In our current system, where all students are expected to pass a class in 10 months, receiving a failing grade sets a student back an entire year. What if students were allowed to continue completing the course beyond the ten month allotted time frame? What if there was more flexibility in the curriculum that allowed for schools to remediate when needed without putting students at risk for a behind-schedule graduation?
Ten years ago, liberals were up in arms about the flaws of using standardized testing to measure school performance. But somehow, since the repeal of No Child Left Behind, policymakers and journalists from across the political spectrum have forgotten the lessons learned from NCLB, instead swallowing every bit of education data states feed them.
