High School Graduation: The Rates are Declining!
The Education Trust, a children's advocacy group, has conducted a study showing that, relative to their parents, children today are less likely to graduate from high school. In fact, the United States is now the only industrialized country where young people are less likely than their parents to earn a diploma.The drop out rates have been, and continue to be, staggering.
One out of four leaves before completing high school. But the nation has been slow to recognize this dropout crisis. For years, dropouts were reported solely as the number of students who quit school in 12th grade, thereby failing to capture the large numbers who left high school earlier.
Anna Habash, author of the report, said "The U.S. is stagnating while other industrialized countries are surpassing us ... And that is going to have a dramatic impact on our ability to compete."
As with so many issues, the 2002 federal No Child Left Behind law is in the picture, serving, in many cases, to make things worse. The law requires high schools to meet graduation targets every year. But those targets are set by states, not by the federal government. And most states allow schools to graduate low percentages of students by saying that any progress, or even the status quo in some cases, is acceptable.
For example,
•In North Carolina, schools must improve by 0.1 percentage point each year. At that rate, it would take nearly a century to raise the graduation rate, now 72%, to the state goal of 80%.
•In Maryland, schools must improve their graduation rate by 0.01 percentage point each year. At that rate, it would take most of a millennium for the graduation rate among African-American students, now 71%, to reach the state goal of 90%.
•In Delaware and New Mexico, schools will never have to meet a state graduation goal as long as they maintain the same graduation rate. Delaware's graduation rate is 76%; New Mexico's is 67%.
Why are states setting the bar so low? It is a way of keeping the pressure off. If the bar were raised, schools would be judged as failing and suffer punitive consequences. So the "incentives" are clearly to set inadequate standards.
Now the federal government is going to raise the bar on graduation rates. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is expected to issue new rules next week that will force states to use a common tracking system and will judge schools not only on graduation rates but on the percentage of black and Hispanic students who graduate, too.
We can only hope that the critical nature of the situation will lead the government to take actions that will truly be effective.
Comments
The two things needed to award a legitimate, traditional high school diploma are: intelligence and industry.
Students who lack one or both of these requirements find high school attendance agony. They find ways to escape.
The opportunity exists to adjust the curriculum to provide non-academic educational alternatives.
Posted by: J ARTHUR MELANSON | October 27, 2008 06:07 PM
New Hampshire education officials are pushing to have some high-schoolers graduate by 10th grade, which means young people will be out into the real world of bills, payday loans, and responsibility a whole lot sooner. The plan is to administer state board exams to sophomores; the students that pass will be allowed to move on to community or technical colleges, foregoing the last two years of high school. You should read the full article to formulate your own opinion, but as a young person and former college student, I don’t know if 16 year-olds are ready to handle the stresses of the real world. There is still so much learning that occurs in the last two years of high school. I’m not talking about the reading and writing; I’m talking about high-schoolers learning how to function in different social situations and learning responsibility. Most 16 year-olds wouldn’t be able to handle all the scholastic and financial responsibility associated with college. I was barely ready at 18. Kids don’t need to grow up any faster; it wouldn’t even be legal for these younger graduates to apply for payday loans to help pay for books or overload credits.
Posted by: Lisa P | November 14, 2008 07:02 AM