Great article by Education Week this week. Recently, the White House announced the national high school graduate rate has reached 83.2 percent. President Obama called it the “highest on record.” However, the Ed Week article brings up some important questions. For example:
“The question is what those gains mean. How do you make sense of the idea that more students are walking away with diplomas, when the National Assessment of Educational Progress suggests that they’re not learning any more these days than they were years ago?
And what about this pesky problem: Many states award a variety of different diplomas, some of which connote strong preparation for jobs and college, and some of which, um, don’t. How much should we rejoice in more teenagers graduating from high school, when some of them have most certainly completed a watered-down course of study?”
Don’t get me wrong. This is progress and worthy of everyone’s attention. Couple it with students improving in key skills like math and it would be great news! Let’s keep working and when we see NAEP scores improve as well we’ll know we are on our way!