Why improve education when you can simply try to make it appear that there is improvement?

Graduation Inflation is Harming Students by Max Eden.

I agree. Immensely frustrating.

Last month, the Department of Education released data showing that, yet again, American high school graduation rates have increased. This sparked a wave of celebratory press coverage across the country. But US News issued a note of caution: “Graduation Rate Up, But Not Enough.” In it, education reform advocates lament that the graduation rate didn’t rise faster.

But perhaps the bad news is the fact that it’s still rising. There are several compelling reasons to fear that graduation inflation is harming at-risk students of color, even if they rarely feature in the public debate.

First, few who are paying close attention believe that rising graduation rates represent genuine academic progress. Test scores are stagnant or declining, so how are graduation rates up?

In some districts, the answer is outright fraud. In the District of Columbia, an audit revealed that half of students who missed half their senior year graduated anyway. Discounting students who graduated courtesy of explicit policy violations, the 2017 graduate rate would have dropped from 73 to 48 percent, exactly where it was before DC Public Schools became nationally famous for its meteoric (and fake) graduation rate increase. Credible allegations of similar fraud have emerged in major districts across the country.

Many other districts stopped short of outright fraud, opting to juice the graduation rate by expanding credit recovery programs with exceptionally low standards, allowing students to sit in front of a computer and effectively shotgun enough credits to be granted a diploma.

This fakery and inflation has significant, if unmeasurable, costs. Off record, teachers speak of its depressing effects on the classroom: students who try hard become demotivated when they see slackers receiving equal credit, and slackers put forth even less effort when they realize they don’t have to. Students lose respect for the school when they realize that whether they learn enough to graduate matters less than whether adults can take credit for their graduation.

Second, graduation inflation does significant harm to students who – despite all the standard-lowering – don’t graduate. Education advocates argue that students need a high school diploma to be employable in the 21stcentury. But this is a self-fulfilling policy driven by credentialism, not skill acquisition.

In a city where 50 percent of students graduate, employers would not automatically stigmatize half of its young adult workforce. But in a city where 90 percent of students graduate, employers would have good reason to suspect that there is something wrong with the 10 percent who don’t. Shut out of the labor market, those young adults will have few opportunities other than crime. Unless schools are actually equipping at-risk students with more skills, graduation inflation will streamline the “school-to-prison pipeline.”

Third, graduation inflation allows activists to pass off destructive policies as effective reforms. Putting students in front of screens all day may do nothing to boost academic achievement even as it makes them more depressed and anxious-- but graduation rates are up so it worked! Reducing suspensions may harm academic achievement and make classrooms more chaotic– but graduation rates are up so it worked! As American schools implemented the Common Core and test-based teacher evaluations, academic achievement for low-performing students saw an unprecedented drop– but graduation rates are up so it worked!

Graduation inflation is an excellent case study in what some call “structural oppression” or “institutional racism.” Self-interested politicians, privileged advocates, and lazy journalists all have their own status incentives to promote and cheerlead graduation inflation. They’re all, perhaps, largely unconscious of how their policies and rhetoric perpetuate racial inequity.

My city's school system got into trouble a few years ago. The hero reformer came in and grades and graduation rates starting rising dramatically. Everyone celebrated.

But then it turned out that the improvements arose due to teachers and principals having test marking parties where failing student grades were magically improved. Education wasn't improving. Hiding failure was improving.

After the investigations and court cases, grades and graduation rates returned to normal. A search was launched and eventually a new hero educator was brought in and graduation rates immediately began improving; for unclear reasons. Meanwhile the School Board spends an inordinate amount of time either lending to and trying to recover from the City or evaluating, investment banker style, major public infrastructure projects towards which educations have been diverted.

Lots of cheering again. And sooner or later we are going to find once again that the School Board spent their time making sure that things to be improving, even when they were not.