Make a High School Degree Mean Something
You used to be able to get a job post high school...
For me, last June’s high school graduation ceremony had a note of bitterness in it, and it wasn’t the usual joyful bitterness that comes from seeing kids I’ve taught for four years leave the nest. Nor was it the knowledge that my graduation speech was probably the last time I would have to teach them.
No. This bitterness was more like rot. It was like biting into an apple, and while the vast majority of the fruit was crisp and delicious, there was a very obvious nasty part that my tongue immediately sought to avoid.
Put plainly, a kid who didn’t deserve to graduate, graduated.
When I say this kid didn’t deserve to graduate, I’m not talking about a student who just failed to do the work. I’m not referring to a student who didn’t meet our academic standards. I’m not even talking about a student who had a major streak of truancy. It’s sad to admit, but I believe most high school teachers in poor performing schools in NYC understand that it’s damn near impossible to stop a student from graduating if those are the only faults.
Yes, I know that sounds insane.
When I say this particular student didn’t deserve to graduate, what I’m saying is this student actively derailed classrooms by cursing out teachers. I’m saying this student threatened other students and staff. I’m saying this student blatantly ignored attempts from teachers to help him complete work while disrupting his own peers education. These weren’t one time outbursts, these were consistent behaviors we teachers had to deal with for years.
Classroom disruption was like a talent he enjoyed honing. When he wasn’t destroying learning environments, it was because he wasn’t there. This student skipped an enormous amount of school days his senior year. Rumor has it he had an incredibly lucrative job dealing drugs. He failed his major classes, and barely scraped by his regents tests. By the end of the year I needed this student removed from my classroom almost every time he entered it.
You may be asking yourself, “how did this student graduate?”
For those of you who don’t have any experience working in the NYC DOE, here’s what happened in a nutshell.
The administration forced us to graduate him.
If you’re asking what that means, it means that at the end of the school year when the teachers calculated that he could no longer mathematically pass their classes, the administration forced them create a packet of make-up work that would allow him to make up half a year of missed work for three classes in the space of 5 hours. He completed it - who knows to what degree of quality, handed the work in, and was cleared for graduation.
Hopefully there is an indignant part of your mind screaming “BUT WHY!”
I’ve already written a fairly entertaining article about why the city willingly inflates grades across all of its public schools, but the very quick dirty summary boils down to the fact that schools are judged based on their graduation rate. If your school has a graduation rate below 80%, it just doesn’t look good on a stat sheet compared to a school with a 99% graduation rate.
In fact, parents are far more likely to send their kids to a school that has a higher graduation rate than other schools. More kids means more funding, more funding usually means more staff, and more staff is generally a great thing for helping students. I should also mention the graduation rate is often treated as a report card for administrations, its how they advance their own careers. It’s part of how we find ourselves in the hypocrite’s world where Principals increase the graduation rate by lowering the academic standards they tell teacher’s to uphold.
I’ve often argued that if I was a parent looking at a 99% graduation rate, my first question would be why is it so easy to graduate from your school? Are there any high standards that you're actually forcing kids to meet? Or does everyone just pass?
I’m going to double down on that argument. Think about it, why does making the varsity team in high school actually garner some respect? Its because people who didn’t have the skills didn’t make the cut. Why does everyone respect/resent the kid who got the lead role in the play - because everyone else didn’t.
The people in society we hold in highest esteem survived programs with incredible attrition rates. We respect Navy Seals and astronauts and doctors precisely because these people survived ludicrously challenging programs that weren’t designed for everyone to pass. We respect them because we inherently respect the institutions that created such challenging environments for them to learn and fail.
We don’t just respect these institutions, we end up trusting them as well. If you have tens of millions of dollars who do you trust your money with? Joe schmo investor down the street or a company like Goldman Sachs who keeps a “maintain the standard or die” kind of work environment? You go to the doctors because they represent around 16 years of vigorous schooling and on the job experience. You trust places that uphold difficult standards. Difficult standards are often known for being difficult because sometimes people don’t make the cut.
No one trusts the guy with a display case full of participation trophies.
Am I suggesting that schools represent challenges equal to that of Navy Seals? Of course not. Should it be as challenging to graduate high school as it is to become a doctor? Obviously not. Should walking out with a degree require the same cutthroat skills it takes to maintain a job at Goldman Sachs? No. But, I do believe schools do need meaningful standards.
What if the public could trust that an adult with a high school degree had these skills at their disposal: passible critical thinking skills, the ability to read, write, public speak, an understanding of how to apply the scientific method, knowledge of how to maintain their health, basic communication skills, and a habit of resilience.
If a high school degree truly meant a person had the above skill set, I see a world where people don’t have to recklessly throw themselves in college debt just to prove they’re worthy of a job. The public education system would have already provided them an opportunity to show their merit.
From what I can see, we’re a long way off from this ideal, because as of now, it's clear to me that you can curse out, threaten, and demean teachers and peers while ignoring any sort of real work, and still receive a high school degree.
That fact alone devalues every student who actually worked their ass off to graduate.
I am outraged. Standards for High School graduation should not be "pliable". They should be hard and fast. There is way too much of the sliding downward slope in standards everywhere I look these days. School and teacher incentives and objectives need to be re-worked, to a higher standard, so the students are held to a higher standard. Pass or Fail.