Former Ed Truster Kevin Carey loves Education Trust's trusty new report on graduation rates (timed to coincide with the new NCLB regulations--see, Democrats and Republicans are already working together in Washington!). Said report explores No Child Left Behind's requirement that high schools reach certain graduation rate benchmarks in order to make "adequate yearly progress," and bashes (the many) states that set these grad rate targets low or expect too leisurely a pace of progress. Carey implies that this shows states are gaming the system "in an utterly fraudulent, cynical way."
Well, that may well be true (we've not been shy about blasting states for their low expectations), but Carey leaves out a major factor: the definition of a high school "graduate" is malleable, so aiming to get everyone over that bar might result in the bar itself being lowered. This is not a hypothetical situation; it's exactly the dynamic with NCLB's requirement that 100 percent of students be "proficient" in reading and math by 2014. While this provision hasn't caused a "race to the bottom," it has led to a "walk to the middle" in an environment that discourages states to raise their expectations for what it takes to be "proficient."
Everyone wants more kids to graduate from high school. But we should also want a high school diploma to mean something. These two objectives are in tension with one another, especially once we start talking about getting "all kids" or "almost all kids" over the graduation bar. (More so when we add students with disabilities to the mix.) An eighty percent graduation rate might be praiseworthy in a state where graduation implies true readiness for college-level work. Carey (and Ed Trust) should say so.
So let's all remember a key lesson from NCLB: when setting arbitrary targets, beware the perverse incentive.
