Against open-access admissions policies for colleges and universities
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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A Nation at Risk
12 min read
Directly referenced in the article as a pivotal 1983 report that shaped the standards and accountability movement in American education. Understanding this report provides essential context for the current debate about graduation standards.
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A-level
11 min read
The British A-level examination system is extensively discussed by David Steiner as a contrasting model to American high school standards. Readers would benefit from understanding how this tiered examination system works.
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GCSE
11 min read
The GCSE is presented in the article as an example of a rigorous tenth-grade standard that creates transparent linkages between academic performance and future pathways, directly relevant to the proposed reforms.
Good morning, friends, and greetings from Columbus, Ohio, where the Fordham Institute board and senior staff are meeting today. Thomas B. Fordham lived and made his fortune in Ohio about a century ago, and we now serve as an education reform advocacy group and a charter school authorizer in the Buckeye State.
Today we wrap up our debate on high school graduation rates with comments from David Steiner, Doug Harris, Chad Aldeman, and David Griffith—which, in my view, point to low or non-existent college admissions standards as the real problem we need to tackle. Plus we highlight recent posts by Denise Forte, Nat Malkus, Andy Rotherham, Karen Vaites, Shaka Mitchell, David Nitkin, Chad Aldeman, and Alli Aldis, and catch up on Fordham’s Wonkathon—about how states can best implement their science of reading laws—with entries from Peter Greer, Bridget Cherry, and Amy Rhyne.
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It’s arguably never been easier to graduate from high school in America than it is today. Are we OK with that?
David Steiner:
...Just a quick level-set. At last count, we will shortly have only six or so states that still require students to pass a high school exit assessment to graduate, and a few more that still require end-of-course tests. Even the number six is misleading: In Maryland, for example, students who fail the state test can take the “Bridge Project” instead. In Baltimore, about a third of students graduate through this method, with no data available on failure rates. With national graduation rates approaching 90 percent, the diploma has essentially become a certificate of attendance and minimal demonstration of learning, signified by achieving an inflated C grade in core subjects (in most states).
In countries such as England (where I grew up), the A-level exam, taken at the end of high school, was graded A to E, with U as the failing grade below an E. The motivation was immediate: Different institutions of higher education made entry subject to achieving specific grades in specific subjects.
But not everyone takes A levels. Compulsory education in purely academic subjects ends at 16 years old with the taking of the GCSE level exams in multiple subjects. Depending on their grades, students can then take a variety of CTE tracks (called VTQ
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