By JOHN RICHARD SCHROCK
The Kansas State Department of Education just released data indicating the graduation rate for Kansas public high schools increased to 89.1% in 2022. States coast-to-coast have been reporting increases in graduation rates despite solid data showing a decrease in learning these last three years.
Another bragging point is that graduation has reached an all-time high for students “who have historically struggled.” That means that more students who were low performers and previously would not have passed in previous years were now passing and graduating. This in turn is used to prove education reforms in individualized education, countering learning loss, etc. are working.
The classroom reality is quite different. Feedback from my former student teachers who are now veterans in the classroom indicates that over half of them are under pressure to inflate grades. They informed me of this many years before the pandemic and it has become dramatically worse.
In response to state demands that the high school graduation rate increase from the low 70% of earlier times, many school administrators are dictating grading scales and prohibiting flunking grades. This accelerated during the pandemic where teachers were told that because the pandemic restrictions harmed students’ ability to learn, no grade could be given that was lower than a student’s previous grade. Many schools (numbers still growing) moved to “equal-interval grading” that made a zero score start at 50%. A student who guesses on multiple-choice tests and gets 20-25% correct while knowing nothing, gets a “C.” Teacher colleagues then ask me what they should do to acknowledge those students who actually earned a “C”—give them a “B”? But then what about my bona fide “B” students? This is the real cause for the substantial increase in former “F” and “D” students now making it to graduation!
A few schools are immune to this coercion due to their selective community. Despite the Brown versus Board of Education ruling of 1954 that ended “separate but equal” segregation, segregation by economics continues. A few school communities consist of affluent families that have chosen the district for solid teachers and a record of turning out the best students. Their student body consists of children of highly motivated parents, and higher teacher pay provides them with the best of teachers.
When Teddy Kennedy and George W. Bush passed the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) bill in 2001, it required that all children would reach “100% proficiency” by 2014. A few elite schools already met that goal, but they turned out the best because they only accepted the best. It was bipartisan arrogance to demand standardized perfection. Most persons would recognize that it is not correct to require that 100% of persons who enter a hospital will be cured. But legislators who believe they are experts in medicine because they were once a patient could set that same standard. And if the assessment was not-having-a-fever, everyone would be given aspirin and sent home. That is the case with state political bodies that believe they are experts in education because they once were students.
Ever since NCLB, most teachers have been relegated to assembly line workers whose job is teaching-to-the-standardized-state-assessments. While state assessment scores based on achievement test memorization have gone up, scores on aptitude tests that measure critical thinking, such as the ACT and NAEP, have steadily gone down over the last decades. This has resulted in attempts to get the NAEP also changed into a teach-to-the-test assessment. Meanwhile, U.S. students also continue to decline in international assessments of science and math, such as the PISA and TIMSS.
When states ignore professionals and set goals such as 95% graduation rates, school administrators in turn override teachers’ professional responsibility in grading in order to meet those paperwork “goals.” The result is dramatic grade inflation and the deprofessionalization of teaching. This is a foremost cause of teachers quitting the classroom. Young students witness this deprofessionalization and do not pursue teaching. I know of teachers who refused to pass every student this last semester and have indicated that if their grades are changed by the administration, this will be their last year teaching. Much of the blame for the growing teacher shortage rests with these goals that are mandated from above.
I hesitate to mention another additional strategy to boost graduation rates: just let schools award posthumous degrees to the few students who tragically die before graduation. We could potentially reach a 101% graduation rate!
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John Richard Schrock has trained biology teachers for more than 30 years in Kansas. He also has lectured at 27 universities during 20 trips to China. He holds the distinction of “Faculty Emeritus” at Emporia State University.