In “Mind the Gap: The Case for Re-Imagining the Way States Judge High School Quality”, Chad Aldeman argues that new, more multidimensional ways of judging high school quality are essential. Current state and federal policies on high schools tend to reward schools that perform well on measures like test scores and graduation rates while forcing changes on those that don’t. Instead of focusing on higher-order skills, challenging coursework, and annual progress toward college and career readiness, schools are encouraged to focus on lower-level skills and to push all students through to a diploma, regardless of what they learn. But while the focus on low-level academic skills and high school graduation rates has proved useful in some ways, it won’t be sufficient to drive dramatic improvements going forward.
Using data from Tennessee, the report shows that these commonly used measures of high school performance-achievement scores and graduation rates paint an incomplete picture of success, one that can reflect the school’s demographics rather than its success in educating students and preparing them for the future. If state and federal policymakers place a value on how many students go to college or how prepared students are to enter the workforce, they aren’t fully capturing those goals with existing accountability measures.
For more information, please visit:
http://bellwethereducation.org/publication/MindtheGap
