A significant graduation rate increase in Mississippi sounds like a great thing, right?
However, a 3.9 percent jump from 74.5 percent in 2013-14 to 78.4 percent last year, might be tainted and nothing more than the result of lowered standards.
Last year the State Board of Education passed the law that Mississippi high school seniors no longer have to pass all four subject-area tests to graduate. The standard was lowered so that students are no longer required to pass all four subject areas of English, U.S. history, algebra and biology to graduate. If a student’s grade in a course is high enough, he can still graduate, even in a class with high scoring inflation.
Basically, if he or she cannot pass a test — even after multiple tries — a student can still graduate if his or her grade in the related class is high enough. Instead of using a purely objective standard to determine whether students learned what they were supposed to in high school, the state has gone back to letting grade inflation and the low expectations of substandard schools shape who gets a diploma.
This year, students are able to graduate if they received a combined minimum score from all four tests, or by demonstrating mastery.
Next year, the standards will get even easier with the subject-area test scores counting 25 percent towards a student’s final grade in the related course. That is supposed to, in theory, help counter grade inflation.
Do not get me wrong; it is nice to see graduation rates increase in Mississippi, but not in this way. This increase is very misleading to the public, teachers and students and makes people think that things are better than they really are. Mississippi still has one of the worst graduation rates in the nation and lowering the standards to improve the graduation rate does not help the students at all.
Joseph Brown is the publisher and editor of The Star Herald.
