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High School Graduation
Graduation Requirements | Graduation Rates | On-Track Indicators
Students who graduate from high school significantly increase their prospects for a productive, stable and successful future. Graduation from high school is a critical indicator that students will be able to benefit from and contribute to the workforce, economy and society. The goals of No Child Left Behind include ensuring that all students learn to high levels and that they also graduate from high school prepared for college, work and beyond. Our nation’s prosperity and economic competitiveness depends on ensuring that every child graduates from high school.
In order to ensure more students graduate, it is imperative that there is clear understanding about who currently graduates, who does not graduate, why, and how more students can remain on track to a diploma. Recently there has been a national conversation around how best to capture graduation data as well as which indicators predict early on who may be on or off track to completing high school.
Graduation Requirements
State Approaches to More Reliable and Uniform Dropout and Graduation Data
This issue brief outlines the immediate need for more accurate dropout and graduation data, while providing a snapshot of work currently underway. By drawing on two prominent methods for calculating graduation rates: the National Governors Association’s endorsed longitudinal approach and the Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate (AFGR), this brief outlines how data are needed to track dropout trends and patterns, as well as how to direct resources and more effective strategies to ensure more students receive a high school diploma. This brief concludes by offering take-aways for states.
Aligning High School Graduation Requirements with the Real World: A Road Map for States
This policy brief provides information about how states are improving and increasing the rigor in their core requirements for graduation to ensure that students are ready for college or the workplace. The brief describesstates'requirements in English, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies, as well as electives, and it offers specific suggestions for raising graduation requirements to better prepare students for life after high school.
Multiple Measures Approaches to High School Graduation
This report from the School Redesign Network contrasts the teaching and learning outcomes of states that use a broad range of measures for awarding high school diplomas to those that use single-test approaches. By profiling the assessment systems of nearly 30 states, this report evaluates what types of assessments are appropriate criteria for granting high school diplomas.
Ready or Not: Creating a High School Diploma that Counts
A report issued in 2004 by the American Diploma Project (ADP) released new benchmarks for high school students that emphasize the need for increased English and Mathematics mastery in order to meet the demands placed upon them by employers and colleges. To read the executive summary of this report, please click here.
Diploma Options for Students with Disabilities: Synthesis of the NCEO Document
This policy brief includes findings regarding graduation requirements for youth with and without disabilities, diploma options available, state use of exit exams and consequences of graduation requirements. The brief indicates a leveling off of the use of exit exams as a requirement for receiving a high school diploma, showing that states continue to experiment with a wide range of high school diploma options for students with and with out disabilities.
