One of the uncomfortable truths of the high school graduation business is that not all diplomas are created equal. Some are strong, and signify that students are well prepared for good jobs or postsecondary schooling. Others are weak, and leave students unprepared to do much of anything.
A new study finds that U.S. schools hand out 98 different kinds of high school diplomas, and 51 of them fail to prepare students adequately for college or careers. A disproportionate share of those weaker diplomas go to students of color and students from low-income families.
The uneven quality in high school credentials begs for attention in the national conversation about high school completion, even as the country boasts an all-time-high graduation rate of 83.2 percent, the report says.
“High school graduation rates are an important but incomplete indicator of success. In addition to measuring whether students receive a diploma, it also is critical to gauge the value of the diploma itself,” says “Paper Thin,” the study by the Alliance for Excellent Education. “Allowing students to walk across the stage at graduation with paper-thin diplomas—that do not signify readiness for postsecondary education—is a disservice both to students and to the economic potential of the United States.”
The study analyzes the types of diplomas awarded in the 23 states that offered a variety of diploma options in 2014. Most of those states don’t track or report which groups of students earn the different types of diplomas, a lack of transparency that’s come in for criticism by other organizations that have long studied the variation in diploma types, such as Achieve.