Graduation Exit Tests Continue to Stunt Opportunity
There was lots of news about high stakes, high school graduation exams seven or eight years ago when many states were instituting such graduation requirements, but while you hear less about these tests today, according to Education Week, 24 states continue to require them. These are the tests that students must pass to earn a high school diploma, even though they may have passed all of the required classes.
This week the Hechinger Report, a news service from Teachers College at Columbia University,profiles a young Mississippi woman who passed all of her high school courses and three out of four high school exit exams. When she failed the reading exam for the fifth time right before graduation, her school offered her the chance to accept what Mississippi calls an “occupational diploma,” a lesser document that tells an institute of higher learning or a potential employer that the young adult has not qualified for a regular high school diploma.
According to the Hechinger Report, in Mississippi, “Alternate diploma students face high unemployment rates. In the year after high school graduation, alternate diploma students have nearly triple the unemployment rate of high school graduates.” While 7 of Mississippi’s 15 community colleges accept students with an occupational diploma, no four year college or university accepts the alternative credential. The young woman profiled by the Hechinger Report seemed to be thriving in a post-high school occupational program training her to be a medical technician until the school discovered that she carried only an occupational diploma