Strengthening the High School Diploma

I had a thought as I went through my news letters from this week - its time to strengthen the #highschooldiploma.

In catching up on my #highered news this morning, I saw several references to the "weakness" or "insufficiency" of a high school diploma. These references were used as a justification for pushing more students into higher education. A higher education degree is still economically more valuable than a high school diploma. But what if our country didn't accept this reality, which continues to push too many students into an expensive higher education system that leaves too many with debt and no degree, as fact? What if we instead made this a call for focusing our time and energy as a nation on strengthening the value of a high school diploma?

One place schools, districts and possibly states can start is ensuring that the diploma conveys the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that students have mastered. The Mastery Transcript Consortium? (MTC) has already created a product that allows schools and districts to create a transcript that captures this type of information at the high school level. At the state level, at least one state, #Ohio , has created a measure, called the Ohio Means Jobs Readiness Seal, through which students can catalogue their mastery of key employability knowledge, skills, and dispositions.

One place policy makers can start is by creating incentives or requirements for increasing access to real world opportunities in the high school experience. States like #Louisiana are taking steps to incentivize districts to create career-connected learning opportunities as a part of the graduation process with their #strengthofadiploma indicator. States like #NorthDakota and #Indiana are creating menus of learning pathways, including college and career options, as a prerequisite for high school graduation, which will put students in a better place to be prepared for the real world.

Schools, districts and states also need to fundamentally rethink the structures of schooling to ensure that space can be made to provide these types of learning experiences. Education Commission of the States paper last year demonstrates that dozens of states across the country are pursuing #competencybased policies designed to give students the agency to select the types of personalized opportunities that are needed to increase the value of a high school diploma. But too often competency-based approaches and college and career connected learning experiences are pursued on parallel tracks - that is, they are pursued independently of each other and not connected in a meaningful way. #Vermont, #Illinois, #SouthCarolina and #NorthDakota provide examples where some initial connections may be taking place.

Lets not just continue to accept things as they are. Its time to rethink the high school diploma and making it a viable alternative to higher education.