The ‘pinnacle measure’

Although members of the Class of 2007 are walking through high school graduation ceremonies this week, Clark County School District brass are celebrating the accomplishments of the Class of 2006.

Data released Tuesday showed improvement by last year’s seniors. Graduation rates were up across the board: Hispanics, blacks, Asians and whites all made gains from the previous year. Only American Indian students fared worse than their peers in the Class of 2005.

Hispanics made the biggest jump, from 48.1 percent in 2005 to 53.6 percent in 2006. Overall, the Class of 2006 had a graduation rate of 63.5 percent, up from 60.1 percent in 2005.

“That’s the pinnacle measure we use for success,” Clark County Superintendent Walt Rulffes said. “There are endless opportunities for people in this world who are educated.”

We agree with that sentiment. But is a high school diploma the best way to gauge who is “educated”? Does a high school diploma in Las Vegas signify the mastery of basic proficiencies, readiness for college or the attainment of skills needed to enter the work force?

Recall that in January, the state’s university system reported that 36 percent of last fall’s new enrollees — the vast majority of them members of the high school Class of 2006 — needed to take remedial math and English classes before being allowed to study more rigorous subject matter. That’s to say they needed to re-take the classes they supposedly passed on the way to earning a high school diploma. Among them were plenty of the state’s best and brightest: More than one in four Millennium Scholarship recipients took remedial courses at colleges last year.

And university system officials acknowledged that their figures accounted only for those students able to enroll in remedial classes. Thousands more students in need of basic math and English instruction were turned away from full sections.

“There’s no question that the number of students requiring remedial math and English has been increasing,” Carlos Campo, dean of arts and letters at the Community College of Southern Nevada, said earlier this year. So graduation rates are up, but so are the number of graduates who need to re-take core classes upon entering the state’s public colleges and universities. That’s a discouraging coincidence.

The school district’s newest data cannot be entirely dismissed. Students must pass the Nevada High School Proficiency Exam to receive a diploma, and if greater percentages of local teens are logging passing scores, that’s a sign of improvement. Unfortunately, the high school proficiency exam, like Nevada’s basic high school curriculum, isn’t very rigorous.

Educators should be less worried about graduation rates and more concerned about the overall value of a high school diploma. The scourges of social promotion and grade inflation allow too many students to earn high marks and advance to classes they’re not prepared to take.

Nevada’s entire education system is in dire need of higher expectations — from legislators, administrators, teachers, students and parents. Students who haven’t mastered basic skills should be made to repeat classes.

The state and the Clark County School District are already rethinking some of their education operations. Test results from four new “empowerment” schools show that giving principals and teachers more authority can yield dramatic improvement. The school district should treat each of these campuses as experiments, copying what works and discarding what doesn’t. And administrators should work to improve school choice for parents.

What good is a 100 percent graduation rate if a diploma represents weak skills and proficiencies? High school graduation should be an achievement, not an entitlement.