High School Diplomas Should Be Easier to Earn

The main requirement to graduate high school remains showing up for twelve years and following the rules. Educators continue to pretend that a diploma indicates measured proficiency in specific subjects, even in the face of decades of contrary evidence.

As the article points out Oregon follows rather than leads other states debasing diplomas even more. The article does not point out the demographics of the state, one of the whitest in the country, with de facto segregation in Portland, the largest school district in Oregon, and indigenous children growing up on reservations.

I graduated from an Oregon high school a long time ago, under a different regime of requirements and tests. I rarely went to school or did homework. I used part of that time to teach myself programming. Later I unschooled my three kids in Oregon, following no curriculum and administering no tests, and they all got diplomas.

Rather than address the fundamental failures of confining and indoctrinating children for twelve years and calling it education, the latest fad looks to identity and diversity (or lack of, in Oregon’s case). That schools routinely fail to teach even basic literacy and numeracy in twelve years should tell us something, and what it tells probably has little to do with standardized test bias.

> they called for a permanent end to the requirement that students prove basic mastery in reading, writing and math to earn a diploma.

Are these people nuts? What do they want a diploma to mean then?

Aren’t we stupid enough already?