Deflating the Value of a Baltimore City Diploma

This past Wednesday The Baltimore Sun published an article entitled “Md. high school graduation rate climbs.” The article explores the issue of bridge projects vs. actually passing the HSAs; which student groups perform well on the standardized tests and which don’t; and, perhaps most importantly, which whether the tests are a valid measure of student academic performance.

The article claims that “state officials believe that the High School Assessments have only raised the standards for students and enabled more to get a diploma.” However, the data shows that the number of students who did not graduate this year due to a failure to meet testing requirements tripled. In addition, the number of students completing Bridge projects increased from 5.8 to 8.1 percent this year.

While I don’t teach a course that is governed by an HSA exam, I do work at a school that serves high school students, and thus am dedicated to these children receiving a rigorous and competitive education. Matthew Joseph, of Advocates for Children and Youth, is quoted in the article stating that “they lowered the standard, basically … since nearly 100 percent of students are meeting the testing requirements, what is the value of having them at all?” I couldn’t agree more. If a test does not truly measure a student’s ability to perform in that content area, what purpose do they serve?

Can we as a teachers and a district celebrate if the value of the diploma we are sending our kids away with does not truly represent a meaningful level of skill?

I do not blame the test, the state officials, the teachers whose hands are tied by the rigidity of teaching a tested subject. Education is not the place for blame, rather it is the place for action. We must ask ourselves, as individuals committed to the cause of raising the bar for the children of Baltimore City, what needs to happen now? A more rigorous test, more extensive bridge projects, or do we abolish these removed forms of measurement altogether?

Most importantly, how do we ensure that children graduating from this school district, city, and state have more to show than a piece of paper that says Diploma?