How To Make High School Graduation More Meaningful For Every Student

Since 2006, high school graduation rates have risen every year, reaching a high of 84.6 percent in 2017. Yet high school achievement levels and college completion rates have remained relatively flat over the same time period. High school graduation is an important marker. Americans without a high school diploma earn almost $200 less per week than high school graduates without any other degree. But real progress on improving postsecondary and employment outcomes—critical steps to securing a foothold in America’s middle class—requires more clarity around exactly what skills and experiences students need to have before graduating in the first place. 

The 21^st century has seen long-term efforts to raise America’s high school graduation rate. The last two reauthorizations of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act have included federal policy requiring states to hold their schools accountable for increasing graduation rates. The non-profit sector took action as well, and in 2010, the America’s Promise Alliance launched the GradNation campaign to address what they called a “dropout epidemic.” All of this work did have an impact. High school graduation rates rose from 79 percent to 84.6 percent in the six years since 2011, when the calculation method was last updated. Yet there are still large disparities by race, family income, and disability status, and other outcome measures have not budged. 

One reason is likely that high school graduation requirements still don’t match college entrance eligibility. Despite Common Core State Standards intended to better align K-12 education with college and career expectations, in all but four states students can still receive a regular high school diploma and yet not meet the minimum course requirements for their state public university. For students who don’t plan to attend college, many states have insufficient career and technical education options that don’t lead to careers with a living wage, don’t offer credentials, and aren’t accessible to all students. What’s more, high profile instances of gaming the system undermine confidence in the graduation requirements that do exist.

To be sure, history has shown that new graduation requirements by themselves aren’t enough. There needs to be more investment in under-resourced schools and communities to help students meet these higher expectations. Teachers will need preparation and support to expand their curricula, and districts will have to fund new services such as transportation to offsite internships or additional technology for project-based learning. There also must be intentional investment in equity of access to new opportunities for all students.

Some states and districts are creating deliberate “graduate profiles” to do exactly that. For example, the Virginia General Assembly passed legislation in 2016 requiring the state’s Board of Education to develop a Profile of a Graduate. The profile highlights four areas of achievement: content knowledge, workplace skills, civic responsibility, and career preparation. These distinct but overlapping criteria are designed to make every student “life-ready,” no matter what their life looks like after graduating high school.

A graduate profile helps schools, districts, or states clearly define graduation requirements with a focus on skill attainment and postsecondary readiness, not just course completion. And it encourages educators to understand how all of these pieces interact with one another. Battelle For Kids, an organization focused on fostering 21st century learning through community and school partnerships, created a Portrait of a Graduate website with templates and guides for interested educators to dive into the process. They also encourage districts to upload their completed profiles, driving collaboration across the country. More than seventy districts have participated so far.

Promising work is happening at the state level as well. In addition to Virginia’s statewide overhaul, states like Kansas, Michigan, and South Carolina have begun funding pilot graduate profile programs with several districts. And Colorado and Vermont have introduced flexibility in their proficiency-based graduation requirements that allow schools to explore options such as student portfolios or capstone projects. Cañon City School District in Colorado has already implemented an internship-aligned capstone requirement, guided by their own graduate profile, beginning with the class of 2021. More states across the country should build on these encouraging examples.

Altogether, fully realizing a profile of a graduate requires rethinking schooling and implementing new, innovative approaches to curricula, classroom structures, and school systems. But this is part of the promise of the graduate profile: it is not a top down policy. It happens only with community buy in, from student input to collaboration with local industry. This approach can help historically underserved students in particular. Students of color, students who are English-language learners, and students from lower-income backgrounds all face opportunity gaps in access to rigorous college and career pathways. But when graduate profiles are designed specifically for students “at the margins,” as the Equity Design Collaborative explains, they will work for everyone. 

Clearly the current approach is insufficient to prepare all students for college and the future workforce. Inconsistent expectations and inflated graduation rates don’t help students, colleges, or industries relying on a new generation of qualified workers. College graduates earn $1 million more over their lifetime than those with just a high school diploma, and nearly all the jobs created during the recovery from the Great Recession have gone to workers with education beyond high school. And this isn’t just an economic issue: Americans with more education are also more likely to vote and have greater civic participation. The United States has successfully increased the number of high school graduates. Now is the time to make sure they are successful beyond high school.