Kentucky’s education commissioner starting to sound like us about high school graduation statistics

The Bluegrass Institute has been raising strong, evidence-based concerns about the quality of Kentucky’s standard high school diploma for well over half a decade.

Our concerns about possible inflation in Kentucky’s high school graduation rates stretch back at least to 2010 when we compared the state’s claimed graduation rates to much lower rates being reported by Education Week.

By August 2012 we were discussing how the state was passing out regular but “Hollow Diplomas” to students with learning disabilities who could not read.

By January 2015 our concerns intensified. By this time we were using much more compelling data, comparing Kentucky’s official high school graduation rates to other official state data that showed only a moderate proportion of those graduates were able to meet even one of the state’s various ways to determine readiness for either college or for a career. Also in 2015 we also began to use another method to show that students were getting diplomas although their academic preparation didn’t seem to meet official requirements. This time, we compared the proficiency rates on the state’s Algebra II End-of-Course Exams to the graduation rates. Kentucky Regulation 704 KAR 3:305 stipulates that competency in Algebra II is a high school graduation requirement, so you would expect reasonable agreement between graduation rates and the Algebra II EOC Exam proficiency rates. But, we didn’t find that.

We also updated our examination of graduation rates versus the state’s official college and/or career ready rates in 2015, finding just as much cause for concern as we had in earlier studies. We found disparities in the amount of social promotion to diplomas based on racial differences, as well. For example, this topic was covered on pages 13 to 18 in our report, “Blacks Continue Falling Through Gaps in Louisville’s Schools, The 2016 Update.”

What’s new today is that Kentucky Commissioner of Education Stephen Pruitt is starting to raise similar concerns about what really stands behind the current award of high school diplomas in the Bluegrass State. Speaking to the Kentucky Legislature’s Interim Joint Committee on Education today, Pruitt said:

“There are a lot of things about our graduation requirements that are good, but one could very easily question do we actually know if every kid is actually meeting all those requirements, and are they the right requirements?”

Pruitt promised action to come concerning the issue of diploma quality, and we are glad he is getting on board with this program.

Hear some of the commissioner’s comments in this short recording.