Rising graduation rates are good news, right?

Well, maybe not

Recent touting of Kentucky’s high school graduation rates, which rose above the national average in the latest available data for 2008-09, seems to be really good news.

Or, maybe not.

This New York Post article points to the problem. Increased awards of diplomas may just be ‘phantom school gains’ if the graduates really have not learned what they need to know.

While the Post naturally focuses on New York results, testing here in Kentucky with the ACT College Entrance Test showed that out of the Class of 2011, very few were fully prepared for college.

KY Grads ACT Benchmark Performance 09 to 11

Even in the key area of reading, essential to just about any college course of study, far fewer than one out of two Kentucky public high school graduates in 2011 had adequate reading skills.

Also, the rate of improvement in the percentage of students who got adequate preparation for college in Kentucky is very slow.

As we boost our high school graduation rates, it is important to insure we are not just passing out paper. Those diplomas must represent real learning accomplishment if our state is really to progress.