Diploma Options: Another Tool in the Arsenal

 

The Valedictorian speech at graduation. I don’t know how long we’ve done this, but the Valedictorian tradition endures because hard working students know it matters. Valedictorians earn scholarships, have increased chances of getting into the colleges they want to attend, and can put ‘Valedictorian’ on their resume for the rest of their lives. Just as they would if they earned an ‘Advanced’ or ‘Honors’ Diploma. 

Nearly a month ago, the State Board of Education almost walked away from a goal that they set in 2010 to have 60% of 25-34 year olds throughout the state to hold a degree or professional certificate. The rationale for walking away from this goal is that we are making very little progress towards this goal and maybe it’s a bit unrealistic to begin with. I’m a huge advocate of measuring things in order to make progress, but making sure you are looking at just the right items in just the right ways is much easier said than done. It usually involves trial and error. Are you measuring the right things? Are you utilizing the right tools? Are there tools you could use that currently you’re not? Considering that ‘the 60% goal’ involves post-secondary goals, why are we not considering Diploma options and encouraging the amount of college credit and vocational certifications students can earn while in high school? 

Currently, Idaho offers two diploma options for its students, one widely used and one seldom used. The widely used option is the 46-credit Standard Diploma that has requirements that look really similar to those you see in other states. In addition to the Standard Diploma, we also offer the STEM Diploma to encourage students taking Math and Science courses in order to prepare for the STEM fields. The STEM Diploma requires students finish 8 or more credits in Math rather than 6, 8 credits in Science rather than 6, and in addition to this, no less than 5 of their 16 elective credits must be in additional Math, Science, or Technology courses. The STEM Diploma act was passed in 2018, and up until that point, there was just the Standard Diploma. The STEM Diploma is definitely a step in the right direction, but (obviously) it’s very slanted toward one career/vocation. What about others and what about the 60% goal?

Graduates face two big hurdles in attaining post-secondary degrees and vocational certificates: cost and difficulty. Any tool that will be successful in helping them with one or both of these items should move us toward the 60% goal. When you measure the STEM Diploma this way, it passes the test: students who attain this goal will have a lot more Math and Science courses finished upon completion of high school, (and the types of kids who go for this goal typically choose Dual Credit or AP options of these courses when they can), which means that they’ll need to complete less of these courses in college, meaning it probably reduces college cost. Difficulty is also handled here too: the more difficult courses students take in high school, the better chance they’ll survive the difficulty level of college because they’ve been conditioned to academic rigor already. 

The problem-as mentioned before-is that the vast majority of our graduates earn a Standard Diploma and only a tiny group earns the STEM Diploma each year. Is STEM our only option though? Only some of the degrees our colleges award each year are in the STEM field, and the 60% goal is for all degrees and certificates. Why not create a 3rd Diploma type in addition, the ‘Advanced Diploma’? Although we currently don’t measure it, what our Advanced Opportunities Program has done is take the hit-and-miss practice of earning college credit in high school and made it mainstream. Why not decide upon a group of courses we deem ‘Advanced’ and a minimum number of ‘Advanced’ courses students have to complete in order to earn an Advanced Diploma? Want vocational career certificates to go up? Add an and/or option there for too: Students must earn x amount of advanced course credits and/or x amount of career certificates to earn an Advanced Diploma. The strength of an Advanced Diploma is that it includes more than just STEM students but it addresses the same stumbling blocks attaining post-secondary degrees or certificates: cost and difficulty. 20-30 credits of Dual Credit courses a student takes in high school is 20-30 less credits they need to pay for in college.

Lastly, we need to measure in order to assess whether we are making progress toward our goal or not. We already collect graduation data from all of our high schools. It’s as simple as adding additional boxes for school staff to check off: How many students earned Standard Diplomas? STEM Diplomas? Advanced Diplomas? We also need to be realistic in both our goals and what we ask students to attain. If too few of our students try to earn the Advanced Diploma, are the standards too lofty? Also, if we just try to turn the Standard Diploma into Advanced, wouldn’t we just be watering down advanced courses to do it? ESSA mandates that we have to continue the standards-based test regimen, but it grants us freedom to consider other ways to attain our other educational goals, and although the 60% goal is very lofty, it’s worthy to help our students attain it.