As high schools struggle to achieve adequate graduation rates by lowering their academic standards, a new study indicates that administrators are setting students up for failure in college by making high school too easy for students.
According to a study by The New Teacher Project, achieving high grades in high school is no longer a good predictor of success in college for many students because teachers and administrators in many schools have lowered academic standards to a level where students are not being adequately prepared for college.
During the study, the researchers examined approximately 5,000 high school assignments and roughly 20,000 individual student work submissions. In their findings, the researchers reported that vast amounts of student time is being wasted on assignments that are below their learning level.
“Students spent more than 500 hours per school year on assignments that weren’t appropriate for their grade and with instruction that didn’t ask enough of them — the equivalent of six months of wasted class time in each core subject,” the researchers noted.
The study also found that lowering academic standards is disproportionately directed toward low-income students and students of color. According to the study, schools that served students from high-income households spent twice as much classroom time on assignments that were appropriate for their grade level and approximately five times as much time on classroom instruction for the students when compared to schools for students from low-income households.
Interestingly enough, many teachers surveyed did not appear to have high expectations for their students under the current academic standards at their school. While more than 4 in 5 teachers supported the current content of their state’s academic standards, fewer than half of those same teachers expected their students to achieve success with the same standards.
While high graduation rates may look good for politicians, they do not mean much if the standards for those grades are too low to adequately prepare students for life. Students may graduate from high school with good grades only to be shocked under increased academic standards in college, causing them to achieve poor grades and risk dropping out. Additionally, as many students weigh alternatives to college such as trade school or civil service, a high school education may be the last chance of high-quality education in math, English, and writing before that student enters the real world. Keeping school standards at an appropriate level for society will help prepare students better for the real world.
John Patrick (@john_pat_rick) is a graduate of Canisius College and Georgia Southern University. He interned for Red Alert Politics during the summer of 2012 and has continued to contribute regularly.
