Will Raising High School Graduation Requirements Cause

More Students To Drop Out?

Perhaps the biggest concern about raising graduation requirements is that such policies will cause
more students to drop out of high school. Indeed, many people assume that high academic standards
and high graduation rates simply are not compatible: The only way to raise graduation rates, they
believe, is to lower academic standards.

People are right to be concerned about high school dropout rates; they are alarmingly high,
particularly in our inner cities. But dropout rates were a problem before states began raising
academic standards, and there is no evidence that higher expectations for students increases their
chances of dropping out. In fact, the opposite may be true. When students are challenged and
supported, they rise to the occasion.

Raising Standards Does Not Lower Graduation
Rates
Several years ago, San Jose Unified School District
began requiring all students to complete the full set of
courses required for admission to California’s public
colleges and universities. The percentage of San Jose
students taking this rigorous curriculum and earning a
C or better in all of the courses went from 37 percent to
65 percent between 2001 and 2004. This more
rigorous course-taking also had a positive effect on test
scores and helped increase the college-ready rate for
Latinos from 17 percent in 1998 to 45 percent just four
years later. Enrollment for Latinos in AP courses more
than doubled.
Most important, San Jose’s success has not come at
the expense of higher dropout rates, as some people
feared. The district’s four-year graduation rates
actually improved slightly while the state average
dropped.
next few years. A team of independent researchers
found that some of the improvement was due to the
tougher exit standards themselves. The new
requirements encouraged freshmen and sophomores
to accumulate more credits early in high school, a
powerful predictor of graduating on time.
If we look at some of the states that have been the
most aggressive about raising expectations in high
school, we also find that more students rise to the
challenge and dropout rates do not increase. In the
1990s,Texas and Indiana established honors
diplomas based on a rigorous college-prep curricula
and encouraged more students to take those courses
(they have since made them the graduation
requirement). According to data from the Manhattan
Institute, as the number of students enrolling in these
courses climbed in these two states, the graduation
rate held steady and, in some cases, improved. The
same was true in Virginia after it instituted new end-
of-course graduation tests. The percentage of
students passing these tests went from 40 percent to
80 percent in the first five years, with no increase in
the dropout rate.

In 1997, Chicago raised its graduation standards to

well above what Illinois then required, asking all
students to complete all of the courses necessary for
entry to competitive state universities. Although many
worried that the requirements would drive students to
drop out, graduation rates actually improved over the
Will Raising High School Graduation Requirements Cause
More Students To Drop Out?
Higher Standards Must Be Accompanied By
Supports
While higher standards may not cause more students
to drop out, simply holding graduation rates steady is
not good enough either. School systems must raise
standards, improve student achievement and increase
graduation rates all at the same time.
To accomplish this, higher standards must be
accompanied by more intensive academic supports.
The Virginia legislature appropriated $200 million for
fiscal years 2005–2006 to fund K–12 prevention,
intervention and remediation efforts, including after-
school tutoring and summer school for students who
failed the graduation tests on their first attempt, as well
as an Algebra-readiness program. San Jose Unified
School District adopted a similar approach, providing
struggling students with extended learning time after
school and on weekends, and forming partnerships
with community colleges and businesses to provide
tutoring and mentoring support.
One recent study found that high schools with highly
supportive teachers cut the probability of dropping out
in half, and the impact was even greater for low-
achieving, low-income students. A study of Maryland
high schools found that those using a school-within-a-
school strategy or a team-teaching approach for ninth
graders “showed substantial improvements on
promotion, dropout and achievement outcomes
between 1993–1994 and 1999–2000.”
Other studies have shown that, everything else being
equal, schools that push students to take tougher
academic courses actually have lower dropout rates.
Two University of Michigan researchers found that
high schools that offer fewer low-level math classes
below Algebra I reduce the odds of dropping out by
28 percent, and those that offer challenging classes
like Calculus reduce the odds by 55 percent. “This
finding flies in the face of those who say that high
schools must offer a large number of non-demanding
courses in order to keep uncommitted students in
school,” the researchers concluded.
In other words, it’s not high expectations that cause
students to drop out. Students are more likely to
become disengaged and drop out when they are not
challenged.
The Bottom Line:
Educators and others are right to be concerned
about dropout rates. In today’s world, students
who leave high school without a diploma face
diminishing opportunities and a lifetime of
financial struggle. But the answer is not to
continue to expect little of teenagers and to enroll
low-achieving students in “easy” classes that
bore them and teach them little of value. We owe
it to students to challenge and support them so
they graduate with the knowledge and skills
necessary to succeed.

Dropouts Themselves Say Low Standards Are Part

of the Problem
Surveys have consistently found that teenagers cite
boredom — not demanding classes — as the biggest
reason for dropping out of high school. In one recent
survey, seven out of 10 dropouts said their schools did
not motivate them to work hard, eight out of 10 said
they did less than one hour of homework each night,
and two-thirds said they would have worked harder if
adults had expected more of them. A national survey of
public school students found they most often
considered dropping out because “school was boring”
(76 percent) and “I wasn’t learning anything” (42
percent).