I’m baffled by the Board of Education’s move to create a new class of graduate degree called the “College and Career Ready Diploma,” which essentially certifies that bearers are workforce-ready and won’t require remedial instruction in English and math.

What does that say about students who graduate with regular diplomas — that they’re qualified to throw eggs at homes and cars in Lanikai?

Their diplomas won’t be worth much more than used chewing gum wrappers in the job market and college admission halls.

There’s nothing wrong with recognizing graduates who did especially well in their classes or completed more rigorous course work, but schools should do it by adding honors designations to graduates such as cum laude or magna cum laude instead of creating divisions of diplomas that devalue the work of the majority of graduates.

We need to get to the point where all of our public school graduates are college or job ready, not just a select few. It’s disgraceful that colleges and employers assume that so many will need remedial instruction in basic academic skills.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 3:00 am and is filed under Volcanic Ash. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.