In an @sltrib article today about outgoing governor Gary Herbert, praise was offered to him for the fact that Utah's high school graduation rate has gone up 10% to roughly 88% of kids now graduating.
We need to talk about why that rate has gone up.

I've been teaching secondary school since 1988.
In the "old days," if a kid failed a required HS course, s/he had to do summer school or night school if s/he planned to graduate on time. The student was expected to put in time and show both effort and learning.
Not anymore.

The pressure from #utleg is now so great on Utah high schools that, instead of having learning be the priority, graduation is. That means checking off boxes to improve statistics has become more important than kids' work and learning.

No more does a kid who failed a required course take night school or summer school or even re-take that course. Instead, a student is often put into an advanced course to make up for the one s/he failed, even though a kid who failed generally doesn't have the required skills.

If that doesn't work, the student is given a packet to study, and then a test. The test will be given again and again until the student passes. This means, of course, that s/he can just memorize enough answers to pass without actually learning anything.

Some principals also pressure teachers to pass kids who don't deserve to pass, kids who've done next to nothing and/or haven't even attended more than once or twice in a regular term (not pandemic).

In the years I taught HS, I saw many, many kids graduate even though I knew damn well they did not have basic skills.

So, yes, the Utah graduation rate is up from where it was in 2008, but that doesn't mean that more kids are prepared; it means more kids have diplomas.

When having a diploma, instead of learning and working, is the goal, the actual readiness for tertiary ed and/or for a job is lessened significantly.
Thus, while the increased percentage of kids graduating from HS looks good on paper, it's actually bad news for the state.