Graduation

From: aub.edu

Graduation:  that annual rite were many deserving (and some undeserving) youngsters pass through high school for the last time.

Another annual rite is the dissection of the list of graduates by teachers, pointing out which ones don't deserve to graduate.  I try not to engage in such snarkiness, but I can't help it.  Why?  I imagine that it is borne out of frustration: we see kids that do nearly nothing, slide by with a sub-1.0 GPA, get recognized at awards day for completing some anti-dropout program and then get the same piece of paper that their harder working peers get.

I'm convinced that one thing that keeps administrators awake at night is the graduation rate in their school/district.  And an easy way to keep the graduation rate up is to open the net up so wide that almost everyone gets to walk across the stage on graduation day.  But my question is this: if we raised the standard for graduation (2.0+ GPA, more credits required), wouldn't it make the diploma mean more?  Yes, I know that the graduation rate would probably drop, but if we let nearly everyone graduate, then what's the point of any of this?