In recent months, leaders in several cities and states have touted their schools’ sky-high graduation rates. Such figures usually justify celebration—but not when state exams and standardized test scores show weak results. Praising high graduation rates could mislead families about what their kids really know, setting them up for unpleasant surprises later in life.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, for example, recently touted his state’s highest-ever graduation rate: 84.9 percent. The state’s lieutenant governor highlighted the “meaningful and long overdue” progress for Native American students, whose graduation rate has improved by nine percentage points since 2021.
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Yet scores for Native Americans declined on state high school exams over the same period. Today, just over a third of Native-American students are reading proficiently, while only 17 percent are proficient in math.
Declining test scores extend to other students as well. On eleventh-grade math, proficiency dropped from 41.4 percent to 35 percent between 2021 and 2025. On tenth-grade reading, about half of students are proficient, down from almost 60 percent in 2021. And nearly two-thirds of students don’t meet grade-level standards in high school science, with 42 percent scoring at the lowest level.
Walz isn’t alone. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer ties her state’s unprecedentedly high graduation rate of 84 percent to her administration’s “record investments in education.” Though Michigan spends heavily on K-12—with some estimates showing the state had the ninth-largest spending hike over the past decade—the outcomes don’t appear to match student performance on state exams, which show eleventh-graders have lost proficiency in science since 2021. Nearly three-quarters of Michigan students are not meeting college-readiness benchmarks set by the SAT.
Michigan’s NAEP scores have trended downward for both fourth- and eighth-grade tests, with its fourth-grade reading ranking near the bottom nationally. That may be because, in the name of equity, the state rolled back its third-grade reading-retention policy for struggling readers.
In Wisconsin, Milwaukee Public Schools is graduating almost three-quarters of students. District officials claim that they are “successfully accelerating outcomes for the students who need it most.” But only 21 percent of students meet English standards on the ACT; for math, it’s just 12 percent.
In a press release, officials highlighted 11 schools exceeding the district-average graduation rate. But many graduates at nine out of the 11 schools require remedial education when they attend a University of Wisconsin campus. Around 45 percent of freshmen who attended either Golda Meir High School or Ronald Reagan High School, which both boast 99 percent graduation rates, require remedial math. At the University of Wisconsin, such courses cover topics typically taught as early as middle school.
Schools use various strategies to boost their graduation rates. As City Journal previously found with Boston Public Schools, these include “equitable” grading and less rigorous courses offered through credit-recovery programs. St. Paul Assistant Superintendent Adam Kunz attributed the higher graduation rates in his district to standards-based grading, explaining that portions of papers can be redone as part of a “relearning journey.”
Another Minnesota district spells out what standards-based grading looks like in practice. Previously, the district gave F’s for students who didn’t complete their work. Now, it won’t give F’s in elementary schools. The district also relaxed penalties for late work in order to “embed grace for being human.”
Both Milwaukee and some Michigan school districts, meanwhile, have indicated that they are using credit-recovery programs, which allow high schoolers to make up courses that they previously failed. Such programs often encourage schools to focus more on boosting graduation rates than on actual learning.
Politicians and school administrators may find it convenient to sidestep or ignore declining academic outcomes on standardized tests. But by dismissing clear evidence, they preserve the status quo instead of reckoning honestly with the results of the time and money they have invested. Schools don’t deserve praise for improved graduation rates when those gains are not matched by real improvements in learning.