EDITORIAL: CCSD’s diplomas appear to mean little

Imagine a runner excitedly telling you that he set a new personal best in the 400-meter dash. After congratulating him, you ask what he did to improve his time. Was it better nutrition, an improved training routine or more sleep?

“Nope,” he replies. “I slowed down the stopwatch.”

That would put a damper on his “accomplishment.” While a lower number on the clock is the goal, it’s meaningless if it doesn’t reflect the athlete’s performance.

The public should have a similar skepticism about the Clark County School District’s jump in graduation rate. District officials recently announced that the class of 2025 had a graduation rate of 86.6 percent. That’s more than 5 percentage points higher than the 81.5 percent rate among the class of 2024. Statewide, Nevada’s graduation rate for last year was 85.4 percent.

This is good news — as far as it goes. Graduating high school is a key milestone that sets up students for success in life. High school graduates live longer, earn more and are less likely to serve time in jail. These things are good for both individuals and society.

But a diploma is supposed to represent that a student has achieved a baseline level of learning and proficiency. High school graduates should be able to read and process information. They should be able to communicate their thoughts in writing. They should be able to perform basic calculations. They should understand American history, which prepares them to vote and engage in civic life.

Those benefits don’t come simply from handing a student a piece of paper. If that were the case, you could pass them out to kindergartners. The diploma has value only inasmuch as it reflects learning.

But there’s little evidence district students have significantly increased their achievement. In the 2023-24 school year, just 19 percent of juniors in the district tested as proficient in math. In English, it was 46.2 percent. Juniors that year make up the class of 2025. You can’t honestly square those scores with an 86.6 percent graduation rate.

Further, those scores are very similar to the scores in the 2022-23 school year that produced a lower graduation rate in 2024.

What appears obvious — and many employers have experienced firsthand — is that the district has abandoned even the pretense of standards. It started with Nevada dumping its high school proficiency exam years ago. The district then dumbed down its grading policies. When students still can’t pass or don’t show up, credit retrieval classes allow students to check the box — little actual learning required.

The district’s improved graduation rate sure looks good. But it means little without a concurrent advance in academic achievement.