Misconception #95: High schools should align their requirements with college entry requirements

I have long been a critic of the minimum-standards approach taken by most schools. The general idea behind minimum standards is that schools want to ensure that everybody who graduates develops skills that will be required of them moving forward. It is also a flawed concept that encourages all students to aim low, pushes children to sacrifice strengths in order to pursue weaknesses, and seriously harms the right to individuality.


Minimum standards have come up numerous times over the years. It was obvious when I attended. Since then, we have tried heavy-handed enforcement in the form of No Child Left Behind. We tried stricter more unified standards in the form of Common Core. These two approaches predictably turned out faulty. Instead of learning from our mistakes, we are now insisting that high school graduation requirements should be aligned with college entry requirements. Some people even insist that this should be viewed as common sense.

Students should be pursuing the educations that are right for them. A standards-based approach effectively takes the best interests of a student out of the equation. Instead of learning what they should be learning, they end up focusing on attainable standards which are not always relevant when they are ready to enter the real world. By tying high schools to college, we would solidify that high schools must adhere to standards that will not be ideal for each student. We also establish that further schooling is a more substantial influence on curriculum than preparing children for the real world.

Tying high school graduation requirements to college entry requirements enforces the minimum-standards approach in two places. For this to make any sense, you must embraces these standards for both high school graduation and for college entry. In addition to the implications on high schools, we should also look at what this means for colleges.

A lot of colleges have limited availability, so I can understand at least some standards for admissions. The issue is when they slam doors shut on an applicant who is weak in an area that has limited value to them. If a college adheres to rigid standards that automatically disqualify an individual who falls below expectations in one area, they are effectively establishing an unwillingness to deal with variable educations.

If a college is intolerant of variable educations coming in, what are the odds that they will support variable educational needs for those who they admit? Realistically speaking, no college that utilizes minimum standards in the admissions process will meet the needs of the students who are paying for the experience. For this reason, I have no sympathy for any college that demands this alignment.