High school graduation requirements are out of sync with Common Core

A new report from Change the Equation (CTEq) and the National School Boards Association’s (NSBA) Center for Public Education (CPE) examines the connection between state graduation requirements and Common Core State Standards in math. The report, “Out of Sync: Many Common Core states have yet to define a Common Core-worthy diploma,” found that of the 45 states that have voluntarily adopted Common Core, only 11 have aligned their graduation requirements in mathematics with those standards.

CPE and CTEq have compared states’ high school graduation requirements in math to the Common Core standards to see how well they align and determined that graduation requirements most likely to be aligned to the Common Core standards must include math in each year of high school and convey substantial content typically taught in Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II classes. While 11 states are aligned, 13 are only partially aligned, leaving 22 states that have adopted the Common Core but lack corresponding graduation requirements that match the expectations of new standards. Even states whose graduation requirements appear to reflect the demands of the Common Core may still have much work to do to ensure that their high school course sequence and content is truly aligned to the standards.