City Schools Reject Colleges’ Idea to Award Diplomas on Basis of GED

Diplomas from San Diego city high schools will only be awarded to students who complete the 44 units of English, math, science, social studies and other subjects now required for graduation, the Board of Education decided Tuesday.

Trustees turned down a request from the San Diego Community College District to give city schools diplomas to adult students who dropped out of high school or otherwise have no regular diploma if they pass a national test and courses in economics, U.S. government and history.

A majority of trustees agreed that they need more alternative programs, in conjunction with the college district, for students who fall behind in credits during high school and drop out.

But the board members, led by President Shirley Weber, said they did not want the district’s diploma to have two meanings.

The community college district now arranges a separate “high school” equivalency diploma for adult students who pass the three social studies courses and the General Educational Development test (GED), a series of exams long used for adults to show they possess skills and concepts considered necessary for high school graduates.

But that arrangement involves paying $75,000 annually to a foundation that is authorized to issue such a diploma. The community college district had hoped to end that arrangement because of budget problems for next year. Instead, the college district sought to award a city schools diploma for passing the GED and three classes.

“I agree that we need to look at alternative ways of satisfying our own diploma requirements,” said Weber. “But those ways (do not include) the GED . . . it’s most unfair to our students who now do” all the 44 credits.

Weber bemoaned the district’s lax enforcement of existing graduation standards, saying that she has met many students in her capacity as a San Diego State University professor who “got watered-down 3.2 grade point averages and 500 (out of 1,600 possible) on the SAT and can’t read or write because they are really functioning at a 1.5 (grade point average).”

“I don’t buy the argument of helping their self-esteem” by giving them a diploma for passing a GED, she said. “Self-esteem means nothing unless they have the necessary skills. . . . A diploma otherwise is a real ego-deflator, and we are deceiving those students . . . there is nothing more destructive to students.”

The executive dean of the community college’s continuing education programs denied that the GED alternative is inferior to the district’s own diploma in indicating the students’ skill levels.

Robert Coleman told trustees that one-third of all regular high school graduates nationwide or in San Diego could not pass the GED, based on national testing to determine how to score the test.

“It’s different, but not inferior,” Coleman insisted.

Board member John De Beck said city schools should work with the community college district on new programs that could lead to a joint “adult education diploma” not based on the GED. De Beck said too many high school students do not understand that there are alternatives to dropping out when they fall far behind in graduation credits.

De Beck would like to see alternative programs offered within the existing high-school setting rather than force students to enter adult school or take the GED once they turn 18, the minimum age for taking the test.

The district has experimental programs at Mira Mesa and Hoover high schools to allow students to take adult school or GED alternatives in a traditional high-school setting.

De Beck agreed that he does not want the regular diploma cheapened, but said that “it’s unrealistic to say there can only be one (way to a) diploma.”

But he and colleague Sue Braun failed to persuade a majority of the board that a joint adult education diploma by the two districts would not somehow end up compromising the present 44-credit document.