In High School the requirement for graduating and receiving a diploma is passing the couple of required classes assigned to you and the completion of your senior project. Completing these requirements may take a lot of work and prove that a student has the work ethic necessary but it does not prove their competency in anything that they’ve learned throughout high school. A high school competency test would be an excellent requirement to make sure that people graduate with the information they need for the work and college that comes after high school. Some people may argue that requiring this competency test would drastically increase the amount of high school dropouts. High schools should not allow students to graduate without properly displaying their knowledge obtained from the time they spent in high school. A general competency test should be a standard required to receive a diploma because a lot of my friends and I graduated from high school without trying very hard and not learning most of what we should have. I passed all my classes based on “points” and not “content literacy” which should be most important. At my high school and i’m sure most of the other high schools all that was required to pass was a passing grade through turning in assignments and projects that were worth enough points to pass you even if you failed tests. If a general competency test was required I would have had to attempt to learn material that was taught throughout high school to graduate. Requiring a general competency test would influence the students in high school to learn more rather than complete assignments and attempt to pass classes with the most minimum amount of effort.
When I graduated from high school there was no competency test besides the Cahsee which I took in my sophomore year and all the content in it was middle school level work. I had not learned much from my last two years in high school in my math classes and now that I am in college I am struggling in my math classes. A general competency test would keep people from ending up in places that they would struggle in. A high school diploma is something that proves your competency in the workplace and for college so people should not be given a diploma unless they’re competent in the required high school criteria. The requirements that high schools are using are not good enough because a lot of people graduate with little to no knowledge of what was taught. Some people may say that a general competency test would significantly increase the amount of drop outs and make high school too hard for those who struggle. I say It may increase dropout rates but it will set a standard for what a high school diploma is. As of right now a high school diploma is nothing but a document saying you’re finished with your four years of high school. A high school diploma needs to have something that defines it. A diploma must have a standard that defines it as an achievement of knowledge. People dropping out should not be more important than the standard set by the education system; people should then work towards obtaining the knowledge necessary to meet the standards. If there were no science majors because all of them were dropping out of college we would not just make it easier and have almost no requirement besides turning in assignments because then when they graduate and go to work they probably don’t have the knowledge to apply to that job. So we should not give high school diplomas without a proper requirement that certifies their knowledge. Without a high school diploma a lot of people would end up without jobs and homeless which would be the biggest fault in having a competency test for high school. If the competency test is allowed to be taken as many times as the student likes until they pass it, then passing it would require the same work ethic they have been using to get to their senior year of high school;
