The real worth of a diploma from high school.

But is it only worthless paper?

LAST SUNDAY the New York Times published an interesting piece on high school diplomas in this country—and what they mean, or don’t—and your friendly statewide paper reprinted the story the same day. (Thank you, news side editors.) What the story says about high schools in this country is a lot. And not necessarily good.

Take, for good or bad example, the school in South Carolina that put up this sign for all its students and teachers to see: “Failure is not an option. You will pass. You will learn. You will succeed.”

Gosh, is that a high school or Basic Training in the U.S. military?

You will pass? Failure is not an option? Well then, what kind of encouragement to study is that? Turns out, not much.

But that particular school, according to the Times, is graduating kids like gang-busters. The graduation rate at Berea High School in South Carolina is more than 80 percent these days, having jumped from 65 percent just four years earlier.

The problem is, according to college entrance exams given to every 11th grader in South Carolina, only one in 10 Berea students is ready for college reading, and only one in 14 is ready for college math.

In another school district in South Carolina, they’re graduating kids at an 85 percent clip. And yet not one student scored high enough on the ACT to be able to take college reading or math.

You see where this is heading. School districts are so adamant about the graduation rate that they’re making the high school diplomas worthless. Business leaders are saying the kids are showing up with the paper diploma in hand but aren’t prepared to work. And it’s not just South Carolina.

California and Tennessee have eliminated the exit exam. Alaska, California, Wisconsin and Wyoming don’t require as many credit hours for graduation as most states. And 32 states don’t require that all graduates take four years of English and math.

Here’s the kicker: Los Angeles no longer requires a C in high school courses that are aligned with college work. Now that district considers a D good enough. A gentleman’s D? Good heavens. For the record, the Times’ article mentioned Arkansas, too. And we were proud it did. Back in 2002, the number of kids graduating from high school but needing remedial work in college was nearly 60 percent. By the fall of last year, that number had gradually tumbled to 41.4 percent. And we hope that number keeps going down, down, down. It means Arkansas’ high schools are doing the job and not lowering standards. Which other states can’t quite say.

School districts, and states, that lower standards so that graduation rates look better aren’t doing their kids any favors. But that might not be the point. Teachers and administrators can pat themselves on the backs, testify before legislative committees of their skills and expertise at the education game, and generally strut about and put up signs about failure not being an option. Besides, once the kids graduate and are off into the world, the schools are done with ’em. It’s not like the kids can come back and complain when they can’t get a job because they can’t do math or communicate.

Or as a honcho with an education non-profit told the Times: “Students and their families rely on and trust the high school diploma as a signal of readiness. It needs to mean something. Otherwise, it’s a false promise for thousands of students.”

Or hundreds of thousands of students.

OF COURSE, those education apparatchiks in the Obama administration don’t get it. As they so often don’t. The feds are hailing the nation’s rising graduation rate. Look how many kids are walking the stage! Opportunity galore! Well done, every one!

The Department of Education was more than willing to praise the graduation rate from 2013-14, which was 82 percent, the highest on record.

Eighty-two percent. And a recent evaluation of the nation’s 12th graders showed fewer than 40 percent were ready for college work.

Those numbers don’t add up. We wouldn’t praise them. In fact, we’d like to send those papers back to the states, marked up, and tell them to correct the wrong answers as homework—for half-credit.

If the federal government wants to help improve high school education in America, it should not reward states on their high school graduation rates, but rather on the percentage of high school graduates who don’t need remediation when they get to college.