After a decadelong hiatus, it feels like “school reform” has gained new momentum (for better and worse). We see it in reading instruction, new school models, career pathways, and more. These efforts mostly echo reform initiatives from the first decade of this century. That means there’s much to be learned from the Bush-Obama years, even if they’ve faded in our collective memory. To help surface some of those hard-earned lessons, I turned to Stefanie Sanford, the president of Alithi Consulting and a veteran of this century’s pivotal K-12 debates. As policy chief at the Gates Foundation and then the College Board, Stef was in the middle of fights over No Child Left Behind, high school reform, teacher evaluation, the Common Core, AP U.S. History, and more. Today, Stef and I discuss what the Bush-era push to boost high school graduation rates can tell us about today’s push to boost workforce readiness.
—Rick
Rick: Stef, there’s much enthusiasm for “career pathways” today. States are pushing to improve their numbers on “workforce readiness” while school systems expand their career and technical education offerings. This all seems sensible enough. But it makes me wonder how we measure “readiness” and whether the “pathways” for graduates are any good. After all, lousy CTE programs provide a false sense of security. Graduates look ready for the job market, only to find out their shiny new credentials are worthless.
I’m reminded of the push to boost high school graduation rates 20 years ago. Back in 2005, school districts had long reported dazzling graduation rates. On your watch, the Gates Foundation commissioned research showing the real figure was much lower. Reformers made tackling that a priority and enjoyed a lot of success. From 2005 to 2024, the real graduation rate increased from 75% to 89%. That would seem to be a huge win.
Of course, it turned out that a substantial chunk of that “success” was a product of credit recovery, lowered standards, and grade inflation. Today’s sky-high completion rates sit side-by-side with declining academic achievement and eye-popping rates of chronic absenteeism.
You were the policy chief at Gates during that initial effort. How do you see it now? Are there parallels to today’s pathways push? And how do we ensure that career pathways actually give students the skills they’ll need on the job?
Stefanie: Rick, this is an important question because “pathways” are clearly having a moment. Back in the early 2000s, definitions of graduation varied across states and districts. Many people (including me) believed the national rate was above 90%. When the Gates Foundation started working on the issue, we realized we needed a single definition that could galvanize a movement and we needed to get the number right.
The real rate turned out to be about 70% nationwide in 2003, which shocked people. Gates’ 2006 report “The Silent Epidemic” focused attention on the issue, the GradNation campaign mobilized hundreds of organizations, and a bipartisan group of then-governors led by Mark Warner adopted the adjusted cohort measure and began reporting it annually. And it worked. The real grad rate started to rise. Young people who might have disappeared from the system graduated because adults started paying attention.
But the later chapters got messy. Over time, institutions started optimizing for the number itself, which meant lowering standards. That’s the dynamic you’re describing with credit recovery. There’s a big lesson: The strength of a single galvanizing metric is also its weakness. We got a number, optimized for it, and made real progress. But eventually, the number stopped telling us what we needed to know.
Career pathways may have the opposite problem. Where the grad rate was a concrete, well-defined metric, “pathways” can mean apprenticeships, dual enrollment, certifications, work-based learning, or all of the above—almost anyone can project their priorities onto it. That flexibility is politically powerful. But it creates a different risk: Rather than reducing complexity to one gameable metric, we may be building momentum around something too loosely defined.
Rick: This is such a good reminder that it’s easy to take yesterday’s accomplishments for granted. Readers who weren’t involved in education back in 2005 may be surprised at just how ludicrous the graduation numbers really were. I remember some districts routinely boasting of a 97% or 98% grad rate because they’d calculate it as the percentage of students who started 12th grade.
But I’m stuck on your point about the political appeal of “pathways” being all things to all people. They can appeal to state leaders and superintendents struggling to raise academic achievement. Bragging about vague stratagems to promote “pathways” or “career readiness” may be a pleasing alternative to explaining middling test scores.
That seems to invite the kinds of gamesmanship we’ve seen with credit recovery. After all, if the goal is to move the numbers on career readiness, there’s a temptation to funnel students into the certification programs that are easiest to complete. That’s a recipe for lots of shoddy credentials.
Given your experience, any tips for reformers, policymakers, or district leaders on getting this right?
Stefanie: When Margaret Spellings became U.S. secretary of education in 2005, one of our first conversations was about graduation rates. She warned that if we raised attainment without holding firm on accountability, we’d mistake completion for learning. That lesson holds true here: Don’t confuse attainment with capability.
So, I have three pieces of guidance for policymakers today.
First, don’t rely on a single attainment measure. Remember Goodhart’s Law: Once a measure becomes the target, it ceases to be a good measure. Second, pair attainment with proof through independent validation. We’ve seen what this looks like in practice. Students in Advanced Placement courses demonstrate knowledge through AP exams and projects evaluated beyond the classroom. The new AP Business course applies the same principle to career pathways, with employer input built in from the start. Many healthcare pathways operate the same way, connecting students to occupations with persistent workforce demand and recognized standards of practice. Third, build feedback loops tied to concrete outcomes that students and families care about: jobs, wages, college credit, and advancement.
The graduation rate movement showed the power of a galvanizing measure. It also showed what happens when attainment and achievement come apart. The challenge with pathways is making sure they stay connected.
