Our Student-Back Guarantee

By Susan Tifft

For years U.S. business has grumbled about the quality of the nation's high school graduates. They can't make correct change. They can't write a business letter. They have no sense of the work ethic. They also cost a lot of extra money: American firms spend $250 million annually just to teach workers the three Rs. "Because of the failure of our education system to produce graduates who can work at world-class levels, we have a national economic problem on our hands," says William Kolberg, president of the National Alliance of Business, a Washington-based education and policy group.

Now some U.S. school districts are trying a businesslike solution: warranties. For periods of one to three years, 68 schools in Prince George's County, Md.; Plymouth-Carver, Mass.; St. Joseph, Mo.; Montrose County, Colo.; Harlem, Ill.; and dozens of other districts guarantee defect-free graduates to prospective employers. These small districts may soon be joined by the nation's largest, New York City, where schools chancellor Joseph Fernandez has proposed a pilot program starting as early as this fall.

Education warranties work much like those for VCRs and refrigerators. If an employer finds that a recent graduate is unable to read, write or calculate proficiently, the school system will offer free remedial instruction, usually in adult- or evening-education classes. Most credentials, which vary from Prince George's wallet-size Guaranteed Employability Certificate to Plymouth- Carver's diploma-size guarantee, apply only to locally employed students. But at least one district -- Montrose County, Colo. -- plans eventually to vouch for its graduates statewide.

Warranties are partially a public relations effort aimed at changing business's jaundiced view of education. "Employers see it as a positive indication that a public agency is willing to be held accountable," says Bernard Sidman, superintendent of the Plymouth-Carver school district, where high school graduates last year began receiving three-year warranties along with their diplomas. But there are benefits for schools too. Teachers, for example, like the idea as a show of confidence in their abilities. The hope is that students will feel the same. At Plymouth-Carver, average Scholastic Aptitude Test scores have shot up 30 points in reading and 15 points in math * since warranties were unveiled.

So far, businesses give the programs high marks. "Graduates with the warranty card come in with a work ethic," says Susan Levering, director of human services at Branch Electric Supply Co. in Upper Marlboro, Md., which has five full-time employees with Prince George's County's Guaranteed Employability Certificate. "They are willing to learn."

There are, however, niggling concerns. Skeptics are worried that the cost of re-educating hundreds of subpar graduates will burden weary teachers, not to mention the taxpayers who foot the bill for retraining. But to date, extra expenses have been minimal. Montrose County, Colo., has had 3 of 600 graduating students "returned" since it started issuing warranties in 1988. Other districts have had none.

The popularity of warranties thus far makes it likely that they will spread into larger districts. Many educators hail that as the precursor to a more sweeping idea: graduation standards based on proven mastery of skills, rather than on course completion.

With reporting by Michele Donley/Chicago and Ratu Kamlani/New York