
‘Rigor’ is a Potemkin village
High school rigor is often a facade, writes Natalie Wexler on Forbes. It’s a “Potemkin village.” High school graduates in the class of 2019 took more “advanced” and “honors” classes and earned higher grades, but didn’t do any better on tests, notes a recently released federal study. Grade inflation and course-title inflation combine to create the illusion of competence. Some school districts, seeing a lack of minority representation in honors classes, have tried to solve the