EEOC: High school diploma requirement might violate Americans with Disabilities Act
 

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...utm_medium=RSS

What do you think? I agree that someone who couldn't finish high school due to a disability shouldn't have that held against them.

Is it a diploma vs. GED thing, or are they saying employers should not require either?

Since GEDs aren't mentioned I'm assuming neither will be required.

I only skimmed the article, but my sense is that it's not diploma vs GED, but diploma vs certificates of attendance (which some jurisdictions give to special ed students who cannot or do not meet standard graduation requirements).

Here's the problem: employers required diploma or GED because it opens them up to less legal BS than giving their own employment tests. If they could do the latter, this could make sense, but they need some way to screen for basic skills.

Why couldn't an employer give a general aptitude test to applicants? Granted it'd cost some extra time and money but what legal BS would McDonald's or Walgreens face if they tested applicants on basic math or reasoning skills?


One thing that I think may cause some problems for employers is how to determine if an applicant dropped out of high school because he has ADD or another legitimate disability or if he dropped out because he thought school was lame. I'm by no means an HR guru, but I thought that medical/health information (unless it prohibits you from performing tasks related to that job) doesn't need to be disclosed.

If a student had a 504 plan when s/he was in school due to a disability, s/he could probably provide a copy of that.

This is too slippery slope for my liking.


What happens when this becomes legal standard and then someone decides that it's not fair to require a college degree for certain positions? I feel that if a company wants to require a PhD to be a janitor, it's their right to do so. Wages and free market should take care of those problems. Heck, if McD's wants to require a college degree, they should be able to...after their workforce dries up, though, they'd be forced to reconsider.

If you want to claim a disability that falls under the Americans with Disabilities act, you would have to disclose such information. Obviously, if you don't want them to know you have a health problem, and it would not affect your work or be readily noticeable, you could keep that to yourself. It's pretty hard to claim discrimination based on a disability if no one knows you have one.

You have to be able to show that the test itself does not discriminate. If, say, 10 whites take the test and pass, and 10 blacks take the test and fail, McDonald's could get slapped with a lawsuit, and McD's would have to show that every question asked by the test is directly related to an on-the-job skill.

But you wouldn't necessarily disclose that disability in the hiring stages. You might wait to disclose a non-visible disability until you needed accommodations. Especially if you didn't know based on the information available at hiring that you would need any accommodations.

The article states that “This would never arise when the high school diploma is in fact necessary to do a job,” so what are some circumstances in which people who are unable to get a diploma are actually being discriminated against? I'm having a hard time coming up with a circumstance.

Earlier posters have mentioned McDonalds. One doesn't have to have a diploma to work in fast food. Otherwise, restaurant jobs wouldn't be the source of part time jobs for high school students that it is.

Seriously, who is this impacting from a not being able to be hired perspective?

I hate issues like these because I can totally see both sides, especially since a lot of companies are overwhelmed with applications. It's kind of like sorority recruitment- the grade cut is the easy cut. The diploma cut is a quick and easy way to eliminate a large number of applicants. On the other hand, depending on the job, some people with learning disabilities should be able to do certain jobs in spite of not being able to graduate. Then again, I know that a lot of kids with learning disabilities graduate if they are identified as learning disabled. They don't always legitimately earn that diploma by meeting the requirements in the same way, but the resource room teachers make sure they pass (based on anecdotal evidence only- from friends who fought and fought to have their kids receive actual services, not just get passed up to the next grade from year to year). I have a hard time with issues like this.

Since I have only searched for jobs that required a college degree and pretty specialized experience for the last 20+ years, I'm not really familiar with what types of jobs require a high school diploma but don't require the skills attained from obtaining that diploma.

I can think of some office/mail clerk type jobs that "require" a diploma, but don't really require them

That's what I'm saying. If the disability is visible, it will be disclosed. If you don't have to tell someone, you wouldn't unless you absolutely have to. If after hiring you though, they would have to then provide reasonable accommodations or face discrimination charges. BUT, if you are claiming that they didn't HIRE you because of a disability, they would have to know you were disabled for this to be a valid statement.

I have only skimmed the responses here and I did not read the article. (I will when I have more time, though!) And, my response is from the aspect of a high school special education teacher in a southern state, so keep that in mind.

In my state, it is now required that every student in the regular course of study (be they SPED or not) must pass Algebra I, Algebra II, Geometry, an Advanced Math, and Physical Science before they can graduate from high school. (Just two years ago, most of those courses were only required of the college/university bound students.) Of course, in two years, you don't have hard data, but I know this is going to affect the State's graduation rates.

I teach SPED Algebra--so I teach students with disabilities in a small class. These students have every classification from mental retardation, ADHD, Austism, to learning disabled and I can usually get any student who works through Algebra I. A good majority of my students have average IQs but huge discrepancies in achievement (ie-Little Johnny has a 93 IQ but in math he is achieving at the level of someone with a 53 IQ). Does it take a little extra effort, as a teacher, to get them through Algebra? Sure, but it can be done. Will most of these kids go on to be successful in Algebra II and above? Most of them aren't.

I am concerned that, with these new requirements, many students will drop out after having repeated a course 3 or 4 times. But, with job specific training, many of these students can and will go on to, at least, hold a full time job.

We have similar math requirements in Michigan also. What I'm seeing is that things are done to make it work for those students somehow. For example, homework is graded for completeness rather than correctness. As long as problems are attempted, they get full credit. The way grades are weighted, homework counts higher than tests so a student who fails every exam but "does" the homework passes and the student graduates. If they don't meet certain graduation rates, the district is at risk of being taken over by the state so they aren't letting kids NOT graduate.