‘Restoring Value’ to the High School Diploma: The Rhetoric and Practice of Higher Standards, a new report raises serious questions about the standards and testing movement as a vehicle for reforming high schools. It starts, “Four themes emerge from the fray: that standards and rigor are too low; that the high school has lost its relevance, particularly to future employment; that the high school is inequitable; and that the high school is simply boring.” 
It finds the arguments of “rigor” simplistic. Most standards and tests measure the narrow curriculum confines of the late 19th Century and stress breadth rather than depth. They suggest:
-New models of rigor aside from conventional test-based and course-based conceptions.
-Examining the inequality of standards as applied to neglected issues of raising achievement for the lowest-performing students.
-Alternatives to the conventional academic program be more seriously considered. They recommend “multiple pathways through high school.
The authors W. Norton Grubb and Jeannie Oakes, both professors at the U. of California, prepared the October, 2007 report and an executive summary for the Education and the Public Interest Center (EPIC) and the Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU).