This concept occurred to me a few years ago and was well-received by some friends. Comments and feedback here are welcome...

Excerpt...

04.19.2010: Re-designing the United States' Educational System: an Engineering Approach.

Is our education system designed to impart knowledge or "teach to grade level"?

Proposal:

Re-design the US middle- and high-school education systems so that students are graded for proficiency in every subject from gym to math at the end of every year, independent of their age or traditional "grade or class level."

Based on each student's proficiency test results, they become eligible to move to the next level of "proficiency learning" in any given subject.

A student who's gifted in math, for example, could advance to even the highest level of proficiency long before they're "of age" to be graduated from high school. Students who, for whatever reason are slower to learn any or several subjects, do not advance to the next level until they're ready to. The concepts of "skipping grades," being "held back" for academic or social development reasons would vanish. All students would be able to advance at their own pace. Gifted students whose parents decide that they don't want them to enter college yet, for personal reasons, could get "extra credits" by becoming mentors for students not yet operating at the highest levels.

If a student has high proficiency achievement levels in eight subjects that would qualify them for acceptance to higher education institutions, the choice is for the student, their parents and the higher education institution, not the award of any "all encompassing and averaging" high school "diploma."