In a bid to make high school fruitful and engaging for every student, the Indiana State Board of Education in December 2024 approved a single new diploma that will be effective for all seniors in the 2028–29 school year. The diploma doubles elective credits to 12 to allow more flexibility for students to tailor their learning to their goals. They also may opt to earn honors or honors-plus seals in three postsecondary pathways: enrollment, employment, and enlistment and service. Students complete additional requirements such as credential attainments and hours of work-based learning to earn the seals.

On April 2, Indiana Governor Mike Braun announced that the state’s public universities and Ivy Tech Community College will guarantee automatic acceptance to applying students who have earned the honors-plus enrollment seal on their diplomas. “That should be an incentive for kids to work hard, because I don’t know if there’s a commitment like that anywhere in the country,” Braun said. Likewise, several employers have committed to interviewing any students who receive the employment honors-plus seal and to offering apprenticeships. Earning the enlistment honors seal guarantees that students meet National Guard requirements, he said.

Indiana’s education leaders have been seeking expanded pathways to graduation for nearly a decade. In 2017, the state board began approving a handful of locally created pathways in districts that had identified particular local needs and business partners. In 2018, the board required all high school students, beginning with the class of 2023, to demonstrate employability skills and postsecondary competencies in order to graduate.[1] They do so through project-, work-, and service-based learning and by attaining industry-recognized certifications and apprenticeships.

The state’s education leaders were attempting to address the disconnect between high school and postsecondary experiences in the state. Only 53 percent of Indiana high school graduates were enrolled in postsecondary institutions in 2021, even as three out of four said they had planned to enroll.[2] Fewer still were able to graduate on time at two- and four-year colleges and universities. Less than half of Indiana students had access to the training needed to fill jobs in in-demand career fields.[3] And three quarters of Indiana students applying for the military were disqualified for not meeting service requirements. At the same time, 89 percent of the class of 2023 had completed their graduation requirements.[4]

These realities led the legislature, the Indiana Department of Education, and the state board to embrace a broader effort to rethink high school.[5] In 2022, the state board endorsed a community-informed vision for what high school success should mean, and the department launched a transparent data dashboard to track progress toward state goals (figure 1).[6] And in March 2024, they offered a diploma revision plan for public comment.[7]

Figure 1

“Personalizing the high school experience for Indiana’s students, with more opportunities for real-world learning, is critical to ensuring all of our students have access to better lives while lifting and sustaining the state’s economy and workforce,” said Indiana Education Secretary Katie Jenner.

“If you earn a seal in our new diploma, you have met all the graduation pathways qualifications,” said state board member Byron Ernest. “Everybody kept asking us, ‘Are you leaving that [earlier pathways work] behind?’ No, that work guided us, and that work still is important.”

Engaging Stakeholders

Through two rounds of public comment that attracted more than 8,000 online comments and hours of comments delivered in person at state board meetings, the original draft of the diploma evolved. The original proposal reduced the number of diplomas to two and created a lot more flexibility for students to chart personalized graduation paths. But two diplomas with multiple seal options proved complicated, Ernest said. Some parents and educators told the board they believed the first proposal compromised on academic rigor.

In the end, the state board approved a single diploma with seals aligned to the three pathways. “Our students are going to be much better off with this new diploma, and I believe their outcomes will tell,” Ernest said.

The basic diploma requires 42 credits, 12 of which are elective.[8] The rest are in traditional core courses such as biology and algebra, although there will be added flexibility on what courses fulfill those requirements, Ernest said.

The department and the state board had earlier convened representatives from key stakeholder groups to develop Indiana Graduates Prepared to Succeed (GPS), the state’s graduate profile.[9] Together, they identified five key characteristics for student success after high school: academic mastery, career and postsecondary readiness credentials and experiences, communication and collaboration, work ethic, and civic, financial, and digital literacy.

The state board passed a resolution in 2021 affirming these essential characteristics, which then shaped creation of the data dashboard and codified goals to be realized by 2030. The Indiana GPS aims to give educators, families, and communities relevant, transparent information on how schools are improving student learning from pre-K to career (figure 1).

“Engaging a variety of stakeholders to develop Indiana GPS allowed us to align our shared priorities and elevate the characteristics that matter most to Hoosiers on our quest to make high school as meaningful as possible for all students,” Jenner said.

Using data from the state’s Commission for Higher Education, Department of Workforce Development, and Governor’s Workforce Cabinet, the dashboard tracks the percentage of students who complete all graduation pathways requirements—not just diploma attainment—and the percentage who are enrolled or employed in Indiana one year after graduation.

“Our GPS data dashboard—and the transparency it provides—have been critical to the state’s high school redesign efforts,” said state board member Scott Bess. “The robust data we are collecting and sharing provides the best picture we’ve had of where we currently are as a state and where we are going.”

Another critical step was to streamline the number of state-required learning standards across all subjects, which the state board approved in early 2023. “It was very important to focus our state standards so that schools can go deeper on the essential skills and knowledge students need to succeed after they leave our schools,” said Bess, who was a founder of Purdue Polytechnic, a public charter high school (box 1). “An additional benefit is that this should create more time in the day for teachers to innovate and for students to explore real-world learning opportunities,” he said.

Work-Based Learning

Flexibility and equipping students with valuable skills remain core features of the new diploma. And that is particularly welcome in small, rural districts that have been collaborating to offer students more options than one district alone can afford. The new diploma is “the flexibility change we need, and that’s what the state has done for us,” said Neal Adams, superintendent of the Randolph Eastern District in central Indiana.

Under a collaborative arrangement called Rural Alliance Zone 32, juniors and seniors from Union City Junior-Senior High School in Adams’s district travel to high schools in two other districts to attend programs in, for example, precision machining and cybersecurity, and those schools in turn send students to Union City for their programs in healthcare, marketing and sales, and media. About a quarter of the school’s upperclassmen participated in 2024–25, but many more are enrolled for 2025–26. The partnership also draws in businesses, institutions of higher education, and civic and economic development leaders to provide certifications, dual credits, and internship opportunities.

Before the alliance formed, “we had lots of kids going on to the healthcare pathways, but outside of offering biology [class], and maybe anatomy, physiology, and chemistry, they were getting no other exposure to healthcare,” Adams said. But working with a nearby healthcare provider, Reid Health, and Ivy Tech Community College added new possibilities for work-based learning and certification. “We live in a very high-poverty area, so giving those kids a step forward in a healthcare desert is huge for us,” Adams said.

In addition, the schools have provided support for student-run businesses and project-based learning. At Union City, “Workforce Wednesdays” are a break from the traditional day in which students pursue community and other projects. One group kitted out a bus to enable students to travel to national parks over spring break and write about their experiences for English credit. The revised diploma means “we don’t necessarily need to be inside the four walls of a classroom to get the credit,” Adams said. Nor do they have to worry about the loss of seat time in traditional classrooms as students move from their home school to learning experiences elsewhere.

Challenges for the alliance going forward are ensuring that every learning experience is meaningful, providing the necessary rigor to meet standards, and guaranteeing students acquire competencies, Adams said. But there are also new possibilities, as the alliance deepens and expands. “I see down the road … that we’ll also be able to share not just workplace pathways but maybe a high-level chemistry teacher or algebra teacher or calculus teacher” that one district alone could not afford, he said.

During a presentation alliance leaders made at the March state board meeting, Jenner commended their innovation. “When we travel to various places, several of us are asked, ‘How is Indiana moving so quickly in this space?’ ” she said. “It’s 100 percent because of the local change agents. Our whole role as a board is to get barriers out of the way and make diplomas more flexible.”

State Investments

Indiana’s efforts to scale high school transformation have combined top-down policy shifts with support for local schools and communities through competitive grants, including its Explore, Engage, and Experience grants, funded through federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds. Given strong interest in the grants, Indiana more than doubled the awarded amount, from $25 million in March 2022 to $57 million in July 2022.

Every county in the state received a grant, which supported local partnerships with the business community to design work-based learning experiences for students to explore careers and areas of interest. Recipients have also developed sustainability plans to ensure their work continues beyond the grant period. The grants spurred several work-based learning opportunities, including in early childhood education, manufacturing and construction, and the culinary arts.[13]

With bipartisan support, Indiana’s legislature also provided incentives for real-world learning by establishing career scholarship accounts (up to $5,000 annually) that students can use for career coaching services, postsecondary training, transportation, and exams for certification and credentialing. In parallel, Indiana expanded youth apprenticeships through the state’s earn-and-learn program, which includes paid work with on-the-job training and embedded credentials (box 2).

“For these efforts to be successful, states need buy-in from the business community and a shared definition of expectations and success for high school students that are learning and earning in high school, but not in the four walls of a classroom,” said Representative Bob Behning, a co-sponsor of the scholarship bill. “Change may have to be incentivized, in part, from the top down, and the career scholarship accounts could be one of the tools to effect that change.”

Next Steps

State board members are quick to say that approval of a new diploma is not the final step toward altering the high school experience. “The diploma did not transform high school,” Ernest said. “Schools are still going to have to do a lot of work” to take advantage of the flexibility it affords. “Even that [GPS] dashboard is an iterative piece in which we don’t have everything that we want yet,” he added.

Next, the department is working toward compiling lists of courses that satisfy core diploma credits in subjects such as English or computer science. “I wish we could get rid of courses and think more about the competencies, essential skills, or standards,” Ernest said, but that work is likely further on the horizon.

The next big step for the state board will be aligning the accountability system to the earlier steps, Ernest said. Such a system must include multiple data points and create a culture that promotes honest reflection but is not punitive, he said. Aligning the system for funding career and technical education with the new diploma also lies ahead.

Recommendations for State Leaders

Indiana’s state education leaders stressed the primacy of a shared vision and commitment to students and workforce development for their initiative to redesign high schools. “In Indiana, the support from the governor, state board members, the General Assembly, educators, parents and families, business and industry, higher education, and other community members have all actively contributed to our vision of ensuring all students in Indiana have opportunity,” Jenner said.

Businesses, colleges, universities, trade schools, community organizations, and networks of schools all have a role in transforming high schools. “Partnerships are going to be critical,” Ernest said. “Instead of everybody doing everything, ask ‘How can we partner on that?’ ”

These leaders suggest several other lessons for states seeking to make high schools meaningful and relevant:

1. Create a vision for redesigning high schools that is grounded in engaging, relevant student learning experiences and co-created with stakeholders and key constituencies.
2. Define state goals and track them in a transparent way.
3. Consider removing outdated policies before adding new ones. State boards can explore ways to create more time and space for local leaders and educators to innovate.
4. Prioritize scale and investment. Scaling high school redesign will only be possible when there is local buy-in and partnerships alongside top-down incentives and investment.

Notes

[1] Indiana Department of Education, “Graduation Pathways,” web page.

[2] Indiana Commission for Higher Education, “Indiana College Readiness Report 2022.”

[3] Indiana Department of Education, The Future of the Indiana Diploma: Final Diploma Rule, presentation to the state board, December 11, 2024.

[4] Indiana Graduates Prepared to Succeed, “Graduation Pathways Completion,” web page.

[5] Indiana Department of Education, “Indiana Department of Education Outlines Plan to Rethink the High School Experience,” press release, May 10, 2023.

[6] Indiana Graduates Prepared to Succeed (Indiana GPS), web page, rev. February 7, 2024.

[7] Casey Smith, “Indiana Officials Propose New ‘Streamlined’ High School Diplomas for Hoosier Students,” Indiana Capital Chronicle, March 27, 2024.

[8] Indiana Department of Education, Future of the Indiana Diploma.

[9] At least 17 other states have similarly leveraged community conversations to arrive at key characteristics, often called portraits or profiles of a graduate or profile of a learner.

[10] Indiana Graduates Prepared to Succeed, “Purdue Polytechnic High School Ind,” web page.

[11] Indiana Commission for Higher Education, “Indiana College Readiness Report 2022.”

[12] Data provided by PPHS.

[13] Indiana Department of Education, “High-Quality Work-Based Learning Examples,” https://www.in.gov/doe/files/3E-Grant-Work-Based-Learning-Opportunity-Examples.pdf.