Employers in industries like manufacturing have good, high-paying jobs waiting for high school graduates, but many complain that these jobs can’t be filled because students don’t actually have the math and English skills that they were supposed to learn in high school. For example, Ben Venue Laboratories in Ohio wanted to hire 100 high school graduates who could pass a ninth-grade math proficiency test for a $13 to $15 per hour job, but a significant portion of their applicants failed. Only 37 out of 3,600 applicants were hired. Forcing students to pass an exam in order to obtain their high school degree is a way of proving to employers that students actually acquired basic skills in high school. In fact, Achieve Inc. researchers commissioned by the states have advised school systems to make the tests more demanding to better match the needs of employers.