New York Times columnist David Brooks writes, “the skills slowdown is the biggest issue facing the country.” Brooks weighs the consequences of Americans’ slowing or declining educational accomplishment, especially high school graduation. Brooks’s policy prescription is clear: “Boosting educational attainment at the bottom is more promising than trying to reorganize the global economy.”

Brooks’s column resonated with me because, in France, there’s a terminal examination marking the end of secondary education (and opening the doors to higher education). This is the celebrated and storied baccalauréat, and the results for 2008 came out recently.

Among French students generally, the pass rate on the baccalauréat for 2008 is 83.3%. There are different sections of the baccalauréat, with slightly different pass rates. For the baccalauréat général, which leads to university studies, the rate is 87.8%. So there’s very little selection or “holdback” at the end of secondary education. But for the baccalauréat technologique, the pass rate is 80.2%, and for the baccalauréat professionnel, an explicitly vocational variant of the exam, the pass rate is 76.6%, in other words nearly 1 student in 4 fails. What becomes of these students: are they simply held back for another year, or do they drop out? And is this number low, or are other sections graded more leniently, on the assumption that graduates will have the possibility to catch up when they begin higher education?

The French education ministry loves numbers, and some of the numbers that involve educational attainment are compelling, especially when put in historical perspective. For example, when viewed in light of high school enrollment, the 83.3% baccalauréat pass rate demonstrates that 63.4% of an age cohort now graduates from high school. Ten years ago, this proportion was basically unchanged, at 62.6%. But 20 years ago, it was only 32.6%. In a generation, France has nearly doubled educational attainment, measured by high school graduation. Today, 34.4% of an age cohort passes the baccalauréat général, with most graduates continuing to higher education.