Secondary programs for individuals with mild mental retardation continue to embody a contradic-tory philosophical view: they are programs charged with educating individual students with mild mental retardation to become more competitive as adults, but are organized internally along the same lines as the regular high school and as such, too often perceive their role as being one of awarding credentials to large numbers of students based upon the linear attainment of a set number of credits or courses. These credits and courses supposedly lead to success in adult settings, but their selection has been more traditionally than empirically determined. Contrary to the credential based model of education we argue for a commencement based model of education which includes five elements: (a) commencement needs to be thought of as a process, not an event; (b) commencement is a highly personal experience; (c) the requisites of adult community success need to be determined by an empirical contextual examination of the adult community; (d) individualized education plans need to be thought of as being circular rather than linear in nature; and (e) time will be the final validator of program effectiveness.
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