This paper examines high school quality as revealed in the responses of personnel officers to the Johns Hopkins University Survey of American Employers and in their actual recruiting and employment practices. The analyses test the hypothesis, recently proposed by senior executives of Fortune 1300 firms and by the National Commission Report, "A Nation at Risk," that poor quality education of American high school graduates contributes to the declining ability of American companies to compete with foreign businesses. The Johns Hopkins University Survey of American Employers is a set of data that contains information about the recruiting and employment practices of the employers of a sample of National Longitudinal Survey of high school graduates. Several pieces of evidence contradict the proposed hypothesis. For example, only 5 percent of the personnel officers surveyed report problems with graduates not having basic skills or problems finding qualified high school graduates for the jobs they have available. In analyses that examine employers' practices of recruitment and employment, little evidence is found that employers are concerned about high school graduates' grades or the quality of the high schools that they attend. Instead, more important factors appear to be the dependability and proper attitudes of the graduates. The paper suggests that instead of doing a poor job of teaching students, high schools may, in fact, be doing a good job of teaching more students than ever; however, the schools are facing problems because they now must provide education for marginal students who in former years would not have completed high school. (Author/KC)