There's broad commitment to ensuring that all high-school graduates are college- and career-ready, but heated debate about the best means of achieving that goal. The big question is, how can schools both respect the diversity of students' interests and ambitions and set a high bar for all? In this forum, two longtime advocates of high…

Less than 100 years ago, only 16.8 percent of all 17-year olds in the U.S. had graduated from high school. At the same time, less than 5 percent of those 18-24 years old was enrolled in higher education. The K-12 and higher education systems rapidly expanded over the next century to accommodate larger and larger portions of the population, but…

Declining college admission test scores during the 1970s raised concerns that America's primary schools were inadequately preparing students for college or the workforce. Rock's (1985) analysis of SAT scores indicated that seniors in 1980 scoring at the 50th percentile for vocabulary would have placed at the 41st percentile in 1972. Mathematics…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in English and math were finalized in 2010 and, as of July 2012, have been adopted in full by 45 states. These standards provide a framework that is intended to ensure that all students who graduate from high school in the United States have attained the knowledge and competencies that prepare them well for…

The Common Core State Standards provide a unique opening for K-12 and higher education institutions to work together to ensure that high school students are better prepared for postsecondary education. The college and career readiness assessments will provide educators the opportunities to intervene with students while still in high school to…

The General Educational Development program, or GED, is undergoing the biggest revamping in its 69-year history, driven by mounting recognition that young adults' future success depends on getting more than a high-school-level education. Potent forces have converged to stoke the GED's redesign. A labor market that increasingly seeks some…

For years, state and local policymakers and education leaders have embraced the goal of graduating students college and career ready, vaulting the agenda to become a national priority--as evidenced by the more recent dialogue on education reform, including Race to the Top, Common Core State Standards, and common assessments. But, while policy…

This report is Iowa's response to the four questions that the United States Department of Education, Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE), requires of all states and territories receiving federal funding through the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), Title II, Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA). The overall goal of…

Clear, high standards will enable us to develop an education system that ensures that high school graduates are ready for college. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been working with other organizations to develop a Common Core of Standards. The partners working with the foundation are developing tools that will show teachers what is…

More schools are designing intellectually demanding career/technical (CT) courses--aligned with 21st-century requirements--to prepare students for further study, advanced training and work. They are using effective leadership, embedding essential college-readiness standards into CT courses, making CT courses more intellectually challenging, using…

Equality and quality in higher education (HE) are frequently juxtaposed in the literature. This paper presents evidence to contest deficit assumptions about widening participation, particularly the belief that entering HE with "non-traditional" entry qualifications lowers standards. Drawing on a three-year constructivist grounded theory…

Many U.S. students must pass a standards-based exit exam to earn a high school diploma. The degree to which exit exams and state standards properly signal to students their preparedness for postsecondary schooling has been questioned. The alignment of test scores with college grades for students at the University of Arizona (n = 2,667) who took…

This is an analytical report that looks across four district case studies (published between 2007 and 2009 by the Small Schools Project) to reflect on what happens when a district commits to the goal of graduating each student ready for college, career, and citizenship. The report describes four challenge areas--differentiation and…

The purpose of this study was to examine the academic preparation of students with disabilities who plan to attend a four year college or university upon graduating from high school in the Participating School System. The study employed a measure of high school academic course rigor developed by Horn and Kojaku (2001) to measure the academic…

Founded in 2007, the "Technology Centers That Work" (TCTW) school improvement model is designed to assist shared-time technology centers in preparing graduates for postsecondary studies and employment in high-demand, high-wage, high-skill fields. "TCTW" was modified from SREB's "High Schools That Work" ("HSTW") design to address shared-time…