The United States must raise the graduation rates of community college students if it is to increase economic opportunity for individuals and improve the competitiveness of its workforce. Yet too many students arrive on campus academically underprepared and get placed into developmental (or remedial) courses where they fail to progress. For this…

Nationwide, community colleges struggle with how to improve the poor outcomes of students referred to developmental education. Based on a case study of an urban community college system, this paper sets forth an "opposing forces framework" to help diagnose the underlying issues that may thwart colleges' efforts to improve developmental outcomes.…

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…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and assessments aligned to them represent a significant milestone in public education reform in the U.S. Developed with consultation from higher education, the rigorous new standards and the assessments now being drafted by two consortia promise to help students reach higher levels of academic achievement and…

The term "college and career ready" has become widely used as a result of the proposed Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization and Common Core State Standards movement. As schools move toward what may be considered a moral and economic imperative for the nation's students, it is essential that they first identify the gaps of…

For the first time in the nation's history 46 States and the District of Columbia have agreed that all K-12 students will be educated along a common continuum of high academic expectations known as the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Having clear, consistent standards in English language arts/literacy and mathematics will help ensure that all…

For young people entering the twenty-first-century job market, high school graduation is no longer the finish line, but the starting line. While one-third of students will fail to graduate from high school, too many students who do graduate and make it to the postsecondary starting line find that they are underprepared for postsecondary work. A…

Educational reform in the United States is perpetually evolving. Much of the recent reforms have concentrated on high-stakes testing and assessment, but a parallel effort has been emerging in the field of vocational and career education. Prompted partly by federal legislation--most recently by the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act…

Across the nation, early college schools are creating a path to college success for young people underrepresented in higher education. For a decade, these innovative public schools blending high school and college have proven that, with the right support, all high school students can tackle college work. Now, a Texas school district near the…

To meet the more rigorous expectations embodied in new college- and career-ready standards, students will need teachers who teach in ways that are distinctly different than how most have been teaching. Students will need, for example, English and science teachers who give students more guided practice in reading nonfiction texts that are more…

This article discusses how school districts in California collaborate with higher education to boost college readiness and access. In Long Beach, educators from all three major institutions of learning--elementary, middle and high schools, the local university and the community college--worked together to align standards and expectations across…

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…

A counselor's academic guidance is critical because student stress levels are high due to increased levels of expectations that they perform at their best (Campbell & Dahir, 1997; Gysbers & Henderson, 2000). In the last decade, education reform has moved towards more standards-driven curriculum/a, basic skills acquisition, and…

Over the past decade, a wave of education reform has swept the nation. Yet the general public remains largely unaware of it, even though the reforms are arguably among the most successful public policy initiatives of the past quarter century. One reform that has the potential to leave its mark for many years is the P-16 initiative. This article…

Test results and employer complaints indicate that the average high school graduate hasn't learned enough and that he brings that deficit with him to college. As remedy, Chester Finn argues for uniform educational standards and measurements in a transparent reporting system that gives families the information necessary to scrutinize and accept or…