There is a growing awareness among educators and policymakers that the academic standards associated with college readiness are also necessary to prepare students to take advantage of opportunities in the workplace. A challenging K-12 college-readiness curriculum is also important for preparing students for citizenship. Such a curriculum, if universally taught and learned, would help to equalize opportunities across socioeconomic backgrounds so that no group of citizens is denied the benefits of a strong education. The goal of preparing all students for the opportunities of postsecondary education, work, and citizenship dictates that school systems do three things. First, they must adopt high but attainable college-readiness standards that minimize the odds that students will need remediation should they attend college. Second, they must make a K-12 curriculum based on those standards the default curriculum for all students regardless of socioeconomic background. Third, to have a chance at success, they must get students on track to reach those standards in elementary school, as getting academically behind students up to high academic standards later is difficult and costly. Appendix includes: Establishing a TLI Scale for the TAKS Test. A bibliography is included. (Contains 3 tables, 1 figure and 33 footnotes.)