College and career readiness has emerged as a focus for school districts as they consider how to best prepare students for the choices they make after they graduate from high school. Schools are challenged with the task of implementing supports for all students, providing a balance between academics and a focus on providing students with the…

This generic qualitative inquiry explored general education middle school teachers' perceptions and experiences delivering social and emotional (SEL) and/or college and career readiness advisory lessons in addition to their daily content curriculum in their post-COVID-19 in-person learning classrooms. Research has indicated the importance of SEL…

Project Explore targeted minority students in grades six through eight who attended 28 Houston Independent School District (HISD) middle schools during the 2019-2020 academic year. In 2019-2020, a total of 2,095 students were accepted for participation in the Project Explore program, and an additional 715 students were waitlisted for program…

There are many important questions teachers and administrators need to ask as they grapple with how to ensure high school graduates are college and career ready. What does it mean to prepare students for a world that is rapidly changing--a world in which science and technology are altering how we live, work, play, and interact? If teachers focus…

In Fall and Winter 2022-2023, the NSCAS assessments were administered in ELA and mathematics for grades 3-8. In Spring 2022-2023, the NSCAS assessments were administered in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics for grades 3-8 and in science for grades 5 and 8. The purposes of the NSCAS assessments are to measure and report Nebraska students'…

The purpose of the staff focus groups was to gather information about staff perspectives on the GEAR UP program, their experiences with the GEAR UP program, and their support for student college preparation. Most of the focus group participants across five GEAR UP campuses understood the GEAR UP program. Many staff provided positive comments about…

The overarching goal of the Common Core State Standards is to graduate students from P-12 schools who are college and career ready (CCR). School-university partnerships play an important role in preparing students, families, and teachers to achieve this goal. University partners can be especially helpful as children begin to imagine how they can…

Despite its promise to help teachers meet the needs of diverse learners, district usage of Achieve3000® among most students with access to it remains far below the optimal level necessary for them to realize literacy growth and college and career readiness. Only a tiny minority of students (402 out of about 111,000) seem to be engaging Achieve3000…

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore how college and career readiness teachers describe their lived experiences as they guide students from a K-12 district in Phoenix, toward their postsecondary aspirations. This study was derived from the funds of knowledge theory, status attainment theory, and social capital…

In 2013, the Arizona State University (ASU) Preparatory Academy (ASU Prep) was awarded an Investing in Innovation (i3) Grant through the U.S. Department of Education. The district applied with an ambitious grant designed to innovate programming for a total of six schools: two elementary (one Kindergarten through grade 5; one Kindergarten through…

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is a state-led consortium designed to create next-generation assessments that, compared to traditional K-12 assessments, more accurately measure student progress toward college and career readiness. The PARCC assessments are aligned to the Common Core State Standards…

Achieve3000®, a web-based differentiated reading program based on the Lexile® Framework and designed to improve student reading ability and comprehension of increasingly complex texts, was made available to approximately 100,000 secondary students across 98 HISD schools during the 2017-2018 academic year. The present evaluation, using a select…

The purpose of this technical report is to describe the third operational administration of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) assessments in the 2016-2017 academic year. PARCC is a state-led consortium creating next-generation assessments that, compared to traditional K-12 assessments, more accurately…

This report looks at student growth in Arkansas school districts disaggregated by district poverty and by the district's value-added performance relative to other districts. We estimated district value-added performance statistics by subject and grade level (8 and 11-12) for longitudinal student cohorts, using statistical models that adjusted for…

The College and Career Readiness Expansion project was a five-year, federally funded effort to implement early college strategies in comprehensive high schools. This report presents the results from a quasi-experimental impact study of the project and a mixed methods examination of its implementation. Results showed that the program increased the…