"Making Career Readiness Count 3.0" provides an analysis of how the 50 states and the District of Columbia are including and incentivizing measures of career readiness in their new accountability systems under ESSA, as well as an analysis of state-level accountability systems in states with dual systems. This report is the result of a…

This report, released by Education Reform Now and the Alliance for Excellent Education, finds that the "12" in K-12 education may be unnecessary for nearly a quarter of high school students. The report introduces two accelerated pathways for college-ready juniors that would provide meaningful access to full-time, college-level…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS), which aim to assure competency in English/language arts and mathematics through the K-12 curriculum, define necessary but not sufficient preparedness for success in college. The Degree Qualifications Profile (DQP), which describes what a college degree should signify, regardless of major, offers useful but…

In recent years, the education spotlight in the United States has shifted from high school graduation to postsecondary success, along with the recognition that to thrive in today's economy requires more than just a high school diploma. Also, while prior research has focused on after-school and higher-education collaborations with districts, there…

Leaders engaged in Massachusetts' public higher education system--including at community colleges, state universities, and UMass--have demonstrated their strong commitment to improvement in recent years. The state Department of Higher Education's Vision Project is focused on reforms necessary to "produce the best educated citizenry and…

In this project, I propose an alternate rhetorical strategy for literacy educators (K-16) seeking to enter debates over common standards for "college- and career-readiness" in literacy. I argue that the NCTE's current strategy fails to invite public participation in debate, and to remedy this situation, I suggest educators employ…

At a time when more high schools are looking to their graduates' college-remediation rates as a clue to how well they prepare students for college and careers, new research findings suggest a significant portion of students who test into remedial classes don't actually need them. Separate studies from Teachers College, Columbia University, and the…

CTE works! That was the recurring theme that attendees heard at the 2012 National Policy Seminar (NPS) hosted by ACTE. For those new to the event and lobbying, a pre-conference workshop, "Learning the Ropes of Washington CTE Advocacy," laid out the basics of Hill advocacy. Veteran CTE advocates were offered a basics-plus session,…

After passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015, states assumed greater responsibility for designing their own accountability and assessment systems. ESSA requires states to measure "higher order thinking skills and understanding" and encourages the use of open-ended performance assessments, which are essential for…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) opened up new possibilities for how student and school success are defined and supported in American public education. States have greater responsibility for designing and building their assessment and accountability systems. These new opportunities to develop performance assessments are critically important…

These are exciting times in American education. While higher education has been preoccupied with its own challenges, its colleagues in K-12 have been adopting new standards, building new assessments and curricula, and redefining success for America's schools. For decades, the end-goal and primary success measure of most school systems was high…

Today's economy demands that "all" young people develop high-level literacy, quantitative reasoning, problem solving, communication and collaboration skills, all grounded in a rigorous, content-rich K-12 curriculum. Acquiring this knowledge and these skills ensures that high school graduates are academically prepared to pursue the…

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…

Assessments matter in education. Testing is nothing new; tests have been around as long as school itself. However, over the last 15 years, state assessments have grown to be an increasingly central, and often controversial, part of schooling. As states raise their standards, it is more important than ever to ask: What is a high-quality assessment?…

Although the phrase "college and career readiness" has been in circulation since the mid-2000s, it has become nearly ubiquitous in discussions about K-12 and postsecondary education, especially in the last two years. In spring 2010 an unprecedented collaboration led to the development of the "Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing," an…