As states continue to evolve and implement their accountability and public reporting systems in 2016 and beyond, they have an opportunity to select indicators that inform continuous improvement, guide decisions about resource allocation, inform policies, capture progress, and factor into accountability determinations. Achieve and Advance CTE have…

Ensuring that students graduate high school prepared for college and careers has become a national priority in the last decade. To support this goal, states have adopted rigorous college and career readiness (CCR) standards in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics. Additionally, states have begun to require students to pass assessments, in…

This report highlights states' school accountability systems, with an eye on the states that include a measure of student growth in their accountability system. For each state, the report includes: (1) Proficiency measures; (2) Growth measures; and (3) Additional measures such as graduation and dropout rates. The report also provides an overview…

States across the nation are turning their aspirations for college and career readiness for all students into action. They are moving beyond policy and practice centered on a floor--aiming for students to attain minimal proficiency on basic academic standards--to a new focus on ensuring that all students develop the capacity to demonstrate mastery…

Graduation rates and requirements for earning a regular diploma are topics of increasing interest as states focus on ensuring that their students are college and career ready when they leave school with a diploma. To ensure that states are gauging the rates at which students are graduating in a consistent way, the Elementary and Secondary…

One of the most enduring and contentious debates in education circles concerns the best way to hold schools and districts accountable for improving outcomes for students and closing achievement gaps. Lawmakers, teachers, district administrators, parents, and other stakeholders--all with strong and differing opinions--have wrestled for decades with…

The Common Core State Standards and the attendant assessments being developed by state consortia create a tremendous opportunity and simultaneous challenge for state boards of education. Many of the issues apply to all boards, even those in states that have not adopted the standards or assessments. Boards will need to think carefully about the…

This report focused on the extent to which students who are academically far off track in preparing for college can catch up in four years. We studied multiple cohorts of students in eighth grade whose EXPLORE[R] scores were more than one standard deviation below the EXPLORE benchmark scores associated with being on track. We found that 10 percent…

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…

The common core state standards, which have now been adopted by 46 states and the District of Columbia, were designed around the goal of ensuring college and career readiness for all students. In this article, Rothman discusses research showing that a large proportion of U.S. high school graduates are ill-prepared to succeed in college or a…

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…

This eighth annual report has taken a directional change from prior years where the primary aim was preparing students to graduate from high school. The new focus is on the K-12 alignment where, at the direction of 48 states, the National Governors Association, and the Council of Chief State School Officers, the Common Core State Standards were…

The 44th annual PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools showed some sharp divisions among the public's attitude toward the public schools, but also some hopeful signs of broad agreement in some areas. Satisfaction with President Barack Obama declined in the last year, but remains ahead of two years ago and the public…

This report is the ACT annual report on the progress of U.S. high school graduates relative to college readiness. This year's report shows that 64% of students in the 2016 US graduating class took the ACT test, up from 59% in 2015 and 49% in 2011. The increased number of test takers over the past several years enhances the breadth and depth of the…

Recent years have seen the pace of change in education accelerate at all levels as educators and policy makers instigate reforms aimed at raising academic achievement in the United States to a world-class level. Perhaps nowhere has the pace and scale of change been more dramatic than in the realm of K-12 academic standards. In 2009, 48 states, two…