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Using College and Career Readiness to Plan and Implement ESSA

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides an opportunity for states to operationalize their college and career readiness vision, in support of the key tenets of ESSA.  States, many of which have already implemented policies and initiatives supporting student college and career readiness by focusing on academic knowledge, social-emotional learning, and employability skills, have an opportunity to develop a more coherent college and career readiness approach.  The CCRS Center provides a framework to help states align their college and career readiness definitions with relevant policy provisions under ESSA into one cohesive strategy. The framework is grouped into three interrelated policy areas under ESSA—career readiness, postsecondary pipelines and meaningful data use.

The CCRS Center offers technical assistance resources and guidance to help states and districts to develop  coherent visions and strategies of CCR that are aligned with ESSA.

ESSA supports academic and nonacademic components of states’ CCR definitions via two key inputs to a well-rounded education: (1) enriched, accelerated curricula and educational experiences; and (2) improved conditions for learning.

Supports for transitions from secondary to postsecondary education and career pathways are some approaches states can adopt to ensure mastery of academic standards is meaningful for all students and aligned with postsecondary entrance requirements as required by ESSA.

ESSA supports a shift to accountability systems that yield data that can be more readily used by educators and parents at the local level to track progress toward CCR and to provide educators with more user-friendly and actionable data.