Ready for Success Blog

College- and Career-Readiness Are the Core of the Common Core

The Common Core State Standards for students (Common Core) present a range of college- and career-ready standards that emphasize reading, writing, listening and speaking. The standards also present rigorous mathematics standards that, if mastered, will ensure a student is ready to engage in college-level or work-specific mathematical calculations. Since the release on June 2 of this year, the Common Core has been adopted by 23 states.

Getting Ready for College- and Career-Readiness

The term “college- and career-ready”, which has been part of education discourse for at least 5 years now, recently has taken center stage. Though references to college- and career-readiness are ubiquitous these days, such as in the U.S. Department of Education’s ESEA Blueprint for Reform, there are few explicit definitions for what it means to be college- and career-ready.

Longitudinal Data Add to High School Improvement

Since 2005, the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES) has awarded more than $400 million in discretionary grants to 41 states and the District of Columbia to help state education agencies design, develop, and implement state longitudinal data systems (SLDSs).

Usable Data for High School Students, Parents and Teachers: An Example from Florida’s FACTS.org

Periodically, we will provide examples of programs the U.S. Department of Education, state and local education agencies, and individual schools are implementing to improve secondary education. In doing so, the National High School Center is sharing information, not endorsing programs or entities.

Raising the Bar and Ensuring that All Students Vault Over It

On June 2, 2010, the National Governor’s Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers released the long-anticipated Common Core State Standards, a common set of internationally benchmarked college- and career-ready standards designed to ensure that the nation’s students are prepared to compete in the changing global economy.

Seeing High Schools in a Broader Context

Decades of research have shown that what happens in the home and community impacts students at school, and what occurs at school impacts students’ home and community experiences. Thus, it stands to reason that students who attend chronically low-performing high schools will benefit from comprehensive, responsive systems that cut across multiple policy and social service domains, including education and health and human services.[1]

High School Matters Editorial Team

Joseph R. Harris, Ph.D., is the Director of the National High School Center and a Managing Research Analyst for the American Institutes for Research. In addition to his extensive role in providing school improvement technical assistance at the federal, state, district and school levels, Dr. Harris has a strong background in STEM education reform as both a practitioner and researcher/evaluator, and more than two decades of experience as an administrator and high school teacher in an urban public school environment.

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