College & Career

This article from the April 2012 issue of Educational Leadership summarizes the history of research into college & career readiness skills & standards and identifies steps schools can take to promote college & career readiness within their communities.

Standards Alone Not Enough to Prepare Students for College and Careers

Apparantly, not all states that have adopted Common Core or other college-ready standards have aligned required courses to meet these standards and/or have allowed students to opt out of some of the requirements.  The Education Trust finds this problmatic.  I find this bizarre.  First, how will students meet the standards if their coursework is not aligned with them?  Secondly, the Education Trust points out that this creates two different "types" of high school diplomas.  Shouldn't all diplomas be created equal?

Attendance & College-Readiness

Again from the desk of Corey Bower: Attendance--In-School or Non-School Problem.  He doesn't touch on the concept of college-readiness, but his post begs the question of how college-ready standards and behaviors would treat chronic absenteeism.  If we are going to teach students the skills and habits of mind they need to be successful in post-secondary education (or work, for that matter), don't they a) need to show up for those lessons and b) be directly taught that attendance matters?  The school where I work has very good attendance, but the students who are chronically late and/or absent haven't gotten the message that attendance is critical.  How can we communicate this more effectively in the context of college & career-ready teaching?

_________________ Shouldn't Attend College?

Currently, my personal opinion is that college isn't right for everyone.  BUT as a teacher, it is not my place to be the college gatekeeper.  Everyone should have the opportunity to pursue a college degree.

Corey Bower, blogger at Thoughts on Education Policy, posted this piece in 2010 entitled "___________ Shouldn't Attend College" in response to a New York Times article arguing for a social-efficiency-based perspective on who should go to college and whether college is economically worthwhile for all students.  Both pieces, along with Bower's Education Roundtable discussion on the topic raise issues of equity, access, and value that are worth considering as college-readiness becomes the end goal of the public K-12 system.

Should all students attend college?  If not, who shouldn't?  And where does a "college-ready" education leave them?

How is Maryland Doing?

Are Maryland's students college and career ready?  Here's what the Southern Regional Education Board has to say on the subject.

Do I hafta go to college?!?

The Innovative Educator blog gives another perspective of the value (or lack thereof?) of college education.

WHAT IS COLLEGE- AND CAREER- READY?

Here's another synopsis of what it means to be college and career ready.

A Complete Definition of College & Career Readiness

This brief pamphlet defines "college readiness" and gives a broad picture of the kinds of skills students need in order to be considered "college-ready" when they graduate from high school.

Click here for the pamphlet.