SouthCarolina_Toolkit

South Carolina College and Career Readiness Toolkit

The South Carolina College and Career Readiness Toolkit was designed to foster conversation among leaders from school districts and higher education about what it means to be college and career ready, and to help develop action plans for new and strengthened partnerships. The Center of Excellence for College and Career Readiness (the Center) worked with the Educational Policy Improvement Center (EPIC) to develop these materials in support of statewide comprehensive planning efforts. The toolkit has some information specific to South Carolina, but can serve as a model for all states and districts wishing to implement a comprehensive college and career readiness action plan.

Defining a New North Star: Aligning LCAPs to College and Career Readiness

In this policy brief, EPIC recommends that college and career readiness serve as the “North Star” in California’s recently reformed accountability system. A district seeking to use its Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) to promote a college- and career-going culture should take the following steps:

• Adopt, modify, or generate a consistent and shared definition of college and career readiness.
• Evaluate the current LCAP for alignment to that definition.
• Revise the LCAP to align with college and career readiness as its new North Star.

By following these steps, district leaders will help ensure that the goals and actions outlined in their LCAP describe a coherent system instead of a collection of eight competing priorities.