In April 2016, The Education Trust published Meandering Toward Graduation: Transcript Outcomes of High School Graduates. The report showcases the results of their analysis of high school transcripts to discover what students’ course-taking behavior reveals about their readiness—or lack thereof—for postsecondary education and careers.
In this paper, we [Matthew Gaertner, David Conley, and Paul Stoltz] attempt to clarify the readiness landscape. We introduce three readiness paradigms—the college readiness index for middle school students, the Conley Readiness Index, and GRIT—and review their goals, theoretical foundations, and empirical support.
This policy brief from EPIC discusses the United State’s bias toward college-going as the gold standard and how to counteract that singular mode of thinking. EPIC outlines why definitions of K–12 success should balance an emphasis on each C (college and career). EPIC also shows the related pitfalls of districts failing to attend to the issues that are most salient for their communities. To avoid those dangers, EPIC recommends democratizing postsecondary pathway access to ensure equity, localizing districts’ definitions of success to suit community needs, and personalizing educational experiences so students can become ready on their own terms.
Last week, PBS News Hour ran a weeklong series looking at innovations across the country that help more young people find their way through to a higher education degree or…
In 2014, the California Education Policy Fund (CEPF), with support from the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, awarded EPIC a 2-year contract to work with…
A college and career ready student possesses the content knowledge, strategies, skills, and techniques necessary to be successful in any of a range of postsecondary setting. Success is defined as the ability to complete entry-level courses at a level of performance that is sufficient to enable students to continue to the next courses in their chosen field of study. Not every student needs exactly the same knowledge and skills to be college and career ready. A student’s college and career interests help identify the precise knowledge and skills the student needs.
Written by EPIC Founder Dr. David Conley for the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) in June 2014.
This March 2013 primer from the American Institutes for Research (AIR) covers the transition from vocational education to career and technical education, “an educational strategy for providing young people with the academic, technical, and employability skills and knowledge to pursue postsecondary training or higher education and enter a career field prepared for ongoing learning.”
This study analyzed the relationship between eleventh and twelfth grade students’ postsecondary aspirations and their preparation for achieving those aspirations in a sample of 8106 high school students.
EPIC completed an alignment study on the Common Core State Standards. The study determines the extent of correspondence (alignment) between the exit level Common Core State Standards and each of five sets of existing standards.
