George Washington University, a private university with just over 10,000 undergraduate students, has recently announced that they will become a test (SAT/ACT) optional college for admissions. Other colleges have been test-optional for decades, but not many with the high profile or number of students like George Washington. Other test-optional colleges Read more
Chester Finn of Education Excellence has written a post on the Common Core Watch blog where he broaches the issue that many education professionals have been contemplating but not talking openly about much: are we actually going to get anything useful out of the first batch of Common Core aligned Read more
More and more states, communities, school districts, colleges and universities are focused on helping students get to and through college. Increasingly we understand that to have the strongest impact, K-12 and higher education must work together. Greater alignment and shared ownership of college readiness and success can lead to more Read more
Students in high-poverty schools lack the supports needed to become college ready, according to a report from CLASP. Course, Counselor, and Teacher Gaps: Addressing the College Readiness Challenge in High-Poverty High Schools analyzes the nation’s 100 largest school districts, focusing on “high-poverty schools” (where at least 75 percent of students Read more
The U.S. is on track for a 90 percent high school graduation rate by 2020 after hitting a record high 81 percent this year. That’s according to the GradNation campaign’s sixth annual report released by America’s Promise Alliance, the Alliance for Excellent Education and others. The 10 largest states, including Read more
The revised version of the SAT college entrance exam won’t be offered until March, but students can start preparing for it with a new, free online study program affiliated with the test. The College Board and Khan Academy are announcing a new partnership offering free online test preparation resources for Read more
Lifelong learning skills provide the foundation for learning and working. They broadly support student thinking, self-management, and social interaction, enabling the pursuit of education and career goals. Collectively, lifelong learning skills enable students to master academic content and translate knowledge into action. There is a growing consensus among researchers that Read more
As a result of changes in the global economy, educators, education researchers, and national and state policymakers have emphasized that students must graduate from high school “ready for college and career.” But opinions differ about what college and (especially) career readiness actually means and how best to assess it. ACT Read more
A recent Fordham Institute study is out with a new analysis of NAEP data showing that the percentage of college-ready high school seniors has been flat for 20 years. This is particularly disheartening given the importance placed on college readiness today. Even with flat results, there is an increasing “college Read more
The Committee for Economic Development of The Conference Board (CED) unveiled a video series that features business and education leaders discussing why college- and career-ready standards benefit students and employers. The series consists of three videos and is part of the nonpartisan, business-led public policy organization’s work to support the Read more
We have heard much in recent years about college readiness and the role that standards, particularly the Common Core, have to play preparing students for life after high school. But we have heard much less about how institutions of higher education are thinking about the changes of the Common Core, Read more
Often, it seems in schools that reform after reform is layered on with little thought to alignment or coherence. The Center on Great Teachers and Leaders is responding to that problem with a new special issues brief titled, A Framework for Coherence: College and Career Readiness Standards, Multi-Tiered Systems of Read more
Kevin Carey, director of the Education Policy Program at the New America Foundation, has a new book out this month called The End of College. This book was recently featured in the Washington Post. Carey casts a sweeping, if perhaps idealistic, vision of higher education in the future. First and foremost, Read more
States should focus more on setting high performance standards than on debating the content of their academic standards. This is according to a new report out from the American Institutes for Research. THE ISSUE Content standards, not performance standards, have been almost the sole focus of state policies and recent Read more
Les Francis & Bo Cutter of Real Clear Education have written a new piece about how we need to rethink education based on the way that jobs and the economy are likely to work in coming decades. Here is an excerpt from it: The organization of work that was the Read more
James S. Murphy of Princeton Review, writing for The Atlantic, recently penned an article about the new SAT based on new sample questions which the College Board released. Murphy is encouraged by the changes that the SAT is making away from its obscure vocabulary focus and away from abstract essays, Read more