Education Sector Report Links High School Accountability To College Readiness And Success

Washington, D.C.—The goal of helping all students become college- and career-ready has become a focal point for U.S. schools and has led to a recent movement to improve high schools. But determining how to measure that goal is a challenge, with most accountability systems failing to recognize how well high schools are preparing students for future success.

In a new Education Sector report, College- and Career-Ready: Using Outcomes Data to Hold High Schools Accountable for Student Success, author Chad Aldeman calls for a new approach to high school accountability. He argues that the best way to measure whether students are prepared for college or a career is by looking at what actually happens when students arrive at their intended destination. Do they go to college, and, once there, do they need to take remedial courses? Do their grades reflect an ability to do college-level work? If they don’t go to college, are they able to find gainful employment?

In recent years, states have adopted more rigorous academic standards, increased graduation requirements, and improved access to advanced courses. Yet accountability systems are lagging far behind. Under the federal No Child Left Behind law (NCLB), for example, most high schools are rated on only two measures: graduation rates and student scores on basic skills tests given in a single year (usually ninth or 10th grade).

“Tests and other proxy measures can offer only a limited snapshot of what students know and can do,” Aldeman notes. As a result, high schools that meet NCLB accountability measures do not always graduate students who are ready to succeed.

The report cites examples of schools that did make “adequate yearly progress” (AYP) under NCLB, yet whose students were not successful in college. At the same time, other schools that did not make AYP nonetheless graduated students who were prepared for college—earning good grades and successfully completing their first year.

Many states already have the tools to do a better job of measuring college- and career-readiness. “Florida, Oregon, and Ohio are among states that have built powerful new data systems that track student progress after high school into the work force and college, allowing vital information to flow between K–12, higher education, and work-force information systems,” Aldeman says.

The report offers suggestions on ways states could use existing data systems to create richer, more multi-dimensional measures of high school success.