Tag: Defining College Readiness

College And K-12 Leaders Struggle To Define College Readiness

The meaning of “college readiness” was recently debated by K-12 and collegiate leaders from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), one of two federally funded state-assessment consortia, over what definition would delineate performance levels on its tests in 2014-15, writes Catherine Gewertz in Education Week. Three hours of discussion couldn’t produce consensus for a draft approval statement, which would deem “college-ready” students scoring at “Level 4” or above on a five-level test. Level 4 would be pegged to “proficient” on the NAEP, and be set so that 75 percent of students reaching that level would earn Cs in entry-level, credit-bearing courses in English composition and literature, or college algebra and introductory statistics. Debate also revolved around proposed language to describe level of mastery. Some questioned the description of high-scoring high school students as “very likely to succeed,” since many factors come into play for college success that won’t be gauged by the PARCC assessment, such as persistence and motivation. Despite the disagreements and further revisions needed, leaders around the table agreed the conversation is important. “How powerful to have higher ed. and K-12 sitting together on this,” said Mitchell Chester, commissioner of education in Massachusetts and the chairman of PARCC’s governing board. “That is huge.”
Read more: http://tinyurl.com/848rsf4  Source: PEN Newsblast