Yesterday I wrote that President Obama was wrong to rename Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to “College- and Career-Ready Standards,” because, “it would allow states to abuse the phrase by adopting their own standards and certifying them as “college- and career-ready” without [the standards] actually meaning anything.”
Those fears are valid, according to a new report from Achieve. The report found that 31 states already have standards that are college- and career-ready. The report is quite good, and Achieve, through the excellent work of the American Diploma Project, is doing the difficult work of developing more challenging standards, state-by-state, but it also shows what can happen if you focus on standards without attaching meaning to them.
States have been much more willing to craft and certify standards as college- and career-ready than they have been to develop accountability mechanisms to back them up. Here’s how the states break down by the numbers:
- 31 states have college- and career-ready standards.
- 21 states attach some form of graduation requirement to those standards.
- 14 states have adopted assessments aligned to the standards.
- only 1 state has an accountability or reporting system that includes college- and career-readiness.
What these numbers show is that there’s a large disconnect between what states say they have in place and what they hold schools responsible for. It’s one thing for states to draft standards that are “college- and career-ready.” It’s another thing for them to write an assessment that measures it, and it’s something else entirely to hold schools accountable for whether they’re meeting the standards or not. A reauthorized ESEA needs to focus on levers to improve this last piece.
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5/11/2012 | Kevin Carey talks to Salon about the government's role in rising student debt.
5/8/2012 | Kevin Carey discusses the problem of rising tuition and student loan interest rates with The Nation. 
5/4/2012 | Stephen Burd talks to Education Week about student loan debt and help from Congress.
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At the opposite end of the spectrum, schools with the strongest student growth will receive some type of recognition and reward. The recognition could play a valuable role in spotlighting schools that “beat the poverty odds” and building public confidence that high goals really are in reach even for students who have often been allowed to underperform.
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