Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Leaving our high schoolers behind.

Do read this analysis by Chad Aldeman of Education Sector on why it might be that NAEP scores have improved over the long term for younger students but not older ones. It is likely the same trends hold in your own districts, and if so—or if not—this would be a great national issue to localize in a story. One thing I wonder: Has anyone looked at the connection, or lack thereof, between whether a state has a high-stakes graduation exams and whether its graduates are truly ready for college (perhaps indicated by percent in remediation at college)?

1 comment:

  1. I have not studied the research (if any exists) on the relationship between high stakes test data and "readiness for college", but I would love to read someone's analysis of what different constituent groups consider to be "college readiness". My guess is that faculty from the arts and humanities may have a different perception from those in the natural and physical sciences and those individuals probably differ from social science or professional school faculty's opinions. If high school teachers were polled, they would probably differ from school counselors and they may all have different definitions of college readiness from parents and future employers. The remediation figure that you posit as a marker may work for some institutions, but those figures are based on such wildly varying entry requirements that I'm not sure how useful such a comparison would be. Thoughts from others on this?

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