State-by-State

Students can look to report cards to understand how faculty regard their achievement and effort. Foundations, the news media, and public interest organizations use report cards to compare progress and highlight success over time on important facets of American life. We have report cards to assess how well states govern themselves, how healthy our children are or our oceans – even how accessible is the internet at home.
Since college-ready expectations should be defined at the state-level to permit the broadest possible student readiness, state comparisons are useful. Every year since 2005, Achieve has documented the progress, effort, and achievement of K-12, higher education, policymakers, and business in its annual survey of all 50 states. Specifically, the survey looks at how states:

• Align high school standards with college and workplace expectations;
• Align high school graduation requirements with college and workplace expectations;
• Administer college readiness tests to all high school students;
• Develop a P-20 longitudinal data system; and hold high schools accountable for getting graduating students college and career ready. 

Achieve’s annual report, Closing the Expectations Gap, depicts major trends and prevailing gaps in the alignment of high school exit expectations and those for college and career readiness. For instance, in just three short years, almost half of the states have adopted high school standards that are aligned with the expectations of college and industry – up from five when the survey first began. But these aligned standards are not likely to have consequences in the classroom if they are not embedded in high school assessments, which only nine states have accomplished to date.
Do you want to know how clear the college and career-ready signals are to high school students in your state? The College Pipeline Data Profiles assemble key indicators of postsecondary readiness. Download your state’s data profile and start a conversation with your campus community about the results. Use the indicators in this profile to ask, “Do we have a problem here?” “What will it take on our campus – and in our state – to give all students a better chance at leaving high school prepared for success in college or career?” and “What is our role in improving these indicators for next year?”
Inevitably, you will want to know, “Who has done this well, and how did they do it?” Case studies documenting work in Indiana, Kentucky, Georgia, and California complement the snapshots of progress. They explain the effort behind the comparative maps and dashboard indicators. You will see across these examples that progress has occurred because of the will and commitment of postsecondary education to collaborate for the good of students and the state as a whole. These case studies include answers to such questions as, “What was the vehicle for bringing high school and postsecondary faculty together?” “How did board members and legislators respond to their collaboration with supportive policies?” and “How long does this take anyway?”