New Report: Moving Beyond AYP: High School Performance Indicators

Posted by on August 10, 2009

Leveraging the indicators of college and career readiness

In light of widespread recognition that U.S. high schools are inadequately preparing students for college and careers, a new policy brief from the Alliance for Education looks at the research on a number of high school performance indicators that have emerged as being predictive of high school graduation and college and career readiness. These include attendance, course success, on-track-to-graduation status, course-taking patterns, success on college- and career-ready assessments, postsecondary success rates, and school climate. “Given the demand for data-driven, innovative, systemic reform that leads to college and career readiness for all students,” it writes, federal policymakers should leverage these indicators through a number of actions. In particular, it recommends that federal policymakers establish graduation and college and career readiness as the goal for all students and high schools; improve national indicators for measuring college- and career-ready graduation; reinvent accountability and school improvement to include multiple high school performance indicators; invest in state and local systems to collect, analyze, and communicate data, including high school performance indicators; build the capacity of educators and education leaders to use high school performance indicators; and invest in research activities to inform the use of various high school performance indicators.

Read more: http://www.all4ed.org/files/SPIMovingBeyondAYP.pdf