Closing the Expectation Gap

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Closing theExpectation Gap

• Fourth Annual 50-State Progress Report on the
  Alignment of High School Policies with the
  Demands of College and Careers

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Develop College- and Career-ready Assessment
Systems
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The expectations gap

• In todays economy, all students need a
  challenging academic course of study to succeed
  in postsecondary education and to get a good job.
• But in many states, students can graduate from
  high school without having what it takes to
  continue learning or to earn a living wage.

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Closing the expectations gap

• To close this expectations gap, Achieve created
  the American Diploma Project Network.
• The Network includes 34 states that together
  educate nearly 85 percent of the nations public
  school students.
• Network states have committed to four policy
  actions to better prepare students for college,
  the workplace and citizenship.

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American Diploma Project Network agenda

• Align high school standards with the demands of
  college and careers.
• Require students to take a college- and
  career-ready curriculum to earn a high school
  diploma.
• Build college-and career-ready measures into
  statewide high school assessment systems.
• Develop reporting and accountability systems that
  promote college and career readiness.

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Core principles of college- and career-ready
assessment systems

• States need to develop comprehensive and coherent
  assessment systems that value and provide signals
  of college and career readiness and reflect the
  following five core principles
• Proficiency on the state assessment should mean a
  student is prepared for college and the
  workplace.
• High school test results should open doors for
  students to higher education and good jobs.
• Tests should assess the full range of college-
  and career-ready standards. Some of the essential
  skills that college faculty and employers value
  in high school graduates are difficult to measure
  via pencil-and-paper tests, requiring the
  addition of performance assessments in state
  assessment systems.
• Testing should support good teaching and become a
  tool for instructional improvement.
• Testing should be streamlined more testing is
  not the goal, smarter testing is.

For more information, go to www.achieve.org/measur
esthatmatter
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Streamline assessments to ensure that students
graduate college and career ready

• States should
• Require all students to take anchor assessments
  tests anchored to the states college- and
  career-ready expectations to signal a students
  readiness for college-level work and training
  programs.
• Administer the college- and career-ready tests
  before senior year, providing high schools with
  time to provide additional support to help
  students fill any skills gaps before they
  graduate.
• If the tests adequately measure students mastery
  of college- and career-ready content, develop
  policies that facilitate the use of these test
  results by postsecondary institutions for course
  placement.

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Currently, most state testing systems do not
assess college and career readiness

• NCLB requires every state to administer reading,
  math science assessments to high school
  students at least once during grades 10-12.
• Over half of states require students to pass an
  exam or a series of exams before they graduate
  high school.
• Yet only a handful of states have testing systems
  that include measures of college and career
  readiness.

Source Center on Education Policy, State High
School Exit Exams Working to Raise Test Scores,
September 2007 Source Achieve Closing the
Expectations Gap An Annual 50-State Progress
Report on the Alignment of High School Policies
with the Demands of College and Careers, 2009.
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How challenging are state exit exams?

• Achieve conducted a study of graduation exams in
  six states to determine how high a bar the tests
  set for students.
• The results show that these tests tend to measure
  only 8th, 9th or 10th grade content, rather than
  the skills students needs to succeed in college
  and the workplace.

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The tests Achieve analyzed
Source Achieve, Inc., Do Graduation Tests
Measure Up? A Closer Look at State High School
Exit Exams, 2004.
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Students can pass state math tests knowing
content typically taught in 7th and 8th grade
internationally
Grade when most international students cover
contentrequired to pass state math tests
FL MD MA
NJ OH TX
Source Achieve, Inc., Do Graduation Tests
Measure Up? A Closer Look at State High School
Exit Exams, 2004.
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Taking readiness tests in high school helps
students succeed
Percentage who say giving students college
placement tests as juniors would improve
students chances of success
Source Peter D. Hart Research Associates/Public
Opinion Strategies, Rising to the Challenge Are
High School Graduates Prepared for College and
Work? prepared for Achieve, Inc., 2005.
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A few states currently do use high school test
results for college placement decisions

• Ten states administer high school assessments
  also used by higher education to place incoming
  students.
• End-of-course one state
• New York
• Comprehensive high school assessments three
  states
• California, Georgia and Texas
• College admissions tests the ACT or SAT six
  states
• Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan
  and Tennessee
• Twenty-three states report plans to build
  college- and career-ready assessments into their
  statewide testing system.

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Ten states with college- and career-ready
assessments
Tests in Place
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Twenty-three states are developing or planning
college- career-ready tests
Planning Tests
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ADP Assessment Consortium

• The ADP Assessment Consortium was launched to
• provide a common and consistent measure of
  student performance across states over time,
• improve Algebra I II curriculum and
  instruction, and
• serve as an indicator of readiness for
  first-year, credit-bearing mathematics courses in
  college.
• Since the Consortium began in 2005, 15 states
  have joined, making it the largest multistate
  assessment consortium ever undertaken.
• The ADP Algebra II end-of-course exam was given
  for the first time in spring 2008 to nearly
  90,000 students. A few states administered the
  test to all students enrolled in Algebra II,
  while most states offered the test on a pilot
  basis, giving many educators a first look at the
  expectations of a rigorous assessment.

For more on the Consortium and the first
multistate test administration, see
www.achieve.org/2008Algebra2report.
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States in the ADP Assessment Consortium
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College- and Career-Ready Policy Institute

• Led by Achieve, the Data Quality Campaign, the
  EducationCounsel, Jobs for the Future and the
  National Governors Association Center for Best
  Practices, the College- and Career-Ready Policy
  Institute was launched in 2008 to support eight
  states put K-12 assessment and accountability
  systems in place that will ensure that all
  students graduate from high school college- and
  career-ready.

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States in the College Career-Ready Policy
Institute
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What it will take to build college- and
career-ready measures into a state assessment
system

• States need to align their K12 standards with
  college and career expectations first.
• Then they need to incorporate college readiness
  assessments into their high schools testing by
• Creating a series of end-of-course exams, which
  allows states to tie tests closely to the
  curriculum and ensure consistency of course
  content and rigor statewide
• Adapting 11th grade assessments to include more
  challenging content or
• Incorporating college admissions tests (ACT, SAT)
  into their testing systems, while ensuring that
  the exam is aligned with state standards.

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What can we expect?

• Implementation takes time and effort. States
  must
• Monitor efforts.
• Communicate effectively.
• Invest resources wisely.
• Use data to protect investment.

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These efforts matter

• All students need and deserve to be prepared for
  success in both postsecondary education and the
  labor market.
• This is not easy work but this is possible
  and this effort is essential.

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