Industry-Based College and Career Readiness

Reposted from EdSource:

Ensuring schools are adequately preparing students for careers is just as important as ensuring they prepare students for college, says a new paper that proposes districts add specific career-readiness measures, such as the number of students who complete work-based learning programs, to their accountability plans to the public. “Developing strong, supportive pathways that incorporate both college- and career-ready skills is our best bet for ensuring students will find their way to a productive future,” said the paper, released Tuesday by the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education, or SCOPE.

The report provides three recommendations for career preparation measures that schools should include in their Local Control and Accountability Plans, or LCAPs. The plans, required under the state’s Local Control Funding Formula for school districts, require districts to outline how they will meet eight educational priority areas mandated by the state. One of those areas requires districts to ensure that all students have access to classes preparing them for college and careers.

The report’s authors based their recommendations on a review of college and career measures in a number of states. The paper recommends that accountability plans include:

• The proportion of students who complete career preparation programs that blend college-preparatory academics with workplace training;

• The proportion of students who complete work-based learning experiences; and

• The proportion of students who demonstrate they have a set of skills and knowledge in a certain field, such as those who obtain industry-approved work certificates upon high school graduation, or those who earn “virtual badges” certifying they are proficient in certain areas.

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Colleges’ Late-to-the-Party Scramble to Get Ready for Common Core

Reposted from Washington Monthly:

“Even though the Common Core has been promoted as a means of better preparing America’s children for college and careers, the people who run higher education have, for the most part, gotten involved only late in the process, they and others say. Despite years of blaming each other for precisely the lack of preparation among students that the Common Core is supposed to address, educators at the various levels of the education system have proven tough to bring together. Everybody at the table is thinking, ‘Why should I spend my resources? Why should I spend my time? Am I going to get an award for my work? What’s in it for me?’”

But their comparative absence until now was not a big surprise to Anand Vaishnav, a senior consultant at Education First and project manager of the Core to College initiative, a network of 11 states – Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington – that are trying to align their primary and secondary schools with higher education.

“These sectors are completely different, with completely different cultures and leaders and governing structures and incentives, and the lines aren’t always clear,” said Vaishnav. “The Common Core is a great way to put an end to the blame game.”

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So, What’s Your Answer?

What percentage of Philadelphia Public Schools graduates will go on to graduate from college? Watch the video (4:19) to find out the answer, and then here’s MY question for you:

How important is it for high school graduates to attend college to be ready to take on their future?

Given a job market flooded with unemployed college graduates and the escalating debt many carry with them, is a college degree the prerequisite for success as it was once assumed to be?