Some folks use a chunk of August to relax in the hammock or get away to the beach, leaving all thoughts of work behind. Lucky for us, Stanford’s Mike Kirst doesn’t seem to be among them at the moment. On his blog, he’s put together a handy overview of the national conversation about college readiness, and identified some of the bumps in the road to getting all kids ready for higher education.
More about college readiness: signs that the Obama administration’s emphasis on post-high-school education is reaching the ground level even in the slow heat of summer.
Just today there were two bits in my inbox: The Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation is announcing a “College Ready Communities” initiative in New York City that seeks to connect improvement efforts at the middle and high school levels with neighborhood revitalization efforts. And ENLACE Florida teamed up with the Lumina Foundation, the Ad Council and the American Council on Education to launch a statewide college readiness campaign aimed at would-be first-generation college students who are now in grades 8 through 10. This comes on the heels of a recent report by the group calling on institutions of higher education to better support students so they finish their degrees.