As states press hard to ensure that all students graduate from high school ready for college or good jobs, many are hobbled by the very accountability systems they designed to leverage improvement, according to a report released last week.
The study, by Achieve, argues that in reporting K-12 performance to the public, states often aren’t including factors that matter the most in college readiness. It finds wide variation, for example, in how many states report the proportion of students completing a college-readiness curriculum (15 states), how many report the share of students who are “on track” to graduate (seven states), and how many report the proportion who are earning college credit in high school (22 states).
And, in states that gave PARCC or Smarter Balanced, or required the SAT or ACT, the proportion of students who reach college-readiness benchmarks varies widely, but rarely goes over 60 percent, the report finds.
