CCRS Center Year 1 in Review

This week marks the official end of the first year of the College and Career Readiness and Success Center (CCRS Center). The mission of the CCRS Center is to serve the federally funded regional centers in building the capacity of states across the nation to effectively implement initiatives for college and career readiness and success. Through technical assistance and interactive learning communities, the CCRS Center provides customized support to states and promotes knowledge development and collaboration.

Our first year has been busy! Some of the highlights of the year include:

• New Products and Tools. The CCRS Center has released a number of products and tools in Year 1, including:
  • College and Career Readiness and Success: Inventory of Policies, Programs, and Initiatives. This inventory, based on the College and Career Development Organizer, is designed to help users catalog policies, programs, and initiatives that support students on their pathways to success in college and careers.
  • Improving College and Career Readiness for Students with Disabilities. This issue brief is designed to help state policymakers develop a better understanding of strategies to prepare students with disabilities and special needs for postsecondary success.
  • Improving College and Career Readiness by Incorporating Social and Emotional Learning. This issue brief was developed to provide state policymakers with important considerations for leveraging social and emotional learning (SEL) to help students become college and career ready.
  • The District Role in Supporting College and Career Readiness for Students. This brief profiles three large school districts that have initiated district-wide, systemic approaches to college and career readiness and success and provides examples of opportunities to scale up the practices recommended in the IES Practice Guide, Helping Students Navigate the Path to College.
  • How Career and Technical Education Can Help Students Be College and Career Ready: A Primer. This brief provides an overview of the evolution of career and technical education (CTE) in the United States, describes what CTE looks like in practice, and highlights issues educators and policymakers face when implementing CTE along with promising practices that have emerged to address these challenges.
• Ready for Success Blog. The CCRS Center Ready for Success blog provides weekly posts about CCRS-related policy conversations and current events as well as guest posts from CCRS partners sharing products and tools.
• CCRS Center Webinars. The CCRS Center has hosted a series of webinars this year that are archived on the CCRS Center website. Concise webinar summaries and follow up Q&A by presenters are available on the Ready for Success blog.
• Online Resource Database. The CCRS Center has an online, searchable resource database of CCRS-related research, tools, and products.

Check back tomorrow for an overview of our plans for the upcoming year.

Kathryn Balestreri is a Research Assistant with the College and Career Readiness and Success Center.