Transition: High School to College

This report describes how some of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s education grantees in Atlanta are working to increase the instances of students in the community moving on from secondary to postsecondary life. The author highlights the strategy known as "P-16" which aims to link education strategies from preschool through college graduation. Lessons learned provide insight for other communities undertaking this approach. This report would be most useful for state and community leaders working to graduate students prepared for postsecondary success.

This report provides a profile of 38 schools and details how these schools have implemented strategies to promote and advance college readiness. The report outlines each school, characteristics that make the school unique, and lessons learned from undertaking particular strategies. The report is organized into six sections: 1) alternative schools, 2) charter schools, 3) comprehensive schools, 4) early college high schools, 5) magnet schools, and 6) private schools. In several cases, schools may have utilized more than one strategy to achieve their goal.

In this conference paper, the author notes that good jobs require access to postsecondary education and training. There is a growing economic divide between adults with and without postsecondary education and training. The author recommends that policies be put into place that assist non-traditional students and students with barriers to access postsecondary education.

This study looks at reforms successfully sustained in four states – Texas, Indiana, Massachusetts, & South Carolina – to develop strategies and processes that can be implemented by others to achieve similar sustainability in their efforts of college- and career ready education reform. It discusses ten strategies used within these four states and summarizes the lessons learned from each.

This report suggests that school systems must do three things to get students on track for academic success: 1) adopt high but attainable college-readiness standards that minimize the odds that students will need remediation should they attend college; 2) make a K-12 curriculum based on those standards the default curriculum for all students regardless of socioeconomic background; and 3) get students on track to reach those standards in elementary school, as getting academically behind students up to high academic standards later is difficult and costly.

This brief from ACT illustrates that taking core work in high school does not guarantee the student will graduate or be prepared for life after high school. Further, it examines the gap between secondary and postsecondary education in the U.S. The author recommends a focus on successful strategies for eliminating this gap so that all high school graduates learn the essential skills they need to be successful in college and work.

This ACT research report looks at the effectiveness of encouraging students to take more rigorous college-prep courses as a means of improving high school student achievement. The author uses data from ACT's 8th, 10th and 11/12th grade tests and compares it to student ACT scores in English, math, science, and reading. The report concluded that taking additional college prep courses or advanced or honor courses did not significantly increase achievement of students post-high school.

This paper from the Center for Public Education is aimed at defining the educational skills needed in the 21st century. The author first outlines how the world is changing and the impacts on work and life. This includes automation of formerly human-performed tasks, globalization of the economy, and restructuring of traditional organizational hierarchies, along with a rapidly changing and more diverse demographic population who have more individual responsibility over their lives.