College Readiness Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

With recent calls for increases in the number of postsecondary credentialed citizens, refocusing attention toward more informed,
solution-oriented college readiness activities has become
necessary. A few specific foci are to improve the transition from
high school to postsecondary education by addressing issues
such as limiting the number of developmental education courses
through aligned curriculum approaches; minding the high schoolto-
college alignment gap through advising, support, outreach, and
exposure initiatives; and facilitating and accelerating students’
progress toward college. The result of these various activities is
full system alignment, whereby high school and postsecondary
systems collaborate through shared alignment of instruction and
advising, shared information and/or data to assess alignment
impact, and shared authority and power to ensure both systems’
needs are met.

The scope of this research report is not to introduce new
activities associated with college readiness, but rather to provide
an overview of existing ones, including exemplars of national best
practices. Indeed, many efforts to align PK-12 and postsecondary
systems exist, including activities targeting college and career
initiatives, discipline-specific efforts, foundational advising
and structures, as well as professional development. However,
this report presents a short analysis of several key national best
practices at the high school level that target learner-centered
and gap-minding activities in three major areas: Catch-Up,
Outreach-Exposure, and Speed-Up. The Catch-Up activities
are those specific to the needs of high school students who are
not considered on track for postsecondary studies. Outreach-
Exposure activities are those that assist target student populations
with understanding college expectations and requirements,
including navigating the space between the secondary and
postsecondary systems. Speed-Up activities allow for advanced
students to begin earning college credits while still enrolled in
high school.

Postsecondary institutions do not all share the same collegeready
expectations and definitions, nor do they explain them.
Thus, it is important to note that these three categories are not
necessarily mutually exclusive. In other words, what may be
implemented as a Speed-Up activity in one high school context
could also serve to help students identified as underprepared to
Catch-Up in another context.

Although the focus of the three broad categories represented
in this document is on activities implemented within high school,
ultimately the goal is for more widespread, cross-system efforts for
bridging gaps between high school and college. Thus, one goal for
this document is to begin facilitating conversations toward System
Alignment or specific implementations of these various transition
activities at institution or district levels for purposes of informed,
collaborative, context-specific reform.

Although defining college readiness and exploring informed
transition efforts is a complex and difficult matter, each of the
three activity analyses revealed distinct characteristics attributed
to their designation as college readiness efforts. Three significant
characteristics identified were ensuring equality, honoring context,
and fostering collaboration. Discussion of these characteristics
is included in this report as areas of consideration for designing,
supporting, or implementing college-readiness transition efforts.
First, with respect to ensuring equality, in all three transition
areas (Catch-Up, Speed-Up, and Outreach-Exposure), it is
important to note that access to college does not necessarily
guarantee success in college. And, given that the two focal areas
for educational reform currently are college readiness (access) and
college completion (success), we must consider approaches that
consider these two as working together, not working in isolation.
For instance, for students who may benefit from catching up,
getting on track is not enough because reaching the expected
level only allows for the potential of access. Aiming for success
in college, defined as completion, requires that students must be
propelled forward as well. Similarly, Outreach-Exposure activities
also provide access to college, specifically by trying to close
the college-going gap for student populations who tend to be
academically marginalized, but without continued support, access
may not result in success.

Second, despite many attempts to define the construct, a
single universal definition of college readiness simply does not
exist. Individual states have varying expectations and methods to
measure and assess college readiness, and individual systems and
institutions have varying missions, goals, and learner populations.
Therefore, these local contexts must be honored; otherwise,
identifying transition activities amounts to little more than a
cafeteria-style approach.

Finally, some of the most impactful transition efforts appear
to be the System Alignment activities which are highly localized
collaborations, often between higher education institutions and
high schools located in the same geographic area. Such efforts
honor the local context by bringing together high school teachers
and college faculty to better understand the challenges of student
transitions between the sectors.

The reality is that, in isolation, many of these activities would
not be impactful; however, through well-considered collaboration
and multiple touch points, true system alignment can be achieved.