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Conclusion |
This analysis of secondary-postsecondary alignment issues suggests some
clear directions that campus, system, and state policy leaders must take to improve the success of students in the educational pipeline. These efforts will
be more successful if they take place as part of broader K-16 initiatives—efforts that include early outreach to high school students, improved student
financial aid policies, development of the teacher workforce, and better data and accountability systems. They also will be more successful when campuses
work to improve the experiences students have after they arrive—the full range of institutional policies and practices that support positive student
outcomes. Increasing secondary-postsecondary alignment itself represents a straightforward and promising means to promote student success in the postsecondary
educational pipeline. States, universities, and schools know what must be done and many are moving forward with innovative approaches. It is time to take
these approaches from the margins to the mainstream across the nation.
State leaders should promote a policy framework that:
• Raises and clarifies expectations for entering freshmen by articulating statewide coursework requirements for college admissions and the knowledge and skills
needed to succeed in college.
• Aligns high school exit, college admissions, and college placement assessments.
• Includes “early warning” systems for postsecondary readiness.
• Makes postsecondary options a statewide issue and develops policies that encourage participation of middle- and lower-achieving groups.
• Supports K-16 structures that encourage seamless educational systems.
• Improves data systems to gauge student success and program effectiveness.
State colleges and universities and their leaders have a definite role to play in advancing these priorities. They should:
• Partner systemwide/statewide to develop a basic set of high school coursework and standards for what students should know and be able to do to
succeed in the first year of college and broadly communicate these expectations.
• Analyze at the system/state level how state high school assessments and college entrance exams align with college placement exams and collaborate
with test developers and others to promote greater seamlessness and reduce duplication among assessments (e.g., by incorporating elements of college admissions
and placement exams in high school exit exams).
• Audit institutional participation in postsecondary options programs by identifying policies and practices that encourage student participation.
• Improve data systems (e.g. compatibility between secondary and postsecondary institutions) and better utilize existing data (e.g. feedback reports
to high schools regarding performance and remediation of first-year students).
• Participate actively in K-16 collaboratives and encourage their enhancement or formation where they are weak or do not exist.
All stakeholders have a great opportunity—and responsibility—to act now to increase the effectiveness of the educational system, and ultimately,
the nation’s competitive position in the global economy. As AASCU’s Public Policy Agenda makes clear, state colleges and universities, in particular,
can and must act to deliver America’s promise—to promote public policy that expands educational opportunity and seals the cracks in the educational
pipeline. |
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Appendix A
Appendix B |
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