“The Promise of Proficiency: How College Proficiency Information Can Help High Schools Drive Student Success”

According to this report by the Center for American Progress, high schools have shifted their focus from simply graduating students to preparing them for college and career success. However, many schools lack the data and measurement tools needed to demonstrate their college proficiency rate -- or how well their students are doing the year after high school. Without this information, they must rely on anecdotes at best and guesswork at worst.

In order to solve this problem, the report argues that the federal government should capitalize on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which calls for improved data systems and college proficiency reporting. The authors recommend three steps that the government can take to meet these goals: 1) Support the gathering of college proficiency data by school, so that each school can see how their students are doing in “Year 13,” or the first year after college; 2) Disseminate the data and empower educators to interpret the information and lead relevant programmatic change; and 3) Support and reward high schools for progress in college proficiency, thus encouraging the visibility of and activity toward this success outcome.

Read the report.