Defining College and Career Readiness Standards

College and career readiness is a multifaceted concept gaining increasing importance in education and workforce development. It represents a crucial bridge between academic learning and real-world application, ensuring that students are well-prepared for the challenges and opportunities they will encounter after graduation. This article explores the meaning of college and career readiness standards, examining various perspectives and frameworks used to define and assess this critical preparedness.

The Essence of Career Readiness

Career readiness serves as a bedrock for demonstrating essential core competencies, equipping college graduates for workplace success and lifelong career management. It's the foundation on which a fulfilling career is built, effectively the new career currency. For higher education institutions, it offers a framework to address career-related goals and outcomes integrated into both curricular and extracurricular activities, regardless of a student's chosen field. Employers can leverage career readiness to identify key skills and abilities across diverse job functions, providing a structure for talent development through internships and experiential learning programs.

NACE Career Readiness Competencies

The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) has identified eight core career readiness competencies:

Career + Self-Development
Communication
Critical Thinking
Equity + Inclusion (currently under review)
Leadership
Professionalism
Teamwork

These competencies can be demonstrated in various ways, providing a comprehensive framework for assessing and developing career readiness.

Bridging Theory and Practice

NACE Career Readiness Competencies are crucial for closing the skills gap for the college-educated workforce. The NACE Competency Assessment Tool offers a validated method to measure proficiency in these competencies among students, job candidates, interns, and new hires. This tool facilitates a data-driven approach to career readiness by providing actionable feedback and personalized development plans.

The Genesis of Career Readiness Standards

The development of a common vocabulary for discussing needs and expectations, along with a fundamental set of competencies for career success, led to the creation of career readiness standards. An initial task force of NACE members from career services and university relations and recruiting developed the career readiness definition and associated competencies. These competencies underwent revisions in 2017 based on feedback from members using them with students. NACE partnered with SkillSurvey to identify behaviors associated with the competencies, and in 2020, a member task force reviewed and revised the competencies, while NACE and SkillSurvey validated sample behaviors. The task force presented recommendations for revisions to the NACE membership, gathering input from over 300 members.

ACT College and Career Readiness Standards

The ACT College and Career Readiness Standards are empirically derived descriptions of essential skills and knowledge students need for college and career readiness. These standards provide a clear interpretation of test scores and connect students' learning experiences with their future readiness.

Validity Research

ACT conducts validity research to ensure that its assessments measure what they intend to measure. This includes content validity, which assesses whether a test measures its intended subject matter. Tools like the ACT National Curriculum Survey inform the test blueprint for assessments. The results from these assessments validate the ACT College and Career Readiness Standards and Benchmarks. Predictive validity is another critical area of research for ACT.

The Reality of Readiness

Despite earning a high school diploma, many students lack the skills needed for the next steps in life. In 2016, only 39% of ACT-tested graduates met three or more of the four ACT College Readiness Benchmarks in English, math, reading, and science. Numerous college students require remedial coursework, and a significant percentage of young Americans are unable to join the armed forces.

A Collective Focus

Parents, families, educators, employers, and policymakers are increasingly focused on ensuring students acquire the necessary academic preparation, skills training, life planning, social support, and resources for college and career readiness. Students are developing critical thinking and reasoning skills essential for complex work environments and global competition. Family engagement is recognized as a crucial element in education, with organizations like PTA providing resources to support parents and families in assisting with their child's education and readiness for college and career.

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Statewide Accountability

For statewide accountability, "career and college ready" signifies that a high school graduate possesses the knowledge, skills, and competencies needed to pursue a career pathway successfully. This includes postsecondary credit leading to a degree, diploma, certificate, or industry-recognized credential and employment.

Minnesota's Approach

Minnesota emphasizes collaboration between the commissioner and the chancellor of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities to align instruction and assessments for adult basic education students and English learners. This alignment aims to provide students with diagnostic information about targeted interventions, accommodations, modifications, and supports needed for postsecondary education or employment without remediation.

Districts and schools in Minnesota must use career exploration elements to help students, beginning in grade 9, and their families explore and plan for postsecondary education or careers based on their interests, aptitudes, and aspirations. They must use timely regional labor market information and partnerships to help students and their families successfully develop, pursue, review, and revise an individualized plan for postsecondary education or a career. Students who demonstrate attainment of required state academic standards, including career and college readiness benchmarks, on high school assessments are considered academically ready for a career or college and are encouraged to participate in courses awarding college credit to high school students.

Minnesota emphasizes a continuum of empirically derived, clearly defined benchmarks focused on students' attainment of knowledge and skills so that students, their parents, and teachers know how well students must perform to have a reasonable chance to succeed in a career or college without need for postsecondary remediation.

Maryland's Blueprint for the Future

The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, passed in 2021, aims to transform public education in the state into a world-class system. The College and Career Readiness (CCR) Pillar sets a new CCR Standard that prepares graduates for success in college and the workforce by ensuring they have the knowledge and skills to complete entry-level credit-bearing college courses and work in high-wage and high-demand industries.

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In Maryland, students can meet the CCR standard by:

Earning a one-year High School Grade Point Average (GPA) of 3.00 or higher in their 11th grade or 12th grade year.
Earning a grade of C or better in at least two core-content dual enrollment or dual credit courses at any point in their high school career.
Meeting a performance threshold on at least two advanced academics (AP or IB programs) assessments at any point in their high school career, with one assessment in Math and one in ELA, Science, or Social Studies.

The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future requires a determination of CCR at the end of 10th grade, with reevaluation in 11th and 12th grades. Students who have not met the CCR standard can retake the applicable MCAP during any winter or spring administration to earn a Performance Level 3 or 4 and meet the testing requirements.

David Conley's Perspective

David Conley, an expert on college and career readiness, defines it as the ability of a student to qualify for and succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing college courses or career pathway-oriented training programs without needing remedial or developmental coursework. Conley emphasizes that not every student requires the same proficiency in all areas.

The Four Keys to Readiness

Conley identifies four key components of college and career readiness:

Key Cognitive Strategies
Key Content Knowledge
Key Learning Skills and Techniques
Key Transition Knowledge and Skills

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