To prepare students for success in life, the twenty-first-century American high school needs to shift its focus from preparing for college or career to achieving college and career readiness for every student. One of the most comprehensive efforts is the Linked Learning initiative in California (formerly known as “multiple pathways”), a reform model aimed at improving high schools by connecting strong academics, demanding technical education and real-world experience in a wide range of fields, such as engineering, arts and media, biomedicine and health. It provides multiyear programs of study that are rigorous, relevant, and directly connected to regional and state economic needs. By setting up students for success in the full array of options after high school, Linked Learning seeks to bridge the college-career divide that has long characterized the American education system. This brief details the Linked Learning movement in California, developed in response to poor and inequitable student outcomes, as it continues to garner interest and develop a growing base of evidence. The discussion lays out the rationale for the approach and the implications of this California-based effort for stakeholders seeking to address the national dropout crisis.

While the federal government and the states have implemented some promising education reform efforts in 2010, these efforts will have limited long-term impact and risk undermining accountability if they continue to be pursued without updating and improving the bedrock of federal education policy-the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, the current version of which is known as the No Child Left Behind Act, or NCLB). Only an ESEA reauthorization can address the aspects of NCLB that time, experience, and research have shown need to be significantly improved or updated. This report from the Alliance for Excellent Education and the Aspen Institute's Commission on No Child Left Behind, Don't Leave Accountability Behind: A Call for ESEA Reauthorization, describes four distinct reasons ESEA reauthorization is necessary to support long-term reform and ensure strong accountability for student outcomes and improvement.

The United States is poised to make the most dramatic advance in assessment in decades. A state-led effort to develop common core standards in literacy and mathematics is defining what it means to be ready for colleges and careers, and this effort will invariably heighten the demand for assessments that measure a broader range of knowledge and skills and open the door for common assessment components across states. At the same time, the U.S. Department of Education is providing $350 million for consortia of states to develop new assessments that measure the common core standards. And a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) will set guidelines for assessments and their use for years to come. This opportunity could not be more timely. There is widespread concern that the most prominent assessments currently being used in the United States are inadequate and may have a significantly negative impact on student learning. This brief suggests the principles upon which the federal government and states should base their work in fashioning new assessments. Recognizing that no single test can fulfill all the needs for information by all stakeholders, it suggests the need for a comprehensive system of assessments. Most importantly, the brief argues that this system needs to be coherent and cohesive, aligned to standards for college and career readiness.

Currently, K–12 education in the United States is dealing with three major crises, each of which on its own is capable of wreaking havoc on schools and communities around the nation, but together are an all-out perfect storm. Simultaneously, the U.S. education system is facing a growing workforce whose mounting needs for education and training will not be met by the nation’s current public education system; declining state fiscal revenues; and mounting teacher shortages, further crippling low-performing secondary schools. The time for merely rethinking and upgrading the role of technology in education has passed; policy decisions today must embrace a dramatic transformation of teaching and learning. Technology can no longer be thought of simply as an “add-on” tool in education, but rather an integral part of the total educational environment. This issue brief describes these looming crises and suggests ways that online learning can lead the U.S. education system out of them.

Is your rural high school making the grade? The Alliance for Excellent Education understands that the first step in improving any rural high school is to encourage and support the active engagement of students, parents, teachers, the community, and business leaders. This guide is designed to give parents and community members some suggested ways to begin thinking about whether their local high school is adequately preparing all of its students for a successful future and what they can do to help turn that vision into reality.

On February 5, the Alliance released Current Challenges and Opportunities in Preparing Rural High School Students for Success in College and Careers, a new report that is intended to give federal policymakers a detailed understanding of the challenges facing rural high schools as well as the inherent assets that rural schools bring to the national education reform debate.The report notes that current federal education policies and research tend to favor urban and suburban high schools with the largest student populations and pay too little attention to the unique needs and circumstances of rural high schools. As a result, high schools-and high school students-in too many rural communities are in trouble.   

As the nation has embraced the need to graduate every student ready for college and careers, high school reform has emerged at the top of the education agenda. Many local and state leaders are implementing strategies to address low performance and close achievement gaps. As federal policymakers look ahead to opportunities to support this work—including through the upcoming reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act—they are eagerly looking to districts that have been engaged in major reform to understand the implications for supporting and encouraging these reforms at scale. One extremely relevant case study is New York City—the nation’s largest and most diverse school district—where Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein have prioritized redesigning high schools and improving outcomes as part of a districtwide reform effort. This brief, the first in a series, will set the stage, describing the theory of action underlying the efforts of the New York City Department of Education and some of the specific strategies it has employed to improve high schools.

Few people realize the impact that high school dropouts have on a community’s economic, social, and civic health. Business owners and residents—in particular, those without school-aged children—may not be aware that they have much at stake in the success of their local high schools. Indeed, everyone—from car dealers and realtors to bank managers and local business owners—benefits when more students graduate from high school. To better understand the various economic benefits that a particular community could expect if it were to reduce its number of high school dropouts, the Alliance, with the generous support of State Farm®, analyzed the local economies of the nation’s fifty largest cities and their surrounding areas to calculate economic projections that estimate the gross increase in important local economic factors such as individual earnings, home and auto sales, job and economic growth, spending and investment, tax revenue, and human capital. 

After years of debate, the nation is now taking a bold step toward ensuring that all students graduate ready for college and careers. Under the leadership of the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, a panel has drafted a set of Common Core State Standards for college and career readiness. These standards will raise expectations for all students and will be the same no matter where students happen to live. That would represent a sea change in American education, one that is sorely needed. The wide variations that currently exist are unacceptable and are especially harmful to low-income students and students of color. All states and schools should expect every student to graduate from high school ready for college and careers. This brief outlines the need for common standards that are rigorous, clear, and focused and suggests ways that common standards will help lay the foundation for a stronger education system that will prepare all students for college and careers.

It is well established that teacher quality is one of the most significant school influences on student achievement. Unfortunately, it is less clear how teacher preparation programs can prepare and recruit effective educators for every classroom. As the global economy demands that all students are college and career ready after high school, teachers must be educated and supported to instruct to this higher standard. Despite pockets of excellence across the country in the ways teachers are prepared in both traditional and alternative routes, there is a need for a new, comprehensive vision. This brief offers a new conception for secondary teacher preparation that ensures candidates are able to prepare students for college and career success after high school, encourages a shift to the skills, knowledge, and competencies candidates should have once they become classroom teachers of record, highlights the need for improved teacher performance assessments and data systems, and contemplates how federal policy can support the realization of these goals.