College and career readiness for all students is an idea whose time has come. Across the nation, increasing numbers of high schools are working to prepare more students to pursue learning beyond high school—whether or not they go to college. This marks a dramatic shift from the old view that college and vocational preparation were two separate tracks and that formal learning had an endpoint. Now it’s clear that whether entering college or a vocational position, all students need to be prepared with new skills and knowledge that adequately prepare them for the challenges they will face in today’s complex and competitive academic and workplace environments.
College and Career Ready offers educators and policymakers a better understanding of the rationale and methods necessary to redesign high schools so that they focus on both college and career readiness. In addition, it contains a variety of practical methods by which high school faculty can adapt their programs of instruction in the direction of enhanced college/career readiness and thereby meet the needs of all their students. This includes helping students develop the cognitive strategies and content knowledge they will need to succeed. The book also considers the impact of key behaviors necessary foracademic success—such as time management and study habits. Numerous case examples highlight practices in schools that are doing these things well.
Step by step, David T. Conley—an expert in the field of educational policy—presents detailed, practical evidence and strategic guidelines high schools can use as a framework for improving alignment with postsecondary success. By putting in place recommendations outlined in College and Career Ready, schools will be providing students the tools they need to succeed in college, work, and life.
Praise for College and Career Ready
“David Conley offers a profoundly insightful and clear blueprint for designing high schools that will prepare students for post-secondary success. Anyone interested in supporting and leading schools principals, superintendents, school leadership coaches will benefit from College and Career Ready.”
—Sue Fine, executive director, The Urban Assembly Schools Network
“College and Career Ready takes Conley’s humanistic approach to high school improvement giant steps forward. A must-read for anyone serious about producing results with underprepared, urban students.”
—Nancy Hoffman, vice president, Jobs for the Future
“David Conley is a powerful and articulate voice on the critical subject of college and career readiness. His new book serves as a substantive and practical guide, with both research and case studies, for those of us who are on the front lines of the effort to transform our schools and ready our students for the future.”
—Jim Nelson, executive director, AVID Center
“This book is one-stop shopping for all crucial college and career readiness concepts and components. Complete with in-depth descriptions of numerous exemplary schools, College and Career Ready will be indispensable to policymakers, administrators, and teachers who seek to implement comprehensive college readiness initiatives in a variety of state and school contexts.”
—Michael Kirst, professor emeritus, Stanford University
“At last, a compelling roadmap for preparing all of our high school students for postsecondary and workplace success. The rich case studies should be required reading for school superintendents and their boards.”
—Uri Treisman, professor of mathematics and of public affairs, University of Texas at Austin
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