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1 Affirming the Goal: Is College and Career Readiness an Internationally Competitive Standard? Advance Brief for State Policymakers According to MetLife’s March 2011 Survey of the American Teacher: Preparing Students for College and Careers, approximately 93% of secondary school parents, 85% of secondary teachers, and 80% of business executives believe college and career readiness should be a priority in our nation’s classrooms. This college and career readiness priority is shared by many of our nation’s governors and chief state school officers. Forty-four states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have adopted the Common Core State Standards, a state-led initiative that identifies what knowledge and skills in English language arts and mathematics our students need to be successful in life after high school. ACT helped write those standards, and our definition of college and career readiness is the one on which the Common Core State Standards are based. But do we know if ACT’s—and thus every state that has adopted Common Core State Standards—definition of college and career readiness is not only the right goal, but also internationally competitive? Our newest policy research report, Affirming the Goal: Is College and Career Readiness an Internationally Competitive Standard?, attempts to answer this question. Below are key takeaways from the report What does college and career readiness really mean? ACT defines college and career readiness as the acquisition of the knowledge and skills a student needs to enroll and succeed in credit-bearing, first year courses at a postsecondary institution (i.e., two- or four- year colleges, trade or technical schools) without the need for remediation. The level of knowledge and skills needed for college readiness is comparable to that needed for workforce training programs for those jobs that offer salaries above the poverty line, are projected to grow in the future, and offer opportunities for advancement. How do we know if our college and career readiness definition is internationally competitive? ACT conducted a comprehensive analysis of the assessment results of 2,248 US tenth-grade students from 77 high schools across the U.S. who took a special administration of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which is an international assessment for 15-year olds, and PLAN®, ACT's tenth-grade college and career readiness assessment. The analysis identified the PISA score equivalents to PLAN’s college and career readiness benchmark scores in reading and math. From this, we determined if U.S. college and career readiness performance standards are internationally competitive by comparing them with the performance of the highest performing nations. 2 314 362 370 371 372 385 390 398 402 404 405 408 412 413 416 421 424 425 426 429 442 449 459 459 464 468 470 472 474 476 477 478 481 483 483 484 486 487 489 494 494 495 495 496 496 497 497 499 500 500 501 501 503 506 520 521 524 526 533 536 539 556 519 500 493 508 515 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 Kyrgyzstan Azerbaijan Peru Panama Qatar Albania Kazakhstan Argentina Indonesia Tunisia Jordan Montenegro Brazil Colombia Trinidad and Tobago Thailand Romania Mexico Uruguay Bulgaria Serbia Chile Russian Federation Dubai (UAE) Turkey Lithuania Austria Luxembourg Israel Croatia Slovak Republic Czech Republic Spain Greece Slovenia Latvia Italy Macao-China Portugal OECD average Hungary United Kingdom Denmark Chinese Taipei France Ireland Germany Sweden Liechtenstein Iceland Poland Switzerland Estonia Norway Belgium Netherlands Australia Japan New Zealand Canada Singapore Hong Kong-China Finland Korea Shanghai-China Average PISA 2009 Reading Score Not significantly different from the OECD average Significantly above or below the OECD average US College & Career Readiness Benchmark Significantly above the College & Career Readiness Benchmark Significantly below the College & Career Readiness Benchmark United States FIGURE 1 Tenth-Grade College and Career Readiness Performance Benchmark in Reading Compared to the Performance of Countries on PISA 2009 Reading Note: The data in this figure are adapted from OECD, PISA 2009 Results: Executive Summary (Paris: Author, 2010). The US college and career readiness benchmark value is based on ACT analysis. 3 331 360 365 368 371 371 377 381 386 387 388 403 405 414 419 419 421 427 427 428 431 442 445 447 453 460 466 468 477 482 483 483 487 487 489 490 492 493 495 496 497 497 498 501 503 507 513 514 515 519 525 526 534 536 541 543 546 555 562 600 529 527 494 512 530 496 487 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 Kyrgyzstan Panama Peru Qatar Indonesia Tunisia Albania Colombia Brazil Jordan Argentina Montenegro Kazakhstan Trinidad and Mexico Thailand Chile Uruguay Romania Bulgaria Azerbaijan Serbia Turkey Israel Dubai (UAE) Croatia Greece Russian Lithuania Latvia Italy Spain Portugal Ireland Luxembourg Hungary United Kingdom Czech Republic Sweden Poland OECD average Austria Slovak Republic France Norway Slovenia Denmark Iceland Estonia Germany Australia Belgium New Zealand Macao-China Netherlands Canada Japan Switzerland Liechtenstein Finland Chinese Taipei Korea Hong Kong-China Singapore Shanghai-China Average PISA 2009 Mathematics Score Not significantly different from the OECD average Significantly above or below the OECD average US College & Career Readiness Benchmark Significantly above the College & Career Readiness Benchmark Significantly below the College & Career Readiness Benchmark United States Note: The data in this figure are adapted from OECD, PISA 2009 Results: Executive Summary (Paris: Author, 2010). The US college and career readiness benchmark value is based on ACT analysis. FIGURE 2 Tenth-Grade College and Career Readiness Performance Benchmark in Mathematics Compared to the Performance of Countries on PISA 2009 Mathematics 4 For more information please contact: Jon Erickson Interim President, Education Division ACT, Inc. jon.erickson@act.org They are indeed internationally competitive. In fact, our analysis affirmed: (1) the average scores of only four countries were significantly higher than our projected benchmark scores in reading and in mathematics; (2) that the performance standards of college and career readiness—and therefore the new Common Core State Standards—are competitive with the highest performing nations in the world; and (3) because our projected benchmark scores fell well within the average scores of the highest performing countries, college and career readiness is the right goal for US education. (See Figures 1 and 2) How would the U.S. fare if college and career readiness standards were fully adopted and successfully implemented? According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the intergovernmental organization that sponsors the PISA assessment, average U.S. performance on PISA in 2009—as U.S. states implement their own disparate state education standards—was about the same as the OECD average in reading , but lagged behind the OECD average in math. Out of the 65 countries who participated in PISA 2009, average US performance fell below 14 countries in reading and 30 countries in math. But if all states were to implement college and career readiness, using ACT’s—and the Common Core State Standards Initiative’s—definition, ACT estimates U.S. performance would then be among the top ten countries in the world in reading and in math. While this may not put the U.S. at the very top of the OECD list, it would be a substantial improvement and a critical step in the U.S. regaining lost ground in the globally competitive economy.