High school teachers largely agree that their school both has a plan for advancing students' college career readiness and metrics by which to monitor it, but middle school teachers' responses on the same questions have ominous implications for early awareness.
These are the key findings from two items the National College Attainment Network (NCAN) commissioned out of the Research and Development Corporation's (RAND) American Teacher Panel earlier this
year.
An important takeaway from this research is not only the potential impact early awareness can pose for students, but that must also go hand-in-hand with specific indicators and outcome measures in mind. With these recommendations in mind, we dive into
two questions administered in the American Teacher Panel survey administered by RAND in 2022, one about a plan for postsecondary awareness and the other regarding
measuring awareness.
When asked to rate their agreement or disagreement with the statement, “I know how my district and school plan to prepare students for a college and career pathway after high school,” more than 2/3rds of high school grade teachers (9th-12th
grade) either agreed or strongly agreed. Notably, respondents who taught 9th grade were overwhelmingly more likely to strongly agree with the statement than 10th-12th grade teachers. This finding is juxtaposed by the middle grade teachers (6th-8th
grade) who overwhelmingly skipped the question. The graph below shows the breakdown by grade taught:
In college and career readiness spaces, we all readily agree that early awareness is the first step towards success. Awareness in the middle grades can serve as the first in a series of steps towards a successful college or career pathway. Measuring the
impacts on early intervention is difficult since it requires more than a decade of longitudinal tracking. Though, early research is showing promising results
such as enrolling in college preparatory curriculum or taking standardized tests in junior year.
We saw similar numbers when teachers were asked to rate their agreement or disagreement with the statement, “My school has clear goals and metrics that we use to monitor students’ college and career readiness.” With over half of high
school teachers surveyed either agreeing or strongly agreeing with the statement, while most of the middle grade teachers surveyed skipped the question all together.
It’s worth thinking about why middle grade teachers are skipping these two questions at such a high rate. RAND categorizes skipping questions into two different buckets: “skipped question” and “legitimate skip.” For questions surrounding postsecondary
pathways, legitimate skips were categorized as skips by teachers who do not teach grades 6-12. That these questions were for high school teachers exclusively? There is no way to know the answer for sure, but a worthwhile first step towards implementing
early awareness policies is having a better understanding of where middle grade teachers stand in their opinion on their role in college and career readiness.
If you are interested in learning more about early awareness in the middle grades, NCAN has a training module with preparation
activities and presentation from our national conference.
Despite the less than perfect picture we’re seeing in the middle grades, we are seeing optimistic results from high school grade teachers. For both statements, 9th grade teachers had a lower agree or strongly agree rate than the other three grades. 10th,
11th, and 12th grade teachers all had similar agreement rates. Though despite their differences, all grades showed an above 50% agreement rate.
While it is exciting that high school teachers are optimistic about their district’s preparation of students for college and career readiness and their ability to measure this objective, it should not only be happening in certain buildings of a district:
Everyone in K-12 should be playing a role in a student’s preparation for their college or career pathway.
This blog post is first in a series which will dive deeper into these questions and three more commissioned by NCAN about the American Teacher Panel where teachers were asked to rate their agreement or disagreement with the statements:
External partnerships with community organizations can complement the work happening inside our schools.
I am ‘bought in’ around the idea that preparing students to be ready for a college or career pathway after high school is one of my professional responsibilities.
Each year, I receive information from my district about what happens to my high school students after they graduate in terms of pursuing college, career, or the military.
If you’re interested in learning more about how the entire district can assist students through their college and career pathway, join us for our spring training, “Field a Full Team: How Everyone in K-12 Can Support Students’ College and Career Plans,”
taking place from April 17-21. Learn more about (and register for!) the free-to-all training here.
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