Commentary: Rolling Up Their Sleeves

During the recent inaugural meeting of the American Diploma Project (ADP) Network, representatives from 18 states spent two days discussing how to strengthen American high schools. The focus was on dialogue, problem solving and priority setting.

The sessions were short on show-and-tell and long on the nitty-gritty of action planning, with representatives from all the right sectors -- governors, chief state school officers, business groups, higher education institutions, K-12 educators and state board members -- discussing changes in policy and practice that will ensure that all students graduate high school ready for college, work, the military or other postsecondary endeavors.

In state teams and across states, the groups zeroed in on a series of challenges that must be addressed. For instance, how can we better clarify workplace and college expectations? Are they the same in Ohio as they are in Oregon or Oklahoma? Are the skills needed for work really the same as those needed for college, as the 2003 ADP report suggests? If so, how do we make a better case to the public, which remains skeptical about the skills convergence?

How can states build tests of college and work readiness into their high school assessment systems? Should states add a college component to their existing high school tests, as California has done in partnership with California State University? Should they develop end-of-course tests in each subject or a single test covering all of them? Can current college tests, such as the ACT or SAT, be modified to double as high school exams? Should states pool their resources to develop higher-quality assessments than they can on their own?

If we raise graduation requirements, how do we simultaneously guard against higher dropout rates? Among the priority challenges: What can be done to improve teacher quality, support struggling students and low-performing schools, and strengthen the pipeline starting in elementary school? Representatives from the three states that already have adopted ADP-level course requirements -- Arkansas, Indiana and Texas -- shared what they have done and the many implementation challenges that remain.

These are difficult questions that cannot be answered overnight. Yet the states also bring a keen sense of urgency to this work. By this fall, each state will release publicly its detailed action plan for addressing the ADP priorities. Their willingness to make such shared, public commitments represents a very important milestone ... and bodes well for the ultimate success and staying power of these state teams and our national coalition.

The real beneficiaries will be high school students who say they are not being challenged enough, parents who worry that their children will not go to college or get a good job, employers and college faculty who bemoan the low skill levels of recent high school graduates, and political leaders who are concerned about their states' ability to retain and attract high-quality jobs in a hypercompetitive global economy.