Arizona, Hawaii, Maine and New Mexico Commit To Improving High Schools by Joining the Achieve-Led ADP Network

WASHINGTON—October 16, 2006—Arizona, Hawaii, Maine and New Mexico are the latest states to join the American Diploma Project (ADP) Network, an ambitious coalition of reform-minded states working to close the gap between what is demanded of students in high school and the skills they need to be successful in college and 21st century careers.

With the addition of the new states, the Achieve-led ADP Network now includes 26 states that are home to more than half of the total U.S. public school population – nearly 25 million students in all.

By joining the ADP Network, the states have agreed to expand their existing efforts to make their high school standards, assessments and curriculum more challenging so that students graduate ready for success at work or college. In recent years, expectations and skill requirements have risen in workplaces and colleges but not all high schools have kept pace. ADP Network states are committed to reversing that trend and ensuring that all of their citizens are prepared for success.

“We applaud the states that have joined the ADP Network. ADP Network states recognize the significance of this challenge, and are committed to working together to ensure that their students are prepared for the demands of work and postsecondary education,” said Mike Cohen, President of the Washington, D.C.-based Achieve, Inc.

The ADP Network, originally comprised of 13 states, has doubled in size since being launched at the 2005 National Education Summit on High Schools, where the nation’s governors joined leaders from education and business to make high school reform a national priority. At the Summit, participants were confronted with a set of sobering statistics showing that one-third of all U.S. students drop out of high school; that nearly half of high school graduates who enter the workforce directly from high school report that they are not prepared; and of those graduates who do go on to college, one-third need remedial courses.

The ADP Network was launched to confront these issues, and to address the fact that very few states had anchored their academic standards in the skills required for postsecondary and workforce success. More information about the American Diploma Project Network is available online at www.achieve.org.

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Created by the nation’s governors and business leaders, Achieve, Inc, is a bipartisan, non-profit organization that helps states raise academic standards, improve assessments and strengthen accountability to prepare all young people for postsecondary education, work and citizenship. Achieve was founded at the 1996 National Education Summit and has sponsored subsequent Summits in 1999, 2001 and 2005. At the 2005 Summit, Achieve launched the American Diploma Project Network. For more information, please visit www.achieve.org.

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