Search

These are exciting times in American education. While higher education has been preoccupied with its own challenges, its colleagues in K-12 have been adopting new standards, building new assessments and curricula, and redefining success for America's schools. For decades, the end-goal and primary success measure of most school systems was high school graduation. Now, in partnership with governors, K-12 leaders have set a new goal: college and career readiness, as defined through new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in English language arts and literacy (ELA/literacy) and mathematics. These new standards are benchmarked to the highest-performing states in the US and countries around the world, and they reflect the judgments of college and university faculty who were involved in their development and review about the knowledge and skills that matter most for postsecondary success. Colleges and universities can use these new standards and assessments to advance their own objectives for learning, student success, productivity, and economic development. This article answers several key questions about the new standards and describes the ways that higher education can use them to meet its goals. (Contains 2 resources.)