Getting Ready for College While the State Transitions Toward the Common Core

• In Event: 70.065 - Roundtable Session 27
  In Roundtable Session: 70.065-1 - Issues in College and Career Readiness

Abstract

The transition towards new state standards that are aligned with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) entails major shifts within the public education system. While it is crucial to study the implementation of the CCSS, there is a lack of empirical evidence on how students have fared during all these major shifts. Using 7 years of student-level longitudinal data that straddle Kentucky’s adoption of the CCSS-aligned Kentucky Core Academic Standards, our study finds that more “exposure” to the KCAS is associated with better ACT scores, a proxy measure of college readiness that is at the core of the CCSS. However, we also find that high-poverty schools and students benefited less from the KCAS than their lower-poverty but otherwise comparable counterparts.

Authors

• Zeyu Xu, American Institutes for Research

• Kennan Cepa, American Institutes for Research