BACKGROUND
America’s schools have a profound responsibility to ensure that our nation’s 50 million students are college ready, career ready and life ready. Standardized test scores – traditionally used as the primary readiness indicator – do not always provide an accurate representation of our students’ potential.
Like the global economy, today’s students are driven by ideas and innovations. They should not be reduced down to, or defined by, a single test score.
Students learn in a variety of ways. They should be allowed to demonstrate readiness in a variety of ways.
Our life, career, and college readiness indicators must reflect the educational landscape of the 21st Century.
AASA - The School Superintendents Association has launched a national campaign called Redefining Ready! which introduces research-based multiple measurement college and career readiness indicators to more appropriately assess a students’ ability to survive and thrive in their future. The Woodland Schools leadership team reviewed the work of AASA and the underlying research and has modified the indicators to align more closely with the vision and opportunities that exist for Woodland students.
Our students are more than a single test score or collection of required credits. The indicators reflect the depth and full picture of our students and the programs we offer and aspire to offer.
RECOMMENDATION
The school board believes that multiple measures of life, career and college readiness should be utilized to determine if students are ready to enter college, the military or the workforce upon graduation from high school.
Therefore, the Board wishes to demonstrate its support for these new college and career readiness indicators by adopting the following resolution.
Administrative Recommendation /MOTION/ "I move we adopt resolution 19-4 as presented"
WOODLAND PUBLIC SCHOOLS BOARD OF DIRECTORS
RESOLUTION 19-04
ADOPTING INDICATORS OF LIFE, CAREER, AND COLLEGE READINESS
WHEREAS Woodland Public School’s vision is that each child obtain an excellent education that prepares them for responsible citizenship and a future of adaptability and success in life and their chosen endeavors; and,
WHEREAS schools have a profound responsibility to ensure that our nation’s 50 million students are life ready, career ready and college ready; and,
WHEREAS completion of high school graduation requirements and standardized test scores, which have traditionally been used as the key indicators of college and career readiness, fail to portray a comprehensive picture of student potential; and,
WHEREAS Students are engaged in a world that was hard to imagine a decade ago and need to be prepared with 21st-century skills to participate in a future that they will help create; and,
WHEREAS a growing body of evidence supports the growing economic divide between individuals who complete post-high school education and/or training and those who only have a high school diploma; and,
WHEREAS according to multiple current research sources there are performance metrics that correlate with student success in college and career-related training beyond high school; and,
WHEREAS there are additional life skills, soft-skills, technical skills, dispositions, and knowledge that are important to success in life, career, and college; and,
WHEREAS school and district leadership have developed a set of research-based metrics and indicators to more authentically and appropriately assess and demonstrate high school graduates’ readiness to survive and thrive in their futures; and
WHEREAS the new readiness indicators reflect and give credibility to many of Woodland Public School’s successful programs, including Career and Technical Education programs
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Woodland Public School District #404 Board of Directors] adopt the proposed framework of multiple readiness indicators to more accurately assess students’ readiness to succeed in life, career, and college.