All Graduates College and Career-Ready: How to Do It

Tackling the achievement gap can be overwhelming for educators. According to former superintendent and reform expert Linda Murray, “Too many students in our schools wind up with too few choices, locked in by what was decided for them by a broken system. There is nothing more urgent in America’s public schools than giving students from all backgrounds an education that prepares them for college and careers.”

With this goal in mind, EducationWorld is pleased to feature an excerpt from Murray’s 2011 book Diploma Matters: A Field Guide for College and Career Readiness. The excerpt is posted with the permission of Jossey-Bass.

Diploma Matters lays out a clear plan for schools wanting to emulate the reform successes of the San Jose, California district. Be sure to check out EducationWorld’s review of the book.

The following guidelines come from Chapter 5, The Educational Opportunity Audit.

The first step of the educational opportunity audit is looking at where your district is now. Your leadership group will collect and study a series of relevant artifacts—transcripts, achievement data, the master schedule, and so on, charting where the district currently is in providing all students with a rigorous and relevant education. Examining these artifacts will help you determine:

• The level of preparation of most recent graduates
• Gaps among significant subgroups in student participation in rigorous courses
• District policies and practices that impede students from accessing rigorous courses.
• Choke points where students most often opt out of higher-level classes
• Available interventions

[NOTE: Chapter 5 of Diploma Matters walks readers through many types of analyses that can help leadership groups examine the above five areas. This excerpt focuses on one particular type of analysis, the transcript study.]

The study of student transcripts is a powerful way to examine the shortcomings of high school preparation for large segments of the population and clearly understand what the barriers to college and career readiness are.

Discovering Patterns in Your District

In my work with districts throughout California, the study of transcripts is the most eye-opening part of the educational opportunity audit. I suspect you will find this to be true for your analysis as well. No step in this entire process will likely give you as much clarity as the transcript study. By looking at senior transcripts for the last graduating class, you will determine how far the district is from the goal of graduating all students college and career ready.

A Representative Sample

Under the direction of your leadership group, the transcripts of your most recent graduating class must be examined with the intent to cull a representative sample that exposes the following:

• Course-taking patterns in general as well as specific gaps faced by each subgroup
• Common choke points where students begin experiencing failure and opt out of higher level classes. (A choke point is defined as any barrier, whether a course, test, or other hurdle, that prevents students from meeting the statewide college-entry requirements.)
• Unusual or illogical course sequences
• Interventions for struggling students, including support classes and other specialized services
• Standardized test data and exit exam data (if available), to be compared with grades earned in courses

Bringing in the Data Team

Your sample of representative transcripts now goes before the larger data team, who will look closely at this sample to discover how student transcripts reveal patterns among students and core issues for the district. The key question here is ‘What does a student's current journey through high school look like?’

The data team will answer the following questions:

1. Do students who start on a college track tend to stay there and get the support they need to be successful?
2. If they struggle, are they dropped down to a general track?
3. Are students who do well in a general track early in high school challenged to take more rigorous coursework as they progress?
4. Are opportunities for timely intervention built into students, schedules? Or is the intervention for students who fail to repeat the same class?
5. What academic disciplines pose the biggest barriers to students becoming well prepared for college and good careers?
6. Are extra classes provided to help students who are struggling?
7. Are career pathways obvious for students who are not pursuing a college track?
8. Is the four-year schedule optimizing each student’s ability to take academic and elective courses?
9. Do students carry a full schedule in senior year? Do English language learners and special needs students have access to college-preparatory classes?

Transcript Study Flow Chart

The leadership group analyzes all transcripts of the most recent graduating class to gain a deep understanding of course-taking patterns, choke points, and interventions. They then draw a representative sample for further study.

The steps in this process are as follows:

1. Review all transcripts for the most recent graduating class in the district.

2. Analyze transcripts for course-taking patterns:

• Determine English, math, science, and world language sequence.
• Determine college eligibility.
• Note overall patterns.
• Identify choke points.
• Note interventions.
• Enter all of this into a spreadsheet or database.

3. Select 100 to 150 transcripts:

• Select a representative, not a random, sample.
• Choose a proportional sample according to student pathways, ethnicity, and other significant categories.
• Ensure complete transcripts are in the sample.

4. Gather all nontranscript data for the chosen sample:

• Ethnicity
• Test scores
• Special program status

5. Remove anomalies:

• Discard those with data holes.
• Choose the best sample of patterns, choke points, and interventions.

The next step is for the data team to meet with the leadership group to analyze the representative sample of transcripts. The steps in this process are as follows:

1. Examine the leadership group's representative sample for the following:

• Sequence of courses taken
• Differences in course-taking by subgroup
• Academic preparation for postsecondary options
• Career-technical pathways
• Relationship between student course grades and achievement on state and district standards assessments

2. Consider what interventions exist to support students. Are others needed?

• Who gets them?
• Are they working?
• Are interventions noted on transcript? Which aren’t?
• Are they timely?

3. Where are the choke points?

• Do large numbers of students fail a particular course(s)?
• Do students pursue lower-level courses as a result?
• Do students reenroll in the same class multiple times?
• Do students enter remediation or support courses and get stuck?

4. What other factors come into play?

• Do students and their families have clear information regarding course selection and sequencing, supports, and implications for pursuing certain courses?
• Are there courses on transcripts not noted in course catalog?
• Are graduation requirements in each discipline positioning students to access all postsecondary options?
• Are any important data missing from the transcript?

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