At Wake Up Call NJ, we’re lifelong learners. That’s why we’re excited to join you all in our “Summer School” Series, where we’ll hear from notable advocates for New Jersey students. In this guest essay James Riddlesperger, Sr. Program Director of Policy and Advocacy for ACT Education Corp, shares his professional and personal experience of the true meaning of college and career readiness.
One of the most powerful things an education can give students is a clear understanding of what they are ready to do when they leave high school. As my kids make their way through New Jersey’s public schools, questions about what they are learning and what it will prepare them to do are never far from my mind. Like any parent, I wonder whether they are prepared for what comes next: not only their next softball game, piano lesson, or Girl Scout trip, but eventually college and a career.
Last September, Alex Kontorovich asked why so many New Jersey students aren’t ready for college. Students and their families need an answer to that question, but college readiness isn’t the only thing they deserve to understand. Too often in education, “college and career readiness” is treated as one thing—one buzzword, really—but recent ACT research confirms what educators and employers have long understood. College readiness and career readiness overlap without being identical. In New Jersey, ACT projects that if all students took both the ACT and ACT WorkKeys, its assessment of foundational workplace skills:
42% of students would meet standards for both college- and career-readiness
4% would meet the college-readiness standard only
22% would meet the career-readiness standard only
32% would meet neither standard
These projections tell two stories that students and their families deserve to hear. Of course, the goal is for all students to leave high school mastering all academic standards necessary for success in college and in careers. But in focusing entirely on college readiness, we’re overlooking the one-in-five New Jersey students who can demonstrate the foundational workplace skills required for many middle-class career pathways. At the same time, one-third of New Jersey students meet neither standard. Neither of these groups of students is well served by graduating without a clear understanding of their preparedness for life after high school.
Students need more than a transcript or a proficiency label developed by and for education policy insiders. They need objective sources of information tied to outcomes that they care about, presented in terms that they understand.
My children are still in elementary school, and high school graduation seems so far off that I can’t even imagine what the world will look like by then. But I know they will face many choices about what to pursue, and they deserve to understand which options they are prepared for. Every New Jersey student deserves the same.
James Riddlesperger is the Sr. Program Director of Policy and Advocacy for ACT Education Corp and the former Director of Performance Management at the New Jersey Department of Education.
