By now, most in national education policy circles realize we are transitioning from the era of AYP to the era of college/career ready. Instead of using middle school reading and math proficiency as our yardstick, we will soon be using the college- and career-ready common core standards to determine if states, districts, and schools are truly making progress toward student achievement.
Over at National Journal's
Education Experts Blog, they've been spending the week discussing EdSec Arne Duncan's Blueprint for ESEA Reauthorization. Lots of interesting opinion here, from Sandy Kress' significant disappointment to Michael Lomax' support to real concerns about the "5 percent rule" to a general feeling that lack of details is a good thing in planning legislative policy.
But this morning, your NJ ring leader Eliza Kligman broke a bit from protocol and posted an anonymous comment from a reader in South Carolina. (For those who don't realize the participant list for the Education Experts Blog is a virtual who's who. There are MANY in the chattering class who desperately want to be added to the list, but haven't yet. And to focus on these experts, National Journal doesn't allow readers to post comments to the blog. A general concept that usually means the kiss of death for a blog, but seems to work for National Journal.)
But I digress. This reader raised an important question with regard to the next generation of ESEA and our intent of getting every child in the United States "college ready." In fact, the comment is a little more pointed, with the reader stating, "if everyone is highly technically trained or college
