WASHINGTON, D.C. – In order to achieve better rates of college completion, higher education leaders must make sure their perspectives and expertise play a bigger role in the national effort to define college and career readiness.
That was one of key messages that U.S. Department of Education Under Secretary Martha J. Kanter delivered Thursday at the annual meeting of the National Association of System Heads (NASH) and the Education Trust joint initiative, “Access to Success.” Formed in 2007, the purpose of the initiative is to cut attainment gaps between low-income students or minority students and other students through better use of data, academic interventions and best practices.
Regarding the Common Core State Standards – a newly-developed set of K-12 standards that have been adopted by the vast majority of states – Kanter said the standards’ legitimacy depends on their acceptance by institutions of higher education.
“They won’t be valid unless higher ed says they are,” Kanter said.
Kanter’s talk – the only public event in the otherwise closed meeting of NASH, which drew 65 participants from roughly two dozen state college systems – was largely a call to action for higher education leaders.
Among other things, Kanter urged college and university officials to work to cut the need for remedial education in half, produce better-prepared K-12 teachers and work for better assessments at the K-12 level so that students know how prepared they are for college.
She said the Obama Administration’s college completion agenda should not be viewed merely in terms of whether the country can reach the numerical goal of having 60 percent of all citizens with an undergraduate degree, versus 40 percent when the goal was announced in 2009.
