Common Core Goes to College: Building Better Connections Between High School and Higher Education

The creation and adoption of common standards and assessments—with accompanying policies for admission, financial aid, and course placement—makes sense only if these standards are reflected in the curricula and teaching practices used throughout K–12 schools. Some college educators and higher education officials have invested significant time and effort in achieving this goal by collaborating with K–12 educators to build high-quality curricula and materials aligned with the Common Core standards.

There appears, however, to be little or no movement to treat the Common Core standards as a more solid foundation upon which to build higher education: better aligning college teaching and curricula to the Common Core standards. Many of those within higher education were not involved in developing or endorsing the Common Core standards and assessments, and have not considered how they might change their own practices to align with this K–12 initiative. Indeed, many are not even aware of the Common Core. This appears to be true even among educators who are genuinely invested in making these new standards and assessments work at the K–12 level.

For example, through its Early Assessment Program (EAP), California has made progress in identifying high school students who are struggling to achieve college- and career-readiness. The EAP—developed by the California State University (CSU) system, along with the State Board of Education and the California Department of Education—tests students’ English and math skills, and is intended to determine whether they are ready at the end of eleventh grade for college-level academics at a CSU school. Introduced in 2004, this voluntary college-ready assessment is now taken by about 82 percent of California’s public high school juniors, or about 386,000 students. Going a step farther, a 2004 taskforce that included both state high school teachers and California State University faculty developed a full-year preparatory English/language arts course for juniors and seniors. The course, Expository Reading and Writing, is designed to help high school English teachers lead students to college-level critical reading and writing skills.

To facilitate greater use of this course, CSU has partnered with local offices of education throughout the state to provide professional development opportunities for high school English teachers. The four-day professional development covers training on the modules, and further, offers coaching on how to effectively teach using the included readings and other materials. An estimated 2,200 high school teachers have been trained on how to teach this course throughout the state so far.

In November of 2013, Nancy Brynelson, Co-Director of the Center for the Advancement of Reading at California State University, touted this curriculum at an event hosted by the Community College Research Center. She held up this curriculum as a successful strategy to “make the most of 12th grade in the Common Core era.” In fact, CSU is in the process of back-mapping this twelfth-grade curriculum all the way down to seventh grade for optimal alignment.

As a follow-up, when asked how the course aligns with CSU and other California college and university first-year ELA coursework, it appeared as though that alignment was nonexistent. She explained that with twenty-three CSU campuses in California all teaching introductory English courses—let alone the rest of the state’s universities and community colleges—they could not expect them all to align.

If 2,200 high school teachers can adopt and implement a new college-preparatory curriculum, professors at 23 campuses could band together to align their content and teaching to that curriculum. But while states have continued to take on increasingly greater roles in shaping K–12 education throughout the country, for a variety of reasons (including deep-seated principles of shared governance and academic freedom) public institutions of higher education have carried on, largely insulated from change. Further, what nominal higher education support for the Common Core movement that does exist may erode if that support implies change within higher education itself.

This is due in part to the fact that while the Common Core standards are predicated on the notion that there is a clear progression of learning that builds on previously acquired knowledge and skills, many higher education programs are not based on such a scaffolded concept of learning. Some disciplines, particularly in the sciences and professions, guide students through a developed sequence of courses. But very often, the content of college courses—even within developmental coursework—is developed with no awareness of K–12 expectations or even those of other college-level courses. There appears to be little movement for change within higher education, despite the massive nationwide change and alignment of K–12 expectations.

Currently, the path from high school to college is fraught with detours and pitfalls for students seeking to make this transition. Those states that have made a commitment to preparing all students to college-ready levels will be unable to uphold that ideal without addressing the complicated, piecemeal policies and practices which have been put into place over the past century. The Common Core has presented a unique opportunity to find common ground between high school and higher education, an opportunity on which states and higher education should begin to act.

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