Gates College Readiness Indicator Systems
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Education leaders across the country are confounded by a growing phenomenon: too many students are not college ready when they leave high school. Although indicators exist to identify students at-risk of dropping out of high school, few indicators of students’ college readiness are currently in place, and few districts have linked indicators to practices and policies in ways that would enable action to create meaningful, lasting change.
The Annenberg Institute for School Reform (AISR) at Brown University and the John Gardner Center (JGC) at Stanford University have each received three-year grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to work together to select a network of sites and develop models for College Readiness Indicator Systems (CRIS).
Ellen Foley, Interim Director of District Redesign and Leadership describes the work of the CRIS project.
As part of this collaborative effort, AISR and JGC will develop, test, and disseminate effective tools and resources that provide early diagnostic indications of what students need to become college ready. AISR and JGC will also help link indicators to action and track and test the efficacy of student support interventions. Both organizations will serve complementary, but distinct roles. JGC will develop and study the implementation of a tri-level (individual, setting, and system) early warning system using a flexible, “design-build” approach with the partner districts. AISR will focus on cross-site learning; brokering expertise and supports for partner districts; understanding issues related to district, municipal, state, and federal contexts; and process documentation.
Selected five sites will receive support to defray the costs related to network participation, and also receive resources to enhance or fill gaps in their CRIS development. Selected sites will be identified from the outset as system leaders in supporting college readiness and/or in using data to create targeted interventions for students. Additionally, each participating site will have regular interaction with other sites working in this area and tailored support and technical assistance from the AISR and JGC staff.
Currently, we are working closely with our partner, the John W. Gardner Center at Stanford University, to conduct site visits and co-construct sites’ scopes of work. The kickoff cross-site convening was held in Dallas in April 2011.