Most classroom teachers and school administrators are doing their best to ensure that students are progressing through grades K-12 in ways that will prepare them to enter postsecondary schools or advanced training of some sort upon high school graduation. Without accounting for the range of inadequacies that currently plague public schooling, it is clear that students are experiencing adequate yearly progress across the board. Although the academic results are still mixed and ambiguous in many places, there is enough reason to be proud and hopeful about the efforts of students and teachers to bear down and get to work. The prevailing challenge, though, is that still too many students are achieving only well enough to pass tests administered during a school year, and are not able to replicate this measure of success as they transition to the high school or college level. This reality is perhaps a result of schools focusing too much on test scores at the expense of academic readiness and individualized learning for students as they transition. How educators respond to this growing need for academic remediation upon graduation can help to expose some of the problems facing our students and schools as they try to balance the increased emphasis on standards, testing, and accountability with the true measures of student readiness for postsecondary schooling and training.

Colleges, universities, vocational schools, and other specialized training centers are critical partners for elementary and secondary schools in defining what skills and aptitudes are important for student success as they move to higher levels. It would be nice if more and more administrators across each of these spheres could get together to create precise outlines that would be roadmaps for policymakers, district personnel, and school officials to reference as they assess student achievement along the way. If a broad framework or continuum could be developed that would provide a meaningful basis for measuring academic readiness at each stage, then perhaps everyone would be in a better position to respond to the varying degrees of remediation. What’s happening in a lot of instances is no one seems to be addressing the learning gaps for those students who are performing at subpar levels and as a result, they are falling through the cracks or being socially promoted or graduated. In cases where teachers would like to provide additional academic support, they either don’t have the time or resources or feel pressure to move students along. Until we change the culture in schools and increase the corresponding expectations, some teaching professionals are not going to feel responsible for ensuring that their students are academically ready for higher education or empowered enough to do something about it.