The best way to help American students meet the challenges of the twenty-first century is to ensure that they leave high school with the skills and knowledge necessary for college, work, and citizenship. Unfortunately, the American education system is not designed around a common understanding of what those skills are and what is included in that knowledge base. However, there is growing consensus among colleges and employers that in an increasingly global, high-tech world, the knowledge and skills needed for success in the workplace are comparable to those needed for success in college. Unfortunately, there is also a growing recognition that America's students are not graduating with these skills. Every available indicator-state, national, and international assessments in math and reading; graduation rates; college-going rates; college remediation rates; and employer surveys-demonstrates America's youth (especially poor and minority students) are unprepared for the 21st century.

This misalignment has resulted in three "gaps" in American education. First, there is a domestic achievement gap among racial and economic groups, evidenced by gaps in reading and math proficiency, graduation rates, and college-going and college-completion rates. Second, there is an international achievement gap between American students and their peers abroad in reading, mathematics, and problem solving. Finally, there is an expectations gap between students' aspirations and their success in reaching their goals.

The root of the problem is that much of what students are expected to learn and how well they are expected to learn is highly dependent on a student's zip code, rather than on a shared standard of college- and workplace-readiness. Each state has developed its own sets of standards, with distinctly different assessments to measure whether students are meeting the standards and totally incomparable definitions of what constitutes "proficiency" on those assessments. Despite the significant time, money, and political capital that have been invested over the years as part of various efforts to improve them, most observers of state standards and assessments report that they currently are not aligned to college and workplace demands, do not provide useful benchmarks for students, and are inconsistent across states.

In the absence of aligned standards and assessments designed to ensure that students receive a college- and work-ready diploma, course-taking patterns can be useful indicators of student preparation. Researchers have identified a core set of courses such as Algebra 2, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics that correlate to success in college and the workplace. Encouraging students to take these gateway courses has seemed like a logical strategy for ensuring that students are adequately prepared for the challenges and opportunities of life after high school. Unfortunately, far too many students are either still taking low-level courses or (because of the nature of state standards and tests) are finding that their transcript full of college-prep course titles, good grades, and success on state assessments is no guarantee of college-and-work readiness.

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