In high schools with significant minority and low-income student populations, students can be prepared to succeed in credit-bearing first-year college courses. The skills expected for college are also the skills needed to enter today’s workforce. So whether students plan further education or work after high school graduation, they need to graduate college-ready. These are the common components found at the high schools studied that put students on course for success.

This survey found that the basic "prose literacy" of college graduates has declined significantly. Experts trace this finding partly to deficient literacy skills among high school graduates, a situation compounded by statistics indicating that high school dropouts are easily the most prone to lack basic literacy.

This report highlights successful state efforts that are already tackling the literacy crisis in middle and high schools and urges states to reconsider the role that literacy instruction can play in improving secondary schools. It culls five recommendations from existing state best practices to help governors in their attempts to improve adolescent literacy achievement in their states: 1) build support for a state focus on adolescent literacy; 2) raise literacy expectations across grades and curricula; 3) support school and district literacy plans; 4) build educators' capacity to provide adolescent literacy instruction; and 5) measure progress in adolescent literacy at school, district, and state levels.

The Impact of Talent Development's Reforms Across Multiple Years and SitesThis paper is a chapter from Motivating Students, Improving Schools: The Legacy of Carol Midgley (Advanced in Motivation and Achievement, Volume 13). It examines the results from the first three schools to implement Talent Development's instructional program in reading/English language arts (RELA). In three related studies, it examines the impact of the reforms on reading achievement, on classroom practices, and on selected motivational outcomes.

To establish the link between what it takes to earn a high school diploma and what it takes for graduates to compete successfully beyond high school, Achieve, Inc., The Education Trust, and the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation launched the American Diploma Project (ADP). In their report, Ready or Not: Creating a High School Diploma that Counts, ADP outlines specific content and skills that graduates must master by the time they leave high school if they expect to succeed in postsecondary education or in high-performance, high-wage jobs. In addition, they proposed an action agenda with specific steps that need to be taken to create a high school diploma that counts.