Diploma Must Recognize College and Career Readiness
Diploma Must Mean College and Career Ready
Education in the Information Era: Learning for Relevance and Resilience Here, you probably already know that the world entering the information era is no longer as simple or as competitive. Schools have to prepare students for the challenges they will encounter in college, careers, and life. The high school diploma is one of the most important tools for this. However, this age-old symbol of academic achievement has become meaningless unless it properly signifies students’ preparedness for success in college and a career. Integrate “College and Career Readiness” (CCR) into the diploma.
Defining College and Career Readiness
College and Career Readiness is the knowledge, skills, and behavior students need to be prepared for a successful future. In terms of college readiness, this means you need to be able to think critically, solve problems, and engage in advanced academic work that conforms with the expectations of higher education. Whereas college readiness embraces higher-level academic skills, career readiness means students still need communication and teamwork skills but also need the hands-on work and specialized training that readies them for a certain type of work or vocation.
While the high school diploma remains an important symbol in a student’s educational journey, it does not signal whether a student is truly ready for life after graduation. Unfortunately, many students leave school without the crucial skills necessary to thrive in a rigorous college setting and ultimately in their careers. This is doing a disservice to students, employers, and society overall.
Why College and Career Readiness Should Have a Place on the Diploma
Integrating CCR into the high school diploma would provide students with a concrete goal to work toward, making it clear to them what they would need to achieve to be ready for college or a career. It would send a clear signal to colleges and employers that the student not only has met the minimum requirements of the required classes but also that the student has met the standards of achievement needed to succeed. For instance, the diploma itself could reflect CCR with cross-cutting indicators, such as performance on core subjects including math, reading, and science, combined with technical skills that show students are prepared for the workforce including but not limited to coding, business management, or healthcare.
In addition, marking CCR directly on students’ diplomas would incentivize schools to pursue a more holistic educational model that combines rigorous traditional content knowledge with practical skills applicable to the workforce. High schools would have the incentive to provide more career and technical programs, apprenticeships, internships, and dual-enrollment offerings that give students a taste of careers while still in school. Such initiatives would identify the divide between academic learning and practical job skills and help students become more employable and better prepared for further studies.
Benefits for Students
For students, a diploma signaling preparedness for college and a career could signal achievement and assurance that they had accomplished something important. It would also empower them by providing them with more control over their future. If the students had proven that they were ready for college or a career, they could continue on the track that best suited them, whether that be college or a career that required training beyond high school.
It would also help ameliorate the growing concerns about the “skills gap” — the disconnect between what students learn in high school and what employers want. Fully integrating essential career-readiness skills into the high school curriculum would ensure that every student possesses the academic credentials and hands-on experience necessary to succeed in the 21st-century workforce.
Conclusion
Education is changing, and the traditional high school diploma should change as well. We can help students succeed beyond graduation by making sure they understand both college readiness and career readiness. For students, a diploma that signals those dual competencies would not just embed the skills that employees — and possibly even employers — need, but it would assure them they could make their way around a fast-changing world. For colleges and employers, such an approach would provide a clearer picture of the student’s abilities, and for society at large, it would lead to a more competent and ready workforce. It’s time for the diploma to deliver on the promise of education: success in college, career, and beyond.
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