1. Linking Secondary and Postsecondary Education: Implications for Illinois from a National Study

Michael Kirst
Stanford University
Presentation to the
Illinois Education Research Council
January 9, 2002
The historic separation of policy and practice between higher education and K-12.
Student standards are established in separate orbits.
K-16 faculty rarely interact and work on curriculum and assessment.
No institutionalized entity at the state or regional level to make policy or integrate K-16 practice.
No organized group lobbies for K-16 linkages.
No data or accountability system with incentives/sanctions for K-16 performance.
Nobody loses a job for poor K-16 linkage or performance.
Outreach programs fragmented and rarely evaluated.
Creates incoherent policy, misdirected incentives, and inadequate student preparation.
Students lack signals and information to succeed at postsecondary level.
Low SES students suffer the most, including remediation and non-completion.
State assessments/accountability system breakdown in grades 9-12.
High level of remediation at postsecondary level partly due to differences in content, format, and scope of assessments administered to prospective college students
Different tests to prospective college students do not measure same kinds of skills and knowledge
So students receive conflicting signals regarding competencies needed for postsecondary (and work) success
Are the K-12 academic content standards similar or dissimilar to the academic content in entry-level courses at the college and university level?
Does your state K-12 assessment ask students to know and do the same things that are required by your state's public universities?
Do your schools have a sufficient number of counselors whose main role is to advise students about college options?
Do all students have early, repeated access to college preparation information?
7. More questions
Do your universities have outreach programs that connect the universities with local schools and districts? Are these outreach programs coordinated with national, state, and nonprofit outreach programs?
Are there articulation agreements between your state's public universities, community colleges, and high schools?
Does your state have a statewide higher education placement examination? If not, how do collegesā tests relate to each other or the content of the stateās K-12 assessment? How can your state consistently assess its needs regarding student remediation?
Can your state agencies (K-12, community colleges and higher education) link their databases in order to assess needs throughout the K-16 continuum?
Can policymakers and researchers tell whether there are inequalities in terms of who enters and graduates from college?
Can they address issues of college preparation by tracking student success in higher education by district or by school?
Do you have a statewide accountability system? Does it hold high schools accountable for offering college preparatory work, including Advanced Placement courses? Does it hold higher education institutions accountable for graduating its students?
Is there a stable/permanent entity or mechanism that will allow K-12 and higher education stakeholders to work together and overcome fragmentation concerning policy alignment, faculty interaction, and K-12 information systems?
The traditional separation of educational governance into a K-12 governing board and one or more higher education boards needs to be reexamined.
Joint budgeting is needed in certain areas to allow projects that cut across system boundaries to function.
The education agency staff must learn to work together to set reasonable policies that allow the systems to work together toward common goals.
In many cases ad hoc commissions are the best tools to begin the alignment process.
11. Reform Implications (continued)
The natural suspicion that exists between high school teachers and postsecondary faculty must be broken down.
The complex problems of poor performing schools should not be masked behind policies that legitimize the grading system in place in those schools.
All incentive and sanction systems should be designed to encourage K-16 systems to interact where appropriate.
12. Final Thoughts on Illinois K-16 Policies
Ensure that schools have a sufficient number of counselors whose main role is to advise students about college options.
Use Prairie State Achievement Exam as a factor in college admissions.
Use Prairie State Achievement Exam writing sample in admissions.
Have higher education institutions set proficiency levels for the PSAE that meets placement expectations.
Include K-16 indicators in an Illinois Accountability System.
Clarify requirements for grades 10-14 .
Reconceptualize the academic purpose of senior year as preparation for college/university, e.g. senior math courses used to place in college credit-level courses.
Expand dual enrollment in K-12/post-secondary programs.
Create higher education incentives for completion of degrees.
Ensure the future of a K-16 entity to deliberate and recommend policy on these issues.