Credit: iStockphoto.com

Credit: iStockphoto.com

As California and other states work to define what "college and career readiness" ways, a new study finds that a more reliable predictor of whether a student does well in college is his or her high schoolhouse grades, rather than ACT or Sat scores.

"I of the core messages of this written report is that high schoolhouse grades matter, and they thing a lot," said main investigator William C. Hiss, a professor and sometime dean of admissions at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.

The study analyzed student and alumni records from 123,000 students in 33 colleges where Sabbatum or Human action scores are optional for admission.

The results constitute that a student'southward functioning in college closely mirrored their performance in loftier school: Students with strong grade point averages in high school maintained like GPAs in higher, regardless of how well or poorly they scored on college entrance exams. As well, students with lower GPAs – fifty-fifty those with high Sat or Human action scores – had lower GPAs in college and graduated at lower rates.

"That surprised me," Hiss said. "I did non await to see the correlation was that close."

The study, published Feb. eighteen on the website of the National Association for College Access Counseling, adds new fuel to debates over the role of entrance exams in higher admissions. Students in the written report who did not submit SAT or ACT scores were more likely to exist minorities, the commencement in their family to attend college, come from low-income families, and have learning disabilities, the written report said. Standardized admissions tests tin create a barrier to college for many students, Hiss said.

"For economic growth and social stability, America will need to find successful paths to higher pedagogy for hundreds of thousands of additional showtime-generation-to-higher, minority, immigrant, rural and (learning disabled) students," Hiss wrote in a fact canvass accompanying the study. "This report provides the research back up for optional testing as at least i route past which that tin happen."

The written report comes equally California grapples with the best way to measure how well schools are preparing students to succeed in college and careers. A 2022 state law, SB 1458, requires the state to incorporate measures of career and higher readiness into a high school'due south Academic Operation Alphabetize, the mensurate used statewide to estimate a school's academic effectiveness.

The Public Schools Accountability Human action Advisory Committee, which is tasked with making recommendations to the State Board of Education on meeting the requirements of the law, met on Thursday in Sacramento to continue its deliberations on how best to revise the high school API.  The California Department of Educational activity has contracted with the Educational Policy Improvement Centre (Epic), founded by David Conley, a Academy of Oregon professor who has studied college and career readiness extensively, to provide a series of reports to help guide their recommendations.   The informational committee met in Sacramento on Wednesday this calendar week to continue its work on integrating college and career measures into the  Academic Performance Index, and to decide on what reports to commission from the Oregon-based center.

The starting time of the EPIC reports are expected to be delivered in April. The reports will cover the function college entrance exams and participation in Avant-garde Placement and the International Baccalaureate program play in helping prepare students for success after loftier schoolhouse. At its Thursaday coming together, the committee approved additional reports, including ane on career technical educational activity and career readiness, that will be presented at time to come meetings. The California Section of Teaching has budgeted $50,000 for the contract with the policy heart.

Michelle Maitre covers career and college readiness. Contact her and follow her on Twitter @michelle_maitre. Sign upward here for a no-cost online subscription to EdSource Today for reports from the largest education reporting team in California.

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