By Kimberly Beltran
As most of the nation’s schools ponder the new goals set by the Every Child Succeeds Act, a group of districts in California might actually be putting the final touches on a major element of the transition.
The nine-district consortium, California Office to Reform Education – or CORE – is less than two weeks away from unveiling results of a new school rating system that combines test scores with data on an array of non-academic metrics to provide a holistic snapshot of how well students are being prepared for college and career.
Building and implementing a new accountability system by 2017 is perhaps the most challenging mandate imposed on the states by ESSA and the one that will likely cause the greatest anxiety.
“College and career readiness is not only about academic achievement,” said CORE’s executive director Rick Miller. “We actually have pretty good research to argue that for college persistence non-cognitive skills are as important if not more so than just academic achievement. So teaching these other skills and making sure that the whole child is paid attention to matters.”
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