Education
Post Secondary Readiness – Class of 2004
Research Question: What percentage of high school graduates, by school, who take post secondary English and mathematics classes as freshman in an Arizona public university or in a Maricopa County Community College, enter college-level courses?
Results: For all Maricopa County high schools, 76% of high school students who entered post secondary English classes entered at the college level. In mathematics, 42% of high school students who entered post secondary classes entered at the college level.
In 2003, Governor Napolitano convened the P-20 Council, to “systemically address educational alignment in programs and policies from pre-school, K-12, and post-secondary education into life-long learning opportunities.”[1] A successful P-20 system is contingent upon seamless linkages between the levels of Arizona’s educational system in order to facilitate student transitions between levels. These results, the Post secondary Readiness Indicator, contribute to the state’s P-20 efforts by providing much-needed information on an important link; the transition between high school and post secondary education. The indicator will inform the public on how well Maricopa county high schools prepare students for post secondary education. In addition, the indicator is provided at the school level so that individual school leaders and communities can understand the progress of their specific student population after graduation and promote change at the local level.
These previously unreleased data provide school-level results on the percentage of high school graduates from individual Maricopa county high schools that enter post secondary education ready for college-level coursework. The transition of students from high school into post secondary education and/or the workforce is an important but under-informed policy question. This indicator does not provide the entire answer, but it does account for the 59% of the Maricopa County high school students in the Class of 2004 who entered one of Arizona’s public universities or a school in the Maricopa Community College District. The indicator should be expanded to include the other Arizona counties and the results should be released annually.
Source(s): The underlying data were provided by the Arizona Board of Regents and the Maricopa County Community College District office in accordance with the reporting requirement of §ARS15-1822 - Report; academic performance of high school graduates.
