EXAMINING THE RELIABILITY OF MIDDLE SCHOOL PROGRESS INDICATORS AND THEIR POTENTIAL FOR SUPPORTING THE GOAL OF COLLEGE AND CAREER READINESS

College and career readiness is the new goal for American students. College and career readiness is a process that begins prior to high school. As school districts implement programs and strategies for supporting college and career readiness, it will be important to analyze which students are off-track. In order to determine readiness, educators will need a set of indicators to monitor. This research study examined the reliability of middle school progress indicators and their potential impact on supporting high school readiness, along with college and career readiness. For the purpose of this study, the following definition of College and Career Readiness was used. In North Carolina, students are considered career and college ready when they have the knowledge and academic preparation needed to enroll and succeed, without the need for remediation, in introductory college credit-bearing courses in English Language Arts and Mathematics within an associate or baccalaureate degree program. These same attributes and levels of achievement are needed for entry into and success in postsecondary workforce education, the military or directly into a job that offers gainful employment and career advancement (North Carolina State Board of Education, 2015). Research in the area of college and career readiness is limited, because the goal of the traditional American high school was to sort and select some students for college and the rest for careers or the workforce. This study provides middle school principals with insight regarding the use of progress indicators that could support decision-making and identification of students who are off-track for high school readiness. Policymakers can utilize current findings to refine or develop new policies regarding college and career readiness and the use of indicators at the middle school level. Parents and students could also benefit from the information presented in this research, if there are middle school progress indicators that could illuminate whether or not each student is on-track for success in high school. This study analyzed multiple indicators that could assist educators as they support each student in becoming high school ready