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By Jennifer Gonzalez from the Students section of The Chronicle of Higher Education, Sept 19 2012. The article highlights a study, "State High School Exit Exams: A Policy in Transition" from the Center on Education Policy at George Washington University. It looks at 8 states that require HS exit exams that measure college-readiness, either via Common Core Standards or other.

by Jon Marcus on The Hechinger Report, December 26, 2011. Open University, a successful British online public university to be used as a model in the U.S. The goal is to help students who are intimidated by higher education adapt to and succeed in college. Next Generation Learning Challenges, a Gates funded initiative, will adapt two free Open University, at-your-own-pace online courses for use at about a dozen U.S. colleges and universities this academic year: one to help students be more comfortable with math so they do better on placement tests or move more quickly through remedial courses, and another to teach students skills to prepare them for college.

By Elisabeth A. Barnett & Katherine L. Hughes and published by the Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University, October 2010. This Issue Brief was presented as part of President Obama's White House Summit on Community College (October 2010) and looks at partnerships that might improve college enrollment, college readiness at enrollment, and persistence in college.

by Nick Anderson, Washington Post, September 2 2010. As part of the Race to the Top, grants were made to the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers ($170 million) and the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium ($160 million). The Partnership "would potentially replace a single, high-stakes test with a series of assessments to be averaged into one score for accountability purposes." SMARTER "would assess students through computer-adaptive technology..." Both assessments hope to do away with the existing "bubble tests" and hope to roll out in the 2014-15 school year.

By Kara Spak, Chicago Sun-Times, May 31, 2011. This article cites a recent report released by the Alliance for Excellent Education, which finds that "as many as one-third of students entering higher education need to take some sort of remedial or developmental course...." Putting a human face on these statistics is the profile of one student who graduated from high school with a 3.0 GPA and a B in "College Algebra" but still needed to take a non-credit developmental math course when she got to community college.

By Tina Marie Macias in the advertiser. com (Louisiana), May 20, 2011. The author cites analysis by The Daily Advertiser (the print newspaper) that "the majority of 2010 ACT-tested Lafayette Parish students did not meet college readiness benchmarks." The article also compares the ACT as an indicator against TOPS (Taylor Opportunity for Students Award, a local grant).