New data shows which states more likely to succeed in college- and career-readiness standards implementation

Contact: Jackie Kerstetter, gse-csail@gse.upenn.edu, (814) 440-2299

New data shows which states more likely to succeed in college- and career-readiness standards implementation

Map tool allows users to compare states’ policy features

Philadelphia, Pa. (March 22, 2017) – The Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning (C-SAIL) launches its second interactive map series this week with six new maps, illustrating college- and career-readiness standards policies and five features that help ensure successful implementation, across forty-nine* states and the District of Columbia. Each map provides detailed state-verified data and allows users to compare up to three states at once.

The first five maps rank each state’s college- and career-readiness policies and associated reform initiatives in relation to each of the five features described in the policy attributes theory. The policy attributes theory, developed by C-SAIL’s director Dr. Andy Porter, posits that there are five components to successful policy implementation: specificity, consistency, authority, power, and stability. The sixth map gives each state a cumulative score for all five attributes.

C-SAIL found only 20 states ranked high overall; four states – Maine, Montana, North Dakota, and Vermont – received a low overall score. Other notable findings include:

• Eleven states ranked high on specificity, a feature that helps states implement policies with fidelity.
• Only 2 states – Arkansas and Texas – ranked high on authority, which indicates stakeholder engagement and buy-in.
• Nine states scored high in power, which indicates a strong system of rewards and sanctions.
• Only 10 states scored high in stability, indicating that policies stayed stable over time.

View C-SAIL’s new maps here. |  Learn more about the policy attributes here.

C-SAIL at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, funded by the Institute for Education Sciences, examines how college- and career-ready standards are implemented, if they improve student learning, and what instructional tools measure and support their implementation. 

To learn more about C-SAIL’s map series or to speak with director Andy Porter, please contact Jackie Kerstetter at gse-csail@gse.upenn.edu or (814) 440-2299.

*Wisconsin requested C-SAIL not publish its state data.

About C-SAIL

The Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning (C-SAIL) examines how college- and career-ready standards are implemented, if they improve student learning, and what instructional tools measure and support their implementation. C-SAIL is led by Andy Porter, with a team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, University of Southern California Rossier School of Education, American Institutes for Research, and Vanderbilt University. The Center is funded through a grant from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education. Visit c-sail.org for more information and to read the C-SAIL blog.

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