Longitudinal Outcomes Study

Assessment of the Effects of College- and Career-readiness Standards

As of 2015, all states and the District of Columbia had adopted new college- and career-readiness standards—in the form of the Common Core State Standards for most states—as part of the current wave of standards-based reform. To assess the effects of states' adoption of college- and career-readiness standards on student outcomes, C-SAIL conducted comparative interrupted time series analyses of National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data and high school graduation rates in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. These analyses were designed to address the following overarching research question: Did states’ adoption of CCR standards result in increases in student achievement and high school graduation rate, both overall and for key student subgroups?

50-State Policy Database

As part of the C-SAIL longitudinal outcomes study, we created a unique and powerful 50 state policy database that allowed us to do cross-state comparisons linking state policy to achievement trends. We useed the database to answer question such as: How quickly are states changing, and on which attributes? How are these changes related to implementation and student learning trajectories? Further, our approach allowed the Center to chart explicitly how the new standards influenced instruction for different groups for different students, such as English language learners, students with disabilities, and low-achieving students.

We also quantitatively compared the alignment of standards to assessments for each state, to answer pressing policy questions, such as, how well aligned are the new multi-state assessment consortia assessments with college- and career-readiness standards? Our procedures allowed us to identify specific areas of alignment and misalignment, which provide actionable information for states and districts.