Louisiana Students
College and Career Ready
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To provide all Louisiana’s children the opportunity to be successful in the global marketplace, Louisiana’s education system must embrace change. Nearly all of today’s jobs require higher level skills, creating a large skills gap. Closing this gap will require a commitment to a new approach to educating Louisiana students.
The four year cohort graduation rate in Louisiana – the percent of children entering the 9th grade that graduate four years later – hovers about 67% with “one-third” of students not graduating with their class. Of the 67% of students who graduate on time, approximately half of these students enter post secondary education. Of those that enter college, about one in three finish post-secondary education with a degree.
This growing skills gap will ultimately lead to an “opportunity crisis” for the next generation of high school students and will cripple the future economy of Louisiana.
If too many of Louisiana’s adults lack education and in-demand skills, jobs will migrate elsewhere, making it even harder to find work that pays a living wage. Companies can now search the globe for the skills they need. Where they find them, good jobs and economic opportunities will follow. This is the major long-term vision of reform voiced by Governor Jindal – to create new jobs and prepare the people of Louisiana to fill those jobs.
In 2009 the Louisiana Legislature passed the Louisiana College and Career Readiness Act (Act 257). This legislation requires the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, in collaboration with post-secondary management boards, “to establish state strategic initiatives to improve high school graduation rates and ensure student readiness for post-secondary education and career opportunities… enacting strategies that seamlessly connect PreK-12 education with post-secondary education and career opportunities.” As a result of the legislation, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) and the Louisiana Department of Education have begun to implement extensive policies and supports focusing on increasing the graduation rate, stemming dropouts, improving transition from middle to high school, and increasing rigor, relevance, and college and career readiness in schools.
Louisiana’s commitment is education transformation – to transform its education system to fit with the current times while preparing for a rapidly evolving future. This means that the definition of college ready and career ready are the same and the stakes for a student’s future are even higher. Louisiana’s future students are even more dependent on an education that prepares them for success in the global marketplace.
