This afternoon, Achieve, Inc. released a national report on its American Diploma Project (ADP) and the need to align high school curriculum standards with what is needed for success at the college and university level, and for the workplace as well. Michigan is one of the states highlighted in the Report. It validates the commitment by Michigan ’s State Board of Education, Governor, Legislature, and Department in recognizing the need for higher standards and developing a focused curriculum on what is necessary for all students to succeed in the 21 st Century.

Michigan’s rating on alignment to ADP core

• Michigan received good or excellent alignment scores on all ADP Core Benchmarks showing MI students will be well prepared for post secondary education and the workplace.
• Achieve has recognized Michigan as a leader in state high school reform efforts.
• Subject Scores
• ELA - Michigan received an average of 2.94, nearly a perfect score of 3 and was rated 2 nd behind TN.
• Math – Michigan had near perfect scores in Algebra, Geometry and Statistics. We also had good scores in both Numerical Operations and Math Reasoning, both of which are being reviewed by Achieve to ensure high school content included in our middle school GLCEs and updated Reasoning skills included in our final High School Content Expectations were recognized.

The report:

Out of Many, One: Toward Rigorous Common Core Standards From the Ground Up  

Report overview

• During Achieve’s American Diploma Project ( ADP ) research, college faculty and employers highlighted two categories of critical shortcomings in the preparation of many recent high school graduates. One is deficiencies in the specific and narrow foundational skills typically taught in middle school. The other is a lack of complex and conceptual competencies acquired late in high school that take students several years to develop.
• Based on these insights and their experience in evaluating state standards, Achieve content experts identified within the ADP benchmarks a core set of essential understandings that states must include in their standards if they are to address critical gaps and ensure that their graduates are well prepared for college and careers.
• This report presents an analysis of the college- and career-ready standards for English in 12 states and in mathematics in 16 states and their alignment to an ADP common core.
• The common core reflects the reality of the world—that there is fundamental knowledge in English and mathematics that all graduates must know to succeed and that is not bound by state lines—but the common core also respects the traditional role of state decision making in education.

 ADP core

• There are 22 ADP Core English Benchmarks that cut across the eight strands of the ADP Benchmarks: language, communication, writing, research, logic, informational text, media and literature.
• There are 34 ADP Core Mathematics Benchmarks that cut across the five ADP strands: number sense and numerical operations; algebra; geometry; data interpretation, statistics, and probability; and mathematical reasoning. The ADP Core in mathematics calls for students to master the foundational computational skills and to recognize and solve problems that can be represented by various types of equations.

 How alignment was measured

• In conducting each standards review, three to four recognized content experts used professional judgment to respond to a set of guiding questions focused around the issue of alignment.
• Achieve’s content experts rated the strength of the “match” of each state standard statement to the best fit in the ADP Core. For each individual standard reviewed, Achieve reconciled any discrepancies among the ratings assigned by the individual content experts to produce a consensus rating.

 Rating scale

• Aligned standards were rated a 3 (excellent) or 2 (good)
• State standards not aligned received a rating of 1 (weak) or 0 (no match).

• Achieve then produced an average rating for all of the state standards collectively to calculate the overall strength of their alignment to the ADP Core.