In his response to Achieve's 2007 Closing the Expectations Gap report, Checker Finn lamented what he characterized as the slow pace of state progress in adopting the American Diploma Project (ADP) policy agenda that Achieve, the Fordham Foundation, and the Education Trust developed four years ago. Since then, Achieve has continued to "win over" state policymakers--32 states, educating three-fourths of the nation's public-school children, have thus far joined the ADP Network and committed to the implementing the ADP recommended policies.
In Closing the Expectations Gap 2008, Achieve reports that states have made the most progress aligning academic standards and graduation requirements with college- and career-ready expectations, but less so on complementary assessments, data, and accountability systems. While states' progress is encouraging, much still remains to be done implementing the right policies and building school capacity so that students graduate from high school prepared for the demands of the real world.
In a short review of the 2008 Closing the Expectations Gap (see here), Coby Loup focused on the pace of implementation without noting the critical importance of the ADP agenda or the nuanced policy details actually discussed in the report. We hope Gadfly readers interested in Achieve and the American Diploma Project will read our new report and judge for themselves how far states have advanced the ADP agenda and how far they still need to go.
John Kraman and Kate Blosveren
Achieve, Inc.