Moving Beyond Soft Skills: Applying Noncognitive Factors in Georgia’s Schools

Boy Hiking

This article is the first in a series of posts that will address key issues impacting college and career readiness in Georgia, as discussed in the overview report, Fortifying Pathways: Themes to Guide College and Career Readiness in Georgia.

By Aundrea Gregg and Eric Wearne

Introduction

For each student in Georgia, education is a personal experience that will ultimately impact his or her life’s circumstances and opportunities as an adult. Students who matriculate from high school on to college graduation and careers greatly increase their earning potential as adults and are less likely to experience family breakdown, need government assistance, and become entangled in the legal system than those who fall through the cracks.

Stunted Success

In Georgia, however, the number of students who do not advance beyond K-12 remains astronomically high. Over 1 in 5 young adults in Georgia are not attending school, not working, and have no degree beyond high school.  Additionally, almost 1 out of every 3 Georgians does not graduate from high school in four years, placing Georgia 48th in the country.

Remediation

For students who do graduate high school, many still leave inadequately prepared for the demands of universities and Georgia’s industries. In 2011, Complete College America reported that 18% of freshman entering 4-year universities in Georgia required remediation in at least one subject area. Another 37% of freshmen entering 2-year colleges required remediation as well. The need for remediation not only significantly lowers the likelihood of completing a degree program; it also comes at an annual cost of millions to the state.

Employer Satisfaction

As educational attainment in K-12 and college sets the stage for placement in the workforce, reports have noted the discord between high school and college graduates’ preparedness and employers’ expectations for new hires.

Whether in search of applicants with rudimentary skills, such as the ability to arrive on time every day, or applicants in possession of the skills to fill advanced technical positions, approximately 5,000 jobs in Georgia remain unfilled in 2015 due in part to a “skills gap.” A study in Michigan found that businesses across the state spend about $222 million each year correcting the shortcomings of their employees who leave high school without the basic skills needed for their job. Given the exorbitant cost, it is understandable why employers in Georgia would not want to spend time training employees for skills they should already possess.

Something More Than Academics

Providing access to quality education from the start of kindergarten all the way through high school and beyond is of course necessary for Georgia’s citizens to thrive and prosper.

To narrow the gaps, major reforms have focused almost exclusively on improving student achievement by employing more rigorous academic standards in schools, as measured by reading and math scores. Though academic achievement is certainly vital to success, this narrowed paradigm for student advancement has done little to change the status quo regarding outcomes.

A Gray Area

Grade Point Averages (GPA), scores on the SAT, and completion of state exit exams are all black and white expectations on the pathway to college and a career. Probably more important, however, are the challenges students face in terms of cultivating themselves as individuals, of forming the habits that support personal growth, and of fashioning an early idea of what their purpose in life will be.

With a wider and more abstract understanding of readiness, motivation, responsibility, planning and decision-making, Georgia can begin to define a current gray area of learning needs that have been underdeveloped in K-12 schools.

Not “Soft Skills” – Necessary Noncognitive Factors

The term “soft skills” has long been used to describe non-academic learning factors that aid students’ ability to grasp content knowledge. There is, however, nothing soft about the personal traits such as perseverance and self-control; skills such as time management and goal setting; and interventions such as attachment to community and access to support systems that shape a student’s mindset for learning, both positively and negatively.

This wide package of traits and tools comprise what have been commonly referred to in a large body of research as noncognitive factors. While noncognitive factors have been given credence as important components of student success, there are very few programs and policies that encourage their development in students, schools, and communities.

This post seeks to explain the importance of these skills and propose recommendations that support their development in K-12 settings in Georgia.

The Value of Developing Noncognitive Factors

Preparing students to succeed in school and life requires the development of two sets of skills: cognitive abilities that constitute what is often referred to as hard knowledge, as well as noncognitive factors that help individuals apply that knowledge. Whereas cognitive functions include processes such as thinking, reasoning, and remembering, noncognitive factors include a person’s aptitude for planning, emotional maturity, interpersonal interactions, and communication skills – both verbal and nonverbal.

Noncognitive factors largely shape a person’s behavior and greatly influence their ability to function in educational settings. For students with a strong base of noncognitive factors, such as strong study habits, eagerness to ask questions, positive self-image, and determination to reach goals, just to name a few, the ability to bridge knowledge gained in the classroom with actual success increases substantially.

Further, research led by the Center for the Economics of Education concluded that noncognitive factors can be a strong predictor of compatible occupations, wage potential, and the likelihood of risky behavior as an adult.

Noncognitive Factors Chart

Traits: Self-Control Perseverance Realistic Self- Appraisal Responsibility
Skills: Planning & Decision Making Constructive Time Management Conflict Resolution Critical Thinking
Interventions: Youth Programs Parental Involvement Connection to Strong Support Person Caring School Environment

Noncognitive Factors and College and Career Readiness

Noncognitive factors are becoming more prominent considerations in college admissions and hiring processes across the country. This is largely due to institutions of higher learning and employers desiring candidates that possess abilities that extend beyond mastery of math and English.

Research led by Dr. William Sedlacek, a foremost expert on noncognitive variables and Professor Emeritus of Education at the University of Maryland, highlights that assessing noncognitive abilities in admissions processes is an important basis for colleges and employers to discern intelligences beyond those tested on standardized exams such as the SAT.

One practical example of this is the applicant assessment board for the Gates Millennium Scholarship. This project has focused entirely on evaluating noncognitive factors to discover students’ experiential intelligence – the ability to interpret information in a changing context or be creative – and contextual intelligence – the ability to adapt to changing environments and negotiate within a system. While neither of these intelligences is tested on the SAT, which only examines knowledge learned in a fixed context, the Gates’ board has had some success selecting students ready to perform in rigorous academic settings at institutions of higher learning. It should also be noted that Gates Scholars include demographics with statically lower chances of reaching college graduation such as first-generation college goers, low-income, and minority students.

As the consideration of noncognitive factors has allowed institutions to rethink admissions, hiring, and retention strategies, their recognized importance as a critical component of college and career readiness has increased for all students.

Opportunity: Building Strong Relationships between Schools and Students

As a means to develop noncognitive abilities, students require access to small-scale connections. Dr. Sedlacek, in his list of noncognitive variables, emphasizes strong support systems – specifically “a strong support person” that students can turn to to provide guidance on common child-to-adult transition situations. Emphasizing this point, Ruby K. Payne, Ph.D notes in her acclaimed book A Framework for Understanding Poverty, “support systems are simply networks of relationships.”

Why Relationships Matter

Fostering personal, strong relationships between teachers and students and even schools and families is important for many reasons. On the most basic level, establishing trust, communication, and understanding – all commonly accepted components of a healthy relationship – are prerequisite to creating environments in schools where students will thrive and parents participate.

Teachers who know their students personally are better equipped to tailor lesson plans and speak directly to specific needs. For historically disadvantaged groups such as young men of color and first generation college students, accessing mentors at school where familiarity with the college process is limited at home is key to closing persistent educational gaps.

Barriers to Opportunity

Home Matters

Noncognitive traits develop most prominently during early childhood, and parents play an important role in developing the noncognitive abilities of their children. Though noncognitive factors are more malleable, even during later stages in life, home life matters greatly and students may miss development of these skills due to issues such as family breakdown or poor socio-economic circumstances (as education levels of parents also factor into development).

While active parental involvement and a stable home environment are foundational to the noncognitive skills training that should take place in school, unfortunately, not all children in Georgia find the role models they need at home.

Though it only takes the support of one invested adult to guide a child, studies find that the representation of two parents in the home can greatly increase a child’s educational attainment. One study found in examining a sample of children who completed eighth grade that high school graduation rates were 90 percent for those in two-married-biological-parent families, 75 percent for those in single-mother-divorced families, and 69 percent for those in single-mother-never-married families. Similarly, when it comes to college attendance, 71 percent of children who live with two married, biological parents went on to college, while only half of children living with only their mothers took this route.

Increasing parental involvement in early childhood development, as well as maintaining positive relationships between parents and between parents and their children remains a paramount barrier to improving outcomes for students in K-12 and in adulthood.

Academic Attainment Rules

As it currently stands within many schools and school systems, the focus on noncognitive factors is embedded haphazardly through character education hours or small discussions about the need to build study habits. In fact, many of the habits and skills colleges and employers deem most valuable, are often addressed as periphery learning needs and go underdeveloped through curricula.

The University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research notes, “teachers would play a vital role in helping students move from being passive recipients of academic content to active learners” who wield noncognitive abilities to progress through elevated academic challenges and, more importantly, demonstrate understanding in real world situations. To do this, focused development of noncognitive factors must parallel instruction on hard content in schools.

Misplaced Incentives

More rigorous academic standards remains the exclusive focus of schools because educational institutions are incentivized to worry about themselves as institutions, or on policy as an abstract, and not on students as individuals. In other words, policymaking has become too big in education and it incentivizes the wrong things. Schools worry about test scores. Much like colleges and universities worry about enrollment and sometimes retention, these are all measures that point back on the institutions, but say nothing about how well-prepared their students are to move on to college or a career. There remains an opportunity to better prepare Georgia’s students for college and careers by shifting more of the focus in schools from increasing academic standards to cultivating noncognitive factors.

Recommendations: What is Working

Continue Research on Strengthening Families and Communities

The importance of a stable home life cannot be stated enough in the process of cultivating noncognitive factors for Georgia’s children, although the impact of family breakdown and what to be done about this problem remain outside of the scope of this paper. Below are recommendations from Georgia Center for Opportunity’s College & Career Pathways Working Group regarding what is being done and what might be replicated within existing structures.

Intrusive Advising at All Levels of Schooling

Paul Tough highlights in his recent New York Times article, “Who Gets to Graduate?” the powerful feelings of stress that at-risk students can feel without the assistance of parents and mentors to mitigate minor bumps in the road. The point is made how quickly a first failing mark or trouble with a roommate can lead to feelings of inadequacy, and premature dropping out.

Educational institutions such as Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC) and Paine College in Augusta, GA have begun to employ new advising strategies that combine personal relationship building with “tough love” to ensure at-risk students understand challenges that are common in college, reprogram bad habits,  and overcome obstacles to  stay on track for graduation.

Model: Georgia Gwinnett College

As an institution with an access mission, GGC’s students enroll with varying levels of preparedness for college. For instance, 30-40% of CCG’s incoming students enroll in at least one remedial class, meaning a large cross-section of students is off track to graduate from the start. To safeguard the large at-risk population, GGC’s administration has made it a point to increase access to teachers and administration. The school boasts no office hours, students may arrange meetings at any time, and students are given the (school issued) mobile number of every professor.

Additionally, through GGC’s intrusive advising programs, students who have already been placed on academic probation or worse receive a second chance to reach graduation. Under the watchful eyes of counselors, teachers, and peer coaches, students receive intense, regular engagement, mandatory tutoring and workshops, as well as student success classes.

While tactics such as intrusive advising remain largely isolated in the higher education realm and for at-risk students, these strategies could greatly influence college and career strategies for all students in K-12. At GGC, these “high engagement, individual focused efforts” created to serve a substantially high-need population have shown some success in student retention and graduation.

Conclusion

Parallel to the development of vital traits and skills at home, schools and communities are equally important places where students hone the necessary skills they will need for adulthood. Ideally parents, schools, and communities should work together to develop these noncognitive factors on all fronts. Schools and institutions would be well-served by taking these developmental gaps into account and addressing them formally.

Strong, healthy relationships between teachers and students, schools and families can be the x-factor that allows students to reach success. Interventions must extend beyond rigorous academic standards. Cultivating noncognitive factors through K-12 provides a more holistic approach to college and career readiness.

New GCO Report: Fortifying Pathways

Report Cover - Fortifying Pathways

While education plays a tremendous role in shaping individual life outcomes, the number of students in Georgia who do not advance beyond K-12 remains astronomically high. Over 1 in 5 young adults in Georgia are not attending school, not working, and have no degree beyond high school. Additionally, in 2014, more than 33,000 students did not graduate. Of those who go on to college, nearly 40 percent do not finish in four years.

To promote solutions that will give more Georgians a real chance to prosper, GCO convened a working group of education professionals as part of the College and Career Pathways Initiative. Comprised of K-12, postsecondary, and local business leaders, the group sought to contextualize barriers faced by students, parents, and schools of varying circumstances across the state.

Through a series of nine meetings, the group not only considered the academic needs of readiness, such as rigorous learning standards, and systemic barriers, such as recruiting and preparing quality teachers, the group also considered the philosophical underpinnings of readiness such as the relationship between education and fulfilling one’s purpose in life.

The following report serves as an overview of the themes and key issues covered by GCO’s College and Career Pathways working group. Major themes include the importance for Georgia to:

  • Move away from big policy as a means of education reform
  • Empower schools to take the reins of innovation and reform
  • Help students develop healthy habits through strong relational ties

Through the lens of the themes described above, GCO plans to publish over the coming months a series of reports addressing key issues impacting college and career readiness in Georgia. These issues include:

  • Measuring noncognitive variables in school and building small-scale relationships
  • Improving accountability measures in Georgia’s schools
  • Education reimagined through blended learning models
  • Increasing experimentation and creativity in teacher preparation: Creating “the missing institution”

To read the full report, click here: Fortifying Pathways: Themes to Guide College and Career Readiness in Georgia

Guest Blog: Complete College Georgia 15 to Finish Initiative

Below is a guest blog by Mrs. Sheila Caldwell, Director for Complete College Georgia at the University of North Georgia. Mrs. Caldwell currently serves as a member of  GCO’s College & Career Pathways working group.

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In a recent poll of high school seniors asking how many credit hours per semester they should take when they go to college; more than 50 percent indicated 12 hours as an ideal college course load. Though 12 hours is a full-time course load, it is impossible for a student to earn a bachelor’s degree within four years unless a student takes an additional six hours during the summer. The primary route to earning a bachelor’s degree within four years is to successfully complete 15 credit hours per semester, for a total of 30 credit hours annually.

To improve college graduation rates and encourage on-time completion, the state of Georgia has launched 15 to Finish, a proven advisement, retention, progression, and graduation initiative that encourages students to take 15 credits per semester, thereby spending less time and money to earn a degree. The goal of Complete College Georgia and 15 to Finish is to provide better information and educate all students on tuition and fees, graduation rates, and job opportunities to ensure successful college completion.

The 15 to Finish initiative is important because many students express a desire to graduate within four years. Colleges are referred to as either four-year or two-year institutions, but most students are taking longer to graduate. In fact, if 100 students entered college today in the state of Georgia, only 11 students would graduate on time at a four-year college and only five would graduate on time at a two-year college (Complete College America, 2011). Full time-students are taking an average of five years to earn a bachelor’s degree and four years to earn an associate degree (Complete College Georgia, 2011). Many students are unaware of the potential consequences that can result from taking fewer credit hours, including a higher likelihood of non-completion, lost wages, and increased college costs.

A cost analysis conducted by the University System of Georgia seeking to determine how much a student would pay for a degree based on the number of credit hours taken per semester revealed staggering results. For example, a student enrolled in a bachelor’s degree program at the University of North Georgia (UNG) would pay an average of $42,236 to earn a degree by completing only three credit hours per semester compared to $26,768 if completing 15 hours per semester– nearly $15,000 in savings for a UNG student who graduates on time. The study found the cost difference is even more drastic for students who wish to attend Georgia Tech or the University of Georgia (UGA). The chart below illustrates an additional expense of $74,000 for Georgia Tech and $90,000 for UGA for students taking only 3 hours per semester.

Credits/

Semester

GA Tech

UGA

3

$119,474.00

$134,357.00

6

$75,914.00

$73,317.00

9

$72,875.00

$70,205.00

12

$56,164.00

$54,587.00

15

$45,514.00

$44,325.00

 

15 to finish graph

Not only do students reap significant financial benefits when they enroll in 15 hours every semester until degree completion, they also experience quicker entry and higher wages when they transition into the workforce. Students graduating from UNG with a bachelor’s degree earn an average of $20,000 more annually than their high school counterparts. A college student who graduates within four years with a bachelor’s degree earns $40,000 more in income than a college student who takes six years to graduate. Additionally, associate degree holders who graduate within 2 years earns $19,000 more than associate degree holders who take four years to graduate (Education Pays, 2013). Many part-time students do not consider the enormous amount of money foregone in the workforce when they delay college completion by one or two years.

Part-time students pay more for their degree and incur lost wages because they lack a college credential. They also jeopardize their entire college career. According to “Time is the Enemy” (CCA, 2011), only 15% of part-time students will earn a bachelor’s degree within six years compared to 57% of full-time students. Only 7.8% of associate degree seekers will earn a degree within four years. The 15 to Finish initiative seeks to battle dismal college completion rates.

College completion not only enhances an individual’s economic well-being, it can improve overall quality of life in the following ways: longer life spans, better access to health care, more prestigious employment and greater job satisfaction, less dependency on government assistance, greater participation in leisure, civic, and artistic activities, and more self- confidence (Education Pays, 2013).

Serving as a member of the College and Career Pathways working group, the Complete College Georgia (CCG) 15 to Finish initiative is perfectly aligned with recent discussions among the panel. The primary goals of the working group are to develop and promote programs that encourage at-risk youth to graduate high school and attain college and career success. GCO and CCG collaborate to help all students better prepare, connect to, and navigate college. Our ultimate aim is to enable greater mobility and opportunity among Georgia citizens.

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CaldwellSheila2013-600x400

Sheila Caldwell aims to help students successfully access and complete college at University of North Georgia. She is passionate about opportunity over charity and strives diligently to be a change agent for economically disadvantaged students across the state of Georgia.

Fellowship Friday: Relationships Open the Door to Educational Attainment

Elementary pupils outside classroom talking to teacher. Courtesy: nspt4kids.com

Elementary pupils outside classroom talking to teacher. Courtesy: nspt4kids.com

Hidden beneath academic benchmarks, league tables, and other measures of success in education, are the relationships and personal traits that fuel positive and negative outcomes for students. Attending the College Access Challenge Grant Georgia Conference earlier this week, I realized this theme as presenters with extremely challenging backgrounds–such as one man who was abandoned at a bus station when he was 5 years old–shared their stories of trial and triumph. Relationships–both the ones we build with others, and the one we nurture with ourselves–are the true challenge of preparing students to be successful in school and in life.

Prefacing the College Access Challenge Grant Georgia Conference, Georgia Center for Opportunity hosted a meeting focused on the non-academic needs of students earlier this week. Presenters Reginald Beaty and Tony Owens, independent consultants and Co-Deans of Students at Paine College in Augusta, Ga, enlightened the College and Career Pathways working group with trend leading research on non-cognitive variables.

If I just lost you, non-cognitive variables, more commonly referred to as “soft-skills,” are the qualities such as self-awareness, resilience, and even time management that bridge testable knowledge with actual successful outcomes. Notable scholars such as Angela Duckworth, and William Sedlacek, Ph.D have led the conversation on how these skills can be fostered within traditional and nontraditional school settings to transform individual students’ mindsets to ensure they are better prepared to overcome adverse learning challenges.

Paring my experience at the conference with the meeting on non-cognitive variables, I gained 2 important take-aways this week:

  1. Personal experiences with adversity can build “soft-skills” such as self-perception and grit (the ability to preserve past challenges to reach long-term goals) that aid academic success. However, the framing of these vital skills in a negative context can potentially render them useless to students.

  1. Actively working to connect with students on an individual level, in some cases weeding through the traumas of a student’s life, can change the context through which students utilize these traits to close achievement gaps and reach personal redemption.

Ruby K. Payne, Ph.D notes in her acclaimed book A Framework for Understanding Poverty, that “support systems are simply networks of relationships.” From both meetings, the consensus was that  more streamlined support systems are needed to empower students, and there is still much debate around how to deliver a more relationship-focused infrastructure. Seeking a solution for this issue will continue to be at the heart of the College and Career Pathways working group.

Building a Framework for College Readiness: A Meeting at Georgia Gwinnett College

Below is a guest blog by Dr. Eric Wearne of Georgia Gwinnett College and formerly with the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement. Dr. Wearne currently leads GCO’s College & Career Pathways working group.

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GCO’s college and career readiness working group met at Georgia Gwinnett College in Lawrenceville last week to continue the “college” aspect of its work.  The group specifically focused on high remediation rates, communication between high schools and colleges regarding expectations, and issues often faced by first-generation college students. Here is a closer look at some take-aways from this meeting:

  • High remediation rates. University System of Georgia (USG) institutions offer three remedial, or “learning support” courses, in reading, English, and math.  Whether needing remediation in one area or more than one, Georgia students have historically enrolled in these courses at what seem like high rate.  In Fall 2008 (the most recent data reported by USG), USG institutions enrolled 46,500 first-time freshmen.  Of those 46,500, 11,603, or 25 percent, were required to take at least one learning support course based on USG requirements.  Perhaps the numbers have improved over the past 5 years, but this surely remains a problem.
  • High school – college communication. The USG actually has a set of high school curriculum requirements for entering freshmen.  But even a student who earns all of the credits on this list could need learning support in multiple areas, based on placement test scores.  At a high level, agencies and institutions have been communicating for years about the transition from high school to college, from USG’s high school credit requirements to the career pathways initiative to Complete College Georgia.  More communication at a finer-grain level, such as between college faculty and high school teachers in specific content areas, is an area the group spent significant time discussing, and will continue to refine.
  • First-generation college students. Finally, the group also explored issues related to first-generation college students.  Skills like learning the diligence to wake up, go to campus, attend class, pay attention, and stay the whole time—without anyone telling the student to do so – are skills that many students are not necessarily forced to practice in high school.  Many can even graduate without them.  Add to this the lack of a family member with experience in building a college schedule, or navigating financial aid, and it becomes much clearer why many first-generation college students struggle on campus.  Georgia Gwinnett College provides significantly more individual mentoring for students, as well as much more “intrusive” advising; the college actually attempts to find students who may be struggling, and reach out to them, rather than passively waiting for students who need help to find a campus advising or tutoring center.  These efforts have borne results, as GGC has retention rates much higher than comparable institutions; rates that, in fact, sometimes rival the retention rates at Research I institutions.  

These areas are part of the framework of the group’s efforts at finding practical solutions to improve the college readiness of Georgia students.  Next month, the group will focus on issues specific to “career” readiness, and will work toward preliminary recommendations, and a report on the first stage of its work.

Despite Guidelines, Many Georgia Students Not “College Ready”

Below is a guest blog by Dr. Eric Wearne of Georgia Gwinnett College and formerly with the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement. Dr. Wearne currently leads GCO’s College & Career Pathways working group.

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By: Dr. Eric Wearne

What it means to be “college ready” has been a popular topic of conversation among educators in school systems, state agencies, and even at the national level for several years.  Local schools certainly think about this, though they are not directly held accountable for their graduates’ outcomes (other than graduation itself). The Georgia Department of Education and the University System of Georgia have worked on college readiness definition and alignment issues for several years.  SAT and ACT publish their opinions of what constitutes “college readiness” (based on their respective tests) every year.  And the federal report that was meant as a “blueprint” for reform of no child left behind very clearly discusses USED’s desire to increase “college readiness.”

Over the past few months, GCO’s working group on college and career readiness has met and started defining its research agenda in the area of improving college readiness outcomes.

In its first few meetings, the group has looked specifically at college readiness.  The group has chosen to focus its efforts in this area by looking at the particular issues of three sets of students:

a.       Students in college but not prepared for it;

b.      Students currently in high school and in danger of dropping out;

c.       Students in high school (not in danger of dropping out), but not on track for college or careers.

Today, the group will meet at Georgia Gwinnett College, and will hear presentations about issues related to students in need of remediation and first-generation college students.  SAT, ACT, and USED have suggested college readiness standards or goals, as noted above.  More practically for Georgia schools, the University System of Georgia has defined what it means to be “college ready” through its Required High School Curriculum.  The requirements are reasonable, and both public and private schools in Georgia know what these requirements are and help their students meet them.  But the fact remains that large numbers of students who would like to attend college, and work toward (and often attain) these credentials are still not college ready.  How might colleges support students who they have admitted, but who are not really college ready?  What can K12 do to ensure that their graduates are able to do what they want to with their lives, or, as GCO often puts it, reach “middle class by middle age?” This ground is where GCO’s working group will conduct its research and find recommendations.

This is just the first stage in the group’s work.    In the coming months, the group will look more specifically at career readiness, broadly-defined: career academies, vocational education, apprenticeships, etc.  Other areas the group will explore as it works toward policy recommendations are: looking at the impact of teacher effectiveness, teacher training, and teacher career responsibilities on college- and career-readiness outcomes; exploring the possibilities that may come from online learning technologies and related strategies such as competency-based learning; and other areas the group finds necessary and worthwhile.