Download or read book From High School to the Future written by Melissa Roderick and published by Consortium on Chicago School Research. This book was released on 2012-09-01 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a 2010 address to the College Board, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan laid out a vision for high school that advances the Obama administration's goal of the U.S. once again leading the world in educational attainment. There is no grade in which the magnitude and complexity of this shift becomes clearer than in senior year. Historically, senior year has been a time of finishing up graduation requirements as most students entered the work force after high school. In this new economy, most students now hope to go to college and those who are not entering college face a rapidly eroding labor market for young adults with only a high school education. This changing educational landscape means that students' coursework and activities in senior year are becoming increasingly important. If the new purpose of high schools is to be a "launching pad rather than a last stop destination," what does that mean for senior year? The bottom line is that there is much work to do if cps is to shift the focus of twelfth grade from finishing graduation requirements to preparing for college and employment or training. A central theme of this report is that there is no single answer to the question, "What is a good senior year?" Students are coming into senior year with very different needs. In order to look at differences in needs across students, the authors group students by their college qualifications at the end of eleventh grade. Thus, throughout this report, the authors focus on identifying the set of issues that educators need to grapple with for students on different trajectories. Appended are: (1) Data Used in This Report; (2) Determining Who is a Senior and Who Persists in Four-Year Colleges; (3) Variables Used in the Analysis; (4) Latent Class Analysis; (5) Identifying College Access; and (6) Methodology. (Contains 33 figures, 16 tables, and 70 endnotes.).