by Andrew Schmitz and Invoice DeBaun, The Hechinger Report
February 23, 2026
U.S. excessive colleges and districts must deal with school and profession readiness as a core, systemic accountability — not an add-on.
Positive, they’re working exhausting to higher put together college students for all times after commencement: FAFSA completion occasions, profession exploration festivals, internships with native companies and dual-credit courses at neighborhood schools now outline the scholar expertise in many colleges.
Whereas these packages and occasions replicate a real effort to assist college students navigating an more and more advanced postsecondary panorama, they fail to coalesce into a transparent technique.
That has to vary. Till school and profession readiness is totally embedded into how colleges are organized, funded and led, even the best-intentioned helps will proceed to fall wanting their potential and fail college students who’re making an attempt to determine what’s subsequent.
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School and profession readiness usually takes form as a collection of advert hoc actions, with curricula, know-how platforms or courses layered onto current constructions. The result’s a patchwork, not a system.
College enchancment analysis gives a helpful metaphor: “Christmas tree colleges.” That refers to how, in pursuit of faculty and profession readiness, colleges accumulate well-intentioned packages, however fail to get college students on their subsequent, finest step after the highschool commencement stage.
In contrast to core educational topics, school and profession readiness sits uneasily in the highschool ecosystem. Take into account:
- The aim largely lacks sustained, protected funding akin to that for educational instruction and examined outcomes, and leaders are sometimes pressured to creatively mix and braid funding from varied sources in an effort to assist school and profession readiness priorities.
- State accountability techniques prioritize commencement charges and take a look at scores, providing weak or inconsistent incentives for rigorous postsecondary preparation.
College leaders are likely to focus enchancment efforts on areas the place funding, rankings and oversight converse most clearly. That leads them to deprioritize the work of supporting college students’ transitions after commencement.
College counselors, the adults most instantly liable for this work, are sometimes overwhelmed and face important structural constraints. Nationally, the typical highschool counselor serves 376 college students, 150 % of the ratio beneficial by skilled associations.
As well as, counselors commit a lot of their time to scheduling, compliance, testing coordination and disaster response. That leaves little room or time for sustained advising or management over a schoolwide school and profession readiness technique.
Compounding the issue, districts hardly ever plan for school and profession readiness in a critical approach. Lower than 15 % of district strategic plans explicitly deal with it, and it’s absent as a precedence in most particular person college enchancment plans.
Principal preparation packages emphasize tutorial management and finance however hardly ever practice college leaders to construct clear routes from highschool to what comes subsequent by connecting programs, advising and work experiences. In consequence, they’re hardly ever geared up to construct and handle advising techniques, pathways and partnerships.
Missing funding, possession and preparation signifies that school and profession readiness drifts to the margins or disappears totally.
In consequence, colleges fill the hole haphazardly. Group-based and exterior school entry organizations advise choose cohorts of scholars; dual-enrollment participation has surged; and states are speeding to broaden scholar entry to work-based studying by way of new laws and packages.
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However scholar participation in these packages is episodic somewhat than strategic, and college students usually discover it troublesome to construct the data and momentum required not simply to enroll in postsecondary pathways, however to finish them and safe economically viable careers.
Profitable methods depend on integration somewhat than accumulation. They align staffing, planning, curricula, knowledge and partnerships round shared objectives for postsecondary preparation. They emphasize self-discipline over slogans and coherence over novelty. A number of rules matter most:
- First, districts should broaden and diversify their school-based advising capability. Whereas 89 % of highschool leaders report offering some type of school and profession advising assist companies, the problem lies in growing its high quality and frequency. Colleges can create complementary roles, similar to advisers who focus extra particularly on careers and work-based studying coordinators, to increase counselors’ attain.
- Second, districts ought to embrace clear, measurable school and profession readiness objectives into strategic plans, then publicly monitor progress utilizing main indicators. Districts like Akron, Ohio, Jackson, Mississippi and Kentwood, Michigan exhibit how making readiness seen in planning modifications what leaders prioritize and handle.
- Third, states and districts ought to streamline curricula, advising frameworks and knowledge techniques to create coherence from grades 6 by way of 12. Too many platforms fragment info and complicate progress monitoring. Leaders want fewer techniques, and people they do have must align tightly to state frameworks, regional profession landscapes and native methods. Leaders don’t want extra dashboards that compete for consideration.
- Schooling Technique Group’s CCR platform overview gives complete info to assist leaders make knowledgeable decisions about knowledge techniques.
Excessive colleges don’t undergo from a scarcity of effort or goodwill. They undergo from misaligned incentives and fragmented techniques.
Andrew Schmitz is the senior managing director of system affect at OneGoal. He launched and leads the OneGoal Management Community, which companions with greater than 60 districts in seven states. Invoice DeBaun is the senior director of knowledge and strategic initiatives on the Nationwide School Attainment Community (NCAN).
Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.
This story about school and profession counseling was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, unbiased information group targeted on inequality and innovation in training. Join Hechinger’s weekly publication.
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