College-Ready Education

The foundation has set an ambitious goal in K-12 education: to graduate all students college-ready. Currently, only a third of students graduate on-time with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed beyond high school. Together with our partners, we are working to provide all students—especially low-income and minority students—with the opportunity to realize their full potential.

Background and Strategy

To reach our goals, we followed the evidence and focused our investments in several key areas. We believe all students must have an effective teacher in every class, every year. We support clear college-ready standards, consistent across the states; improved data systems; and innovative programs to increase college readiness and remove barriers to a high-quality education.

College-Ready Education Plan: Executive Summary (PDF, 700KB, 2 pages)
College-Ready Education Plan (PDF, 2.42MB, 8 pages)
Basing Action on Evidence

Effective Teaching

The evidence is clear that teachers matter more to student achievement than any other factor inside schools. We’re investing in bold research and reform efforts to better understand what makes a teacher effective and to rethink the way we recruit, retain, and evaluate teachers in our schools in order to improve student outcomes.

Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching Overview
Measures of Effective Teaching Project
Learning About Teaching: Policy Brief (PDF, 2.4MB, 7 pages)
Learning About Teaching: Research Paper (PDF, 3.8MB, 40 pages)

Standards, Curriculum, and Assessments

Clear, consistent college- and career-ready standards establish what students at every grade level need to know in order to be prepared for success beyond high school. We are committed to these efforts and to working with our partners to develop tools aligned to the standards that can help teachers identify and address student learning gaps.

To read the Common Core State Standards, visit www.corestandards.org
Report: Fewer, Clearer, Higher (PDF, 3.2MB, 14 pages)
Report: What's Next? (PDF, 3.85MB, 14 pages)
Report: Supporting Instruction (PDF, 4.8MB, 18 pages)

Innovation and Networks

Our investments in innovation are focused on developing new technology and tools to more effectively engage and support students. But innovation also includes new approaches to schools and learning models that re-imagine what education looks like when students are challenged and provided with the opportunity to excel.

Strategic Use of Education Data

We support the design and rollout of better data systems to measure progress within states, districts, and schools. We’re working with partners to better track student achievement through high school and beyond and to help educators effectively use data to improve student outcomes.