High Schools

U.S. graduation and college-readiness rates are unacceptably low.

• Nationwide just over 70 percent of students graduate from high school.
• Graduation rates for African-American, Hispanic, and low-income students are lower still, hovering at slightly more than 50 percent.
• Even with a diploma, only half of graduates leave high school prepared to succeed in college, career, and life.

Every student in the U.S. deserves the opportunity to attend a good school.

Today, whether moving directly into the workforce or going to college, students leaving high school need the same skills and knowledge to succeed in life. They deserve strong schools that expect, challenge, and support them to do their best—regardless of race, income, or family background.

Improving education is the best way to create equal opportunity for all.

The failure to ensure that all young people learn what they need to succeed undermines equality and opportunity--the fundamental values of the United States. Young people risk becoming less engaged, less prepared, and less capable of leading the nation into a brighter future.

We’re working to raise high-school graduation and college-readiness rates.

We focus our efforts on improving student success for African-American, Hispanic, and low-income students.

We believe that all students should graduate from high school prepared to succeed in college, career, and life.

Next: Our Approach

With many public and private partners, we’re working to increase high school graduation and college-readiness rates in the United States. We support the following strategies:

Improve high school education nationwide.

High-quality schools can take many forms, but they share common elements. All have strong leadership, effective instruction, rigorous curricula, the systematic use of data to improve the classroom experience, and broad support to help all students achieve. Our efforts in high school reform date back to 2000. We continue to adapt and refine our strategies to raise the expectations and achievement of all students nationwide.

Enhance teaching and learning in classrooms by working closely with states and districts.

We’re supporting public-private partnerships with school districts and state governments committed to comprehensive school improvement. No school exists in a vacuum and, with a supportive environment, more schools can improve more quickly. Stories of successful district-wide and statewide reform inspire others to join in the effort to improve high schools.

Encourage commitments to common state standards and goals nationwide.

We’re working to ensure that schools and government define and measure graduation and college-readiness rates in similar ways. For example, for many years there has been no universal way to count students who drop out and those who graduate. To set goals and measure progress accurately, education stakeholders need to use a common language and arithmetic. We also support efforts to develop common state standards so that students in Massachusetts will learn the same key skills as students in Mississippi.

Increase public and political support for improving high school education.

For high schools to succeed, communities must support their efforts to improve. We’ve observed how bold leaders—at the federal, state, and district level—can use policy to align reform efforts and produce real improvement in student achievement. We’re supporting efforts to educate people about the problems facing our schools and help them find ways to help fix them. We remain optimistic that our nation can meet the challenge of preparing all high school students to succeed in high school and beyond.