This writing was originally published as part of the Career EdVenture newsletter on LinkedIn.

t’s graduation season! There is a new class of high school seniors graduating and entering their next phase of life in the next 3-5 weeks. It’s an exciting time, and as a parent of a class of 2026 graduating senior, I am feeling extra nostalgic this time of year.  I have just a few more months to help my senior prepare to launch. Is this group of seniors ready for the next phase of life? Ready or not, here they come!

Readiness Metric:

If you aren’t actively involved in education, you may not know that in most U.S. states, public high schools are evaluated in part using college and career readiness (CCR) metrics to measure how well schools are preparing students for their futures.  While these metrics are meant to signal a student’s preparedness for life after high school, there is no uniform approach, and states vary widely in how they define, measure, and report readiness.

States generally define readiness through four lenses as shown:

Readiness Rigor:

Not only is readiness measured in a variety of ways, each category of measurement also has varied levels of rigor ranging from fundamental to exceptional. For example, in the Assessment of Readiness category, a fundamental measurement may be tracking a high school summative assessment, while an exceptional measurement could include advanced demonstration of professional skills such as presenting a senior capstone project. These fundamental measurements simply estimate readiness while exceptional measurements provide evidence.

Ready or Not:

Previous metric reporting shows state readiness rates ranging from 18% to 89%, a gap of 71 percentage points. This large gap is driven by a lack of uniform approach to defining and measuring readiness. The low end measurement of 18% is based on a benchmark of students passing all four college-ready benchmarks on the ACT exam. While the high end measurement of 89% is based on a percentage of students completing at least one readiness requirement that may include joining the military, earning an industry credential, or meeting one of the four ACT benchmarks.

Here They Come:

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, approximately 3.4 million seniors will graduate this year. Some systems will call them ready. Others may not.

But readiness has never been a fixed label handed out at graduation. It is something built in the months and years that follow, through work, setbacks, responsibility, and experience.

Ready or not, here they come!