College Knowledge: What It Really Takes for Students to Succeed and What We Can Do to Get Them Ready (review)

College Knowledge is based on a three-year project, Knowledge and Skills for University Success (KSUS), 1998–2001, designed and directed by the author. This project, sponsored by the Association of American Universities, had the goal of identifying what students who enter college need to know and be able to do to succeed in entry-level courses. David T. Conley, a professor of Educational Policy and Leadership and founding director of the Center for Educational Policy Research at the University of Oregon, brings solid research credentials to this work, along with practice in higher education and 12 years of public school teaching and administration.

Conley contends that high schools are increasingly successful at preparing students to gain admission to college but less successful at ensuring that their college-bound graduates can successfully do college coursework. He divides the book into three parts. Part 1, the first six chapters, focuses on high school aspects of college preparation. The three chapters in Part 2 then focus on the college experience, particularly the first year. Part 3, roughly the second half of the book, pinpoints knowledge and skills standards for college success in six areas: English, mathematics, natural sciences, social sciences, second languages, and the arts. Part 3 concludes with a useful chapter of university work samples. The book's appendix is a helpful checklist for college readiness.

The premise from which the author proceeds is straightforward: "High schools are designed to get students to graduate and, in the case of college-bound students, to make them eligible for admission to college—generally the public university in that state. They are not necessarily designed to enable students to succeed in college" (p. 3). If the reader accepts this premise at face value, then the book unfolds predictably. The premise is not unfounded, but the ground here is not as solid as the author would have us believe.

Indeed, one suspects that many high school educators, the target audience for this book, will reject this assertion on the grounds that the role of high schools is neither merely to produce diploma-holders nor to fit up their college-bound students for entry into higher education. High schools do fulfill these roles; but they are and do much more, an argument that Conley acknowledges but implicitly dismisses. He avers that this book "adopts an inclusive perspective by encompassing all forms of postsecondary education" (p. 9). It is clear from later statements that this "inclusive perspective" is predicated on high schools preparing most, if not all, of their students for college.

Early on, in Chapter 4, Conley takes the measure of current strategies to increase college readiness, such as Advanced Placement, the International Baccalaureate, and dual high school/college enrollment options, and concludes that all such strategies fall short of ensuring college success. The author proposes an "alignment and challenge audit" (p. 62), a strategy developed by his Center for Educational Policy Research that is designed to help high schools match what they teach to KSUS standards. Conley later states, concluding Part 2, "The goal of this book is to offer those interested in improving the relationship between high school and college a starting point for concrete action . . . a path down which those who are interested in improving college success for all students may begin their journey" (p. 168). The message is that it will be up to the high schools to change, not the colleges.

The "disconnect between high school and college programs of study" (p. 153), which the author emphasizes throughout the book, is undeniable. However, readers likely will question whether this book's top-down approach to high school reform will encourage meaningful change, given the resistance such an approach will surely meet. Notwithstanding this resistance, readers would do well not dismiss this book out of hand. Thoughtful...