This study examined the extent to which Texas high school graduates, particularly graduates in small districts and rural districts, met college, career, and military readiness (CCMR) accountability standards. The study also examined whether graduates who did not meet CCMR accountability standards demonstrated career readiness via alternative career readiness options identified by the Texas Education Agency: career and technical education (CTE) completer, CTE concentrator, CTE explorer, CTE participant, and work-based learner. The study further explored whether graduates who did not meet CCMR accountability standards but who met the alternative career readiness options attained similar postsecondary college and career outcomes to graduates who met career readiness accountability standards.

The study used descriptive statistics to calculate the percentage of 2017–18 high school graduates in each of four mutually exclusive CCMR accountability standard categories: met a college ready accountability standard, met a career ready accountability standard, met a military ready accountability standard, and did not meet CCMR accountability standards. For graduates who did not meet CCMR accountability standards, the study team calculated the percentage of these graduates who demonstrated career readiness via alternative career readiness options. The study team used longitudinal data to compare postsecondary outcomes for graduates who met alternative career readiness options and graduates who met career readiness accountability standards.

Continuous improvement processes engage key players within a system to focus on a specific problem of practice and, through a series of iterative cycles, test changes, gather data about the changes, and study the potential influence of these changes on outcomes of interest (Bryk et al., 2015). This practitioner-friendly toolkit is designed to provide an overview of Continuous Improvement processes in education, with a focus on the use of Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles (Langley, Moen, Nolan, Nolan & Norman, 2009). It also offers related tools and resources that educational practitioners can use to implement continuous improvement processes in their own schools, districts, or agencies.

The toolkit includes a customizable workbook, reproducible templates, and short informational videos. The toolkit begins with an introduction to continuous improvement, followed by customizable content for a series of meetings that guide a team of educators through the process of identifying a common problem, generating a series of evidence-based change practices to test and study, testing those change practices, collecting and analyzing data, and reflecting on and using evidence to identify next steps.

The toolkit leads educational practitioners through a series of PDSA cycles, designed explicitly for an educational setting. Real-world case examples illustrate the process in an educational context.