Racialized Readiness for College and Career

Abstract

Social science methodologies of intervention programming for college and career readiness, particularly in regard to evaluation, must be situated within a larger context of racialized readiness for college and career. The policy context for this argument is a state-level evaluation of college and career readiness legislation in Illinois using David Conley’s framework as one way to evaluate the effectiveness of intervention programming offered by community colleges to high school students. Using critical race theory, I provide an example from an Illinois evaluation to show that when used as an evaluative rubric to assess college and career readiness intervention programming for high school students, Conley’s framework has potential but needs to be augmented. Concluding are conceptual and practical recommendations for community college practitioners, evaluators, and policymakers.