What does it mean for a state to require a college- and career-ready diploma?
For this indicator, we relied on data collected by the Washington-based research group, Achieve, Inc., which looked at whether students in each state needed to complete a college- and career-ready curriculum in order to graduate. For the most part, states have raised their course requirements using one of two approaches. Some have required students to automatically enroll in a college-ready curriculum but allowed them to opt out if their parents sign a waiver. Others have set mandatory course requirements without any opt-out provisions. Since both approaches aim to expand access to rigorous academics, we gave credit to states that had taken either approach.
