The Uneven Promise of Readiness: Which College and Career Readiness Indicators Actually Predict Success After High School?

Texas uses the College, Career, and Military Readiness (CCMR) framework to assess whether high school students are prepared for life after graduation, and these measures are directly tied to school accountability and district funding. Although students can meet CCMR in many ways, the state the accountability system assigns equal weight to all CCMR indicators, implicitly treating them as equally predictive of students’ postsecondary success. We examined statewide data for nearly 1 million Texas high school students across eight graduating cohorts from 2015-16 to 2022-23. By linking K–12 records to postsecondary enrollment, attainment, and workforce data, we show that some CCMR indicators link to meaningful postsecondary and workforce trajectories, while others provide a false signal of readiness that does not translate into postsecondary success.