Taking Root - Indiana's Lessons for Sustaining the College- and Career-Ready Agenda

To give states the information they need to sustain hard-fought education reform effectively, Achieve, funded by the GE Foundation, conducted research on state education reforms that have been sustained successfully for over a decade or more. In Indiana, a focus on a rigorous, college- and career-ready curricula and increased access to postsecondary opportunities has resulted in phenomenal progress. What accounts for its remarkable gains and sustained focus? Who was involved? How did they make it happen? And what kept it going, especially in the face of important changes in state political leadership? This case study about Indiana's reform efforts will illuminate a few of the most salient and replicable lessons the state has learned over the course of its 15 years of education reform.