Giving Compass' Take:

• In this story from The 74, author Kate Stringer highlights a paper which argues that many students should have pathways to begin college education after their junior year.

• Do the ACT college readiness benchmarks adequately measure a student's readiness for college? Are high school juniors socially and emotionally ready for college?

• To learn about how ed-tech is the key to college readiness, click here.

Nearly 1 in 4 11th-graders meet [college readiness benchmarks] at the end of the school year, according to results from the ACT that measure college readiness.

Should those students head off to college without having a senior year? Yes and no, a new report from Education Reform Now and the Alliance for Excellent Education argues. The report makes the case that there should be better pathways for these nearly 850,000 students — one-third of whom come from low-income households — to begin college coursework but still remain in high school, if they choose, and possibly save time and tuition money.

“A lot of students don’t need the ‘12’ in ‘K-12,’” said Michael Dannenberg, co-author of the report. “We can create clearer, more affordable, more student-oriented pathways to and through college.”

he paper outlines two general pathways that students could choose from. The primary one is completing senior year at their current high school but participating in an academic track that will earn them enough credit to complete their first year of college at a state school for free. The second path would let students graduate from high school early and head to a state college with a scholarship for that first year.

Read the full article about college readiness by Kate Stringer at Home |The 74