Transition Readiness

(Formerly College and Career Readiness)

A quality education from kindergarten through high school is crucial for children to build a firm foundation for future education and a productive adult life. Many factors affect the quality of support children are given in and outside of school, thereby influencing the quality of education a child receives. In particular, poverty affects a students’ health, ability to focus, and ultimately, their educational success. The metric associated with K-12 success is “transition readiness,” in alignment with the efforts of 55,000 Degrees. Louisville has a target goal of 100% transition readiness among graduating high school students. The data below reflect students enrolled in public schools, and it describes whether they qualify as “transition ready” based on test scores and workforce credentials. More information on the definition of transition readiness can be found here.

Note: Kentucky changed the way readiness is measured between 2016 and 2017. Because of the differences between college and career readiness and transition readiness, data should not be compared from the two periods.

Trends Over Time

JCPS students perform well below the 25th percentile of KY public school students.

Note: Kentucky changed the way readiness is measured between 2016 and 2017. Because of the differences between college and career readiness and transition readiness, data should not be compared from the two periods.

Differences Based on Race

Neither JCPS nor the state of KY has progressed in reducing the gaps between racial groups for transition readiness. Asian and white students in JCPS and in KY public schools continue to perform higher in transition readiness compared to Hispanic and Black students in JCPS and across the state.

Note: Kentucky changed the way readiness is measured between 2016 and 2017. Because of the differences between college and career readiness and transition readiness, data should not be compared from the two periods.

Differences Based on Sex

Male and Female JCPS students have very similar transition readiness, though both groups perform very poorly compared to state averages.

Note: Kentucky changed the way readiness is measured between 2016 and 2017. Because of the differences between college and career readiness and transition readiness, data should not be compared from the two periods.

Differences Based on Free and Reduced Lunch Status

Within JCPS and within KY public schools, students who qualify for free or reduced lunch are less transition ready than their wealthier counterparts.

Note: Kentucky changed the way readiness is measured between 2016 and 2017. Because of the differences between college and career readiness and transition readiness, data should not be compared from the two periods.

Explore the Data by School

Continue Exploring with Related Data

Public School Graduation Rate

Children Ages 5 to 17 in Poverty

Kindergarten Readiness

Public School Graduation Rate

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Natural Breaks Algorithm

For each indicator, Greater Louisville Project assigns cities into one of three groups (high-performing, middle-of-the-pack, and low-performing) based on how they compare to other cities. The assignment is based on how cities naturally cluster on that indicator. Sometimes, the differences between cities are very small, and the difference between a city ranked 5th and 6th could simply be a matter of the sampling error that arises from using survey data. Thus, rather than always make a division that declares the top 5 to be the top tier, we use a natural breaks algorithm to look for a cluster of cities that is outperforming the rest, a cluster that is about average, and a cluster that is lagging. This clustering gives us a better indication of where Louisville is thriving and where Louisville has room to learn from cities that are doing better.

Z-Scores

Z-scores (or standardization) is a way to combine data with different units of measurement into a single index. The z-score is a measure of how far away a city (or census tract, etc.) is from the average city. In order to be comparable across different units of measurement, the z-score is the distance from the mean measured in standard deviations (e.g. if Louisville has a z-score of 1 it means Louisville is 1 standard deviation above the mean of its peer cities).

Data from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's County Health Rankings use z-scores and all z-scores are relative to the mean of Louisville's peer cities. (On the County Health Rankings site z-scores are relative to all the counties in each state - thus z-scores reported by GLP will be different, because we are using a different reference group). The Greater Louisville Project also uses z-scores in our multidimensional poverty index, which compares each census tract to the mean of all census tracts in Louisville.