NASBE’s State Education Standard Examines Ways to Help Students Make Smooth School Transitions

Alexandria, VA—The newest issue of NASBE’s State Education Standard explores how state policymakers can better-support students as they cross from one school to the next—from preschool to kindergarten, elementary to middle school, middle to high school, and high school to postsecondary life. The issue’s authors examine each of these junctures, highlighting lessons from innovative states as well as strategies for strengthening accountability systems, leveraging student feedback, and targeting supports for groups that experience added challenges at key crossover points.

Looking at the crossover from preschool to elementary, University of Virginia’s Robert C. Pianta, and Christina Stephens from the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers identify misalignments in classroom and transition practices that impede students’ long-run success and ways in which state policymakers can encourage better alignment.

Creed Dunn, Judy Frank, and Allyson Morgan from the Southern Regional Education Board offer lessons from their member states on supporting students in their transition into and out of middle school.  Mississippi’s transition toolkit stands out, as does Louisiana’s transitional ninth grade program.

Researchers Briana A. López and Aprile D. Benner at the University of Texas at Austin explore the intersection of adolescents’ development with the added academic and social stressors of entry into high school, outlining state-led interventions to help students at this critical juncture.

Education Strategy Group’s Ryan Reyna spotlights how state boards of education can improve the transition beyond high school by making postsecondary outcomes a focus of their accountability and reporting systems.

Emily Rusca, director of policy at the Education Systems Center at Northern Illinois University, draws lessons from Illinois’s near decade of experience with an initiative to ensure college and career readiness. She notes the state has seen early-college credits tick up and students’ need for remediation in community college decline.

At the bridge from K-12 to beyond, FAFSA serves as crucial tool to ease students on their paths to college and career and technical programs, writes National College Attainment Network’s Alessandra Cipriani-Detres, Anika Van Eaton, and Elizabeth Wood. They urge leaders to draw lessons from states that have adopted it universally.

Jennifer K. Migliore and colleagues at Cornell University’s Institute on Employment and Disability focus on how collaborative approaches and additional supports can improve postsecondary and career outcomes for students with disabilities.

Ian House, a North Carolina student board member, details his initiative to provide an ongoing mechanism for connecting state boards with broad, representative feedback from students through online surveys.

Read the spring 2025 issue of the Standard “Transitions.”

NASBE serves as the only membership organization for state boards of education. A nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, NASBE elevates state board members’ voices in national and state policymaking, facilitates the exchange of informed ideas, and supports members in advancing equity and excellence in public education for students of all races, genders, and circumstances. Learn more at www.nasbe.org.

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