Colleges have a stake in the quality of education delivered by K-12 school districts. The Baldrige Criteria ask (3.2a1) how school districts listen to, among others, colleges “to obtain actionable information and to obtain feedback on your educational programs…”

Well, listen to this: Less than one-fourth of the class of 2009 who took the ACT test met college-readiness benchmarks on all areas of the test. Two-thirds met the benchmarks in English, slightly more than half in reading, 42% in math, and just 28% in science. And these are supposedly our smartest students.

In an online article on Education Week, Jon L. Erickson, the nonprofit ACT Inc.’s VP for educational services, listed the factors that contributed to the scores:

• Too many high schools lack a focus on college-readiness skills and the key standards to be mastered
• High school students are not taking the right courses
• The courses are not rigorous enough to deliver college-level skill and knowledge

Of course, colleges are not a school district’s only stakeholders. A school district must balance the need to better prepare students for college with the needs of other stakeholders including students, parents, businesses, communities, and the government, and those needs don’t align as often you would think.

But they surely align on this: Schools exist to educate students and this is a pretty reliable indicator that they must improve. And in that regard, colleges are not their only dissatisfied stakeholders.

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