We have built better ways to track readiness. We still have to help students develop it.
GUEST COLUMN | by Alan Brusky and Grace Brusky
THAI DUY HOANG
For more than two decades as a marketer, I have helped organizations clarify their message: who they are, what they offer, and why it matters. That work taught me to notice the gap between the jargon and what people actually experience.
That gap is at the heart of the college and career readiness conversation. We have built readiness systems without asking whether students are developing real direction inside them.
‘We have built readiness systems without asking whether students are developing real direction inside them.’
For years, we have invested in infrastructure for readiness: websites, dashboards, indicators, credentials, career-connected learning programs, and accountability measures. Much of that infrastructure filled a real gap. But the results suggest something essential is still missing. ACT reported that only 30% of 2024 graduates met three or four college readiness benchmarks. The 2024 NAEP results showed the lowest average 12th grade math and reading scores ever reported on those assessments. And the national student-to-school-counselor ratio now stands at 372-to-1, far above ASCA’s recommended 250-to-1.
That does not mean readiness is the wrong idea. It means we may be defining it too narrowly.
Readiness gets reduced to what can be tracked: course completion, dual enrollment, credential attainment, and postsecondary plans. WestEd found that more than three in four ESSA plans include a postsecondary readiness indicator, usually centered on academic, career, or military measures. These signals matter. But they are proxies. They can show that a student completed a set of experiences, but not whether that student developed real direction through them.
That is the missing middle. Not the space between high school and college. Not the space between education and employment. The space between exposure and self-understanding.
From Grace
I am 17, a high school junior, and most of what I get to prepare for my future comes in the form of a quiz, a checklist, or an ancient website.
Take this career quiz. Pick from these five pathways. Here is a website that “matches” you with jobs. Disconnected tools are everywhere. They just do not add up to much.
My friends feel it too. Some change their minds every few months. Some have no idea and feel bad about it. We are being asked to decide big things with limited exposure and more information than anyone can actually sort through.
The moments that have helped me feel clearer rarely come from a quiz result that doesn’t even feel like me. They come from recognition. I notice when a class feels alive and when it feels flat. I notice when a project feels connected to something I care about and when it just feels like performance.
That is usually where direction begins. Not with certainty. With recognition.
I know I am lucky. My school is actually trying to do this differently, asking harder questions instead of handing out more lists. Not every student gets that. They should.
From Decisions to Direction
We have built many ways to steer students toward decisions. Far fewer help them build self-awareness and discernment, the qualities at the heart of real readiness. We ask young people to choose a lane while they are still learning how they are wired, what they value, and what kind of contribution they want to make.
Students do not need less ambition. They need a more human process for making sense of it.
That begins with better questions. What draws you in? What kind of work gives you energy? What problems do you care enough about to stay with? What kind of life are you actually trying to build?
Those questions do not compete with career-connected learning. They deepen it.
Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation found that Gen Z’s strongest driver of happiness is a sense of purpose in school and work, yet only 48% of Gen Z students in middle or high school say they feel motivated to go to school.
The Part We Can Least Afford to Miss
The next chapter of readiness is not about abandoning measurement. It is about putting measurement in its proper place.
Counselors are still the people best equipped to help students make sense of who they are becoming. The problem is not their value. It is capacity. There are not enough of them, and the systems around them too often crowd out the reflective conversations students need most.
The field has spent years building tools to sort, match, and document. Those tools have their place. But the harder work is helping students notice patterns in their own experiences, revisit decisions as they grow, and make meaning of what they are learning about themselves. Done right, education technology should be a force multiplier for counselors, not a substitute for them.
Count the milestones. Track the outcomes. Study what works. But do not confuse a documented path with a discovered purpose.
The goal is not to help students say, “Here are my options.”
It is to help them say, “I understand why this direction fits who I am becoming.”
That is the part we can least afford to miss.
—
Alan and Grace Brusky are the co-founders of Pathly, an AI-native student guidance platform they built together after Grace lived the gap between information and real direction. Alan is a two-decade growth marketer turned edtech founder and serves as Pathly’s CEO. Grace is a high school junior in South Carolina, leads Pathly’s Student Advisory Board, and helps ensure the platform reflects the real experience of students navigating college and career decisions. Together, they are rethinking how students build self-understanding, not just postsecondary plans. Connect with Alan on LinkedIn.
0 Comments