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News about high school innovation
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Nov. 21, 2008
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Welcome to INNOVATOR, a bimonthly report on high school change in North Carolina from the North Carolina New Schools Project. INNOVATOR informs practitioners, policy makers, and friends of public education about high school innovation in North Carolina as well as success stories and research from across the nation.
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Changes in teaching and learning deliver gains at JF Webb
Before classes resumed at JF Webb High School of Health and Life Sciences last fall, Principal Elizabeth Lee told teachers at the small, innovative school to change the way they think about what goes on in their classrooms every day.
"It's not about whether you're teaching," Lee reminded them. "It's about whether students are learning."
That deceptively simple change in perspective has begun to pay dividends for the Granville County school, which opened in 2005 as an option to the traditional JF Webb High School whose campus the new school shares.
For the last two years, the School of Health has met expectations under the state's ABCs accountability system for student progress, according to statewide data released earlier this month. The school saw a healthy gain in 2007-08 in its overall passing rate on state exams, climbing from 62.5 percent to 71.3 percent last year.
In key subjects including Geometry and Algebra II, courses now widely seen as essential to success in college and careers, the School of Health posted strong gains in passing rates from 2006-07, when new tests and tougher standards sent scores lower statewide. At Webb's School of Health, the passing rate on Algebra II exams increased nearly 23 points to 78.4 percent; in Geometry, the passing rate was up almost 18 points to 72.5 percent. Ninth graders, who attended the school for the first time last year, had a passing rate of 82 percent in English, compared to 56 percent in the traditional high school.
Angie Salisbury, who teaches Algebra II, said such results reflect her school's emphasis on relationships and effective instructional strategies that keep the focus squarely on students.
"I don't accept failure," Salisbury said. "It means that I spend extra time with students who are struggling. It's about developing relationships with students so they stay after school to get extra help."
Salisbury said also that she changed her testing approach last year, moving away from multiple-choice responses, even that's the format students find on the state's year-end exams. Now, she said, her tests require students to show their work.
"I tell them, 'You've got to show me the math and prove to me that you know how to do it,' " she said. "If they know how to do the math, when the time comes for a multiple-choice test, they'll do well."
Also making a difference for students, said Salisbury and fellow math teacher Sambra Desrosiers, are instructional approaches that emphasize effective grouping of students for collaborative learning and writing in all subjects -- strategies around which the North Carolina New Schools Project provides coaching and professional development.
"Those things make a big difference in student engagement," said Desrosiers, who teaches geometry.
"Students learn better when they put their thought processes in writing," Salisbury said. "If they can write it down, they can do the math."
In addition, Desrosiers said, since classes at the school are all taught at the same level, students who might otherwise be in a more "basic" Geometry class are challenged by peers who might be in an "honors" class elsewhere. Expectations, she said, are raised for all. And for students who need additional support, the school offers prep classes for both Algebra I and Algebra II.
"It's all about giving them a foundation for higher-level math," Desrosiers said. "Part of our goal is not to have them looking for the easiest math after Algebra II."
Lee, the principal, said she's confident that the school is on the right track by keeping a sharp focus on student learning.
"Our teachers really get to know the students," Lee said. "They know their learning styles, their strengths and weaknesses and what else they need."
Last year, she said, teachers began using more instructional strategies intended to empower students, while collaborating more among themselves about what they're doing in their classrooms.
"I'm hoping that it will pay off even more this year," Lee said. "Teachers are doing so much more now than they were doing this time last year."
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Gates Foundation broadens focus to stress teaching, standards
Bill and Melinda Gates and Vicki Phillips, who directs their foundation's education initiatives, unveiled an ambitious plan last week to expand the foundation's efforts to reach the goal of at least 80 percent of the nation's high school students -- including disadvantaged and minority students -- graduating prepared to succeed in college. Currently, only 22 percent do so, according to the foundation.
The plan calls for more investment on teaching quality; higher, fewer academic standards that map to college readiness; and more support for struggling students, including innovative uses of technology.
The new initiatives will build on the $2 billion investment the foundation has already made in improving high school education, including more than $20 million to support high school innovation efforts led by the North Carolina New Schools Project.
Foundation co-chairman Bill Gates said in his prepared remarks that while reducing the size of high schools is a necessary condition for improving graduation rates, it's not sufficient. "It's clear that you can't dramatically increase college readiness by changing only the size and structure of a school," Gates said. He cited schools in New York City and elsewhere that had also emphasized classroom changes. Still, he reaffirmed the foundation's commitment to high school innovation through redesigned schools. "We will continue the part of our work that is dedicated to improving the structure of schools," he said, "because it can help promote achievement." The new plan was presented during a gathering of key education leaders from across the nation, including advisors to President-elect Barack Obama. The foundation will take a more active role on several fronts it believes critical to its goal for greater equity in college readiness. Those include helping to shape and promote a common core of standards across states, developing and sharing tools to help students and teachers meet more rigorous standards, defining clear standards to improve teacher quality and finding ways to better identify, retain and reward strong teachers. Phillips said in an interview with Education Week last week that the revamped agenda represented an evolution in the philanthropy's high school work. "It's not a 360-degree turn by any means," Phillips said. "But it is a pretty significant evolution in our work, in that we believe that for our small schools and our past investments to be successful, these additional things are really important and needed." The foundation also plans to expand into higher education to ensure that students not only graduate high school ready for college but that they also complete their degrees. |
Education group proposes agenda for Obama and Congress
President-elect Barack Obama and the new Congress will have no shortage of suggestions for improving the nati0n's schools, but here's one plan, courtesy of Jobs for the Future, an organization with 25 years in the business of helping lead innovations in education and skill development for low-income students and others. Topping a 10-point plan that extends beyond high school into postsecondary education and the workplace are four policy recommendations that focus squarely on improving the preparation of high school students: - Promote the creation and expansion of effective school models for struggling high school students and dropouts
- Support access to expanded opportunities for college-level work in high school for a a wide range of students
- Support early warning systems to reduce dropping out
- Increase the focus on high schools through a combined differentiated accountability and improvement agenda
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Study finds Americans don't know much about history, civics
Americans have more than a few gaps in their knowledge about their nation's history, economy and government institutions that generally are the subject of high school courses.
More than 2,500 randomly chosen everyday Americans took a 33-question test on civic literacy from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which has given similar quizzes twice before to college students only. This time, more that 1,700 of the test takers failed, with an average score of 49.
And elected officials scored even lower, with an average score of 44 percent. Less than 1 percent got an A.
Here are a few highlights of the study, entitled Our Fading Heritage: Americans Fail a Basic Test on Their History and Institutions:
- 30 percent of elected officials do not know that "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are the inalienable rights referred to in the Declaration of Independence"; 20 percent falsely believe that the Electoral College "was established to supervise the first presidential debates."
- Nearly 40 percent of all test takers think incorrectly that the president has the power to declare war.
- Just 54 percent of participants with a bachelor's degree correctly define free enterprise as a system in which individuals create, exchange and control goods and services
- 21 percent falsely think the Federal Reserve can increase or decrease government spending.
Try the test yourself here.
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INNOVATOR is produced
by the North Carolina New Schools Project, an initiative of the Office of the
Governor and the Education Cabinet with the support of the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation and other businesses and foundations. For story suggestions or to opt out of receiving
this e-mail report, please send an e-mail to innovator@newschoolsproject.org or call Todd
Silberman at (919) 277-3760.
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