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News about high school innovation
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Jan. 9, 2009
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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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Engaging, hands-on approach brings honors to Duplin teacher
A class spent reviewing for a final exam might not be the best showcase of powerful teaching and learning, but it's a pretty good reality check on the power of teaching and learning all semester long.
Nicole Murray's science students at James Kenan School of Engineering didn't just respond with correct answers. They were eager. Attentive. If a student missed, Murray probed and pressed from a different angle, engaging, prodding thought and the right response.
Students at the innovative high school in Duplin County say that Murray isn't just teaching them the specifics of science, she's teaching them to be better students. She gets them excited about learning. Her colleagues say her approach exemplifies the kind of powerful instruction Kenan and schools like it were designed to foster: High expectations for all students, engaging instruction and strong preparation for education and life after high school.
Murray has now also attracted the attention of other educators beyond Kenan School of Engineering who have singled her out as one of nine regional teachers of the year in the running for the title of North Carolina teacher of the year. She's the first to do so from Duplin County.
"She wants her lessons to be as intriguing for her students as she can," said Elizabeth Straughn, a principal fellow who taught math at the school last year. "There are kids who come to school because of her class. She has a knack for getting along with all the kids, and that makes a big difference in them wanting to learn."
Straughn and others said the recognition for Murray is also recognition for the non-traditional approaches that the Kenan school is helping pioneer as one of more than 100 innovative schools across North Carolina. "I think it validates our purpose and our goals," Straughn said.
Kenan School of Engineering is one of 10 small schools with a focus on science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, that were opened in 2007 by local districts as a strategy to help turn around high schools struggling with low performance. In addition to the teacher-of-the-year recognition, Murray is among six math and science teachers from the STEM schools to be recognized this year as Kenan Fellows, a two-year program at N.C. State University aimed at strengthening curriculum and instruction in those key disciplines.
First-year test results reported earlier this fall for the Duplin school -- created as a break-the-mold alternative to the low-performing James Kenan High School -- helped confirm that engaging, personalized instruction translates into strong performance. The percentage of students passing state exams far exceeded that of the traditional high school next door and also outranked proficiency rates for the county and state. Of all tests taken at Kenan Engineering, 83.3 percent received passing scores. The previous year, only 38.5 percent of all state tests taken at the traditional James Kenan High School had passing scores.
The other STEM schools also showed promising performance last year, with eight posting passing rates that were significantly higher than their related traditional high schools.
In Murray's biology class last year, 90 percent of her students passed the state exam. The county's passing rate on the exam was 63 percent.
Among those biology students was Astred Hall, now a 10th grader in Murray's Science and Sustainability class, which is part of the school's STEM curriculum. Murray has ignited an interest in science in her, Astred said, and encourages her to pursue her goal to become a pediatrician.
"She shows that she's willing to help," Astred said, "so you're willing to take the extra step."
Mason Drew doesn't just learn science from Murray. Mason, also a sophomore, went to her last year for extra help in math.
"She can teach anyone," he said. "She's taught me to keep pushing myself until I get it."
Murray said that joining Kenan School of Engineering after 10 years teaching in traditional high schools has transformed her approach to instruction.
"I had no idea what I was getting myself into," she said, "but it has turned into the greatest blessing. I feel like I have more freedom for students to be exploratory instead of them being "sitters and getters."
In her previous schools, Murray said, she wouldn't be surprised to see a student with their head resting on their desk. "If there's a head on their desk now," she said, "it's because they're sick."
She's replaced lecturing with team activities.
"I've let go of a lot of control," she said. "I'd rather walk around and talk with six different teams." She said that engaging with smaller groups of students ensures that they're more likely to be listening and internalizing the lessons.
"We've taught these kids to go out and grab their own learning," Murray said.
Principal Kevin Smith, who's known Murray since they taught together in Pender high schools, said watching her teach lifts his spirits on the worst days.
"It's never drill and kill in her classroom," Smith said. "It's exciting to see her teach."
Lisa Bland, whose son is a sophomore at Kenan, said the school's approach to learning has helped students and teachers alike to flourish.
"I do feel that Nicole has had the room to go outside the box with her teaching," Bland said, "and that has been a great thing for her students and herself."
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State Board approves plan to count retests for ABCs, NCLB
High schools will have to wait until next year, but beginning this spring, elementary and middle schools in North Carolina will be able to include passing scores on retests of end-of-grade exams in reading and math for measuring schoolwide performance.
High schools will be able to take advantage of the same provision for end-of-course exams in 10 subjects beginning in 2009-10 under a change in the testing rules approved Thursday by the State Board of Education.
Until now, passing scores from retests have not been included in overall passing rates used to measure school performance under the state's ABCs of School Accountability or the adequate yearly progress yardstick of No Child Left Behind. Students in third, fifth and eighth grades who failed on the first try have been allowed to take the test a second or third time, but their scores -- if passing -- only have counted for the purposes of individual promotion decisions.
A school's passing rates have been based only on the initial administration, a rule that educators have criticized as unfair. Some students are able to pass on a second or third try. The board's Blue Ribbon Commission on Testing and Accountability in an overhaul plan last year recommended including scores of students who eventually pass.
Only results of the first retest administration will be included as part of passing rates for schools.
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Good teaching, not test prep, helps readiness for college
College readiness, at least as measured by admissions tests, is best served by sound instruction in rigorous courses, rather than narrow preparation centered on test-taking skills, researchers in Chicago have found.
The findings of the researchers from the Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago may sound unsurprising, but they're just more evidence that high expectations matched with challenging course work are key factors for student success. The research, "ACT Success: Good Grades, Not Test Practice," found that ACT scores were slightly lower in schools where teachers spent an average of 40 percent of class time on test preparation compared with schools where average time for test prep was 20 minutes.
Yet the Chicago findings contradict the perceptions of students and teachers who believe performance on the ACT is determined primarily by test-taking skills. Surveys show that more than 80 percent of 11th graders and nearly 60 percent of their teachers think such skills are critical.
Among the findings from Chicago:
- Students made smaller gains from the preliminary ACT test, called PLAN, to the ACT the heavier the focus on test preparation and the use of test-prep materials.
- Students with As and Bs make bigger gains, regardless of their initial score, than students with Cs and Ds.
- ACT scores are highest in schools that stress college readiness, even controlling for student demographics.
- Since the ACT emphasizes skills over subject-specific content, students benefit more from developing problem-solving skills on a few topics than overly broad, shallow coverage 0f many topics.
The researchers offer this advice to educators:
- Help motivate students to do well in coursework, since higher grades and more effort translate into better test performance.
- Focus instruction on higher-order thinking skills. College entrance exams measure the ability to analyze data, write well and be attentive to detail.
- Keep the focus on effective classroom instruction.
- Ask students to write frequently, defending their point of view.
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Add to growing list of needed rescue efforts: high school
As national leaders weigh the latest bailout for the nation's distressed economy, they need to invest in efforts to improve high school outcomes, two education leaders argue in a recent op-ed column in U.S. News & World Report.
Bob Wise, the president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, and Marguerite W. Kondracke, president and CEO of America's Promise Alliance, make a case for more robust investment in high school students for a return more certain than costly bailouts for banks and other struggling businesses.
"Just one year of dropouts costs the United States more than $319 billion in lost wages over their working lives," Wise and Kondracke explain. "Without immediate and extensive intervention, in five years they will cost the country more than $1.5 trillion -- far more than the federal government just committed to rescuing banks."
But an investment of $5 billion, they argue, just one-half of one percent of the nearly trillion dollar financial bailout, could turn around the nation's worst performing high schools.
"Unlike the toxic financial practices that brought down Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, at-risk students can readily be transformed from liabilities into assets," Wise and Kondracke write, "and with demonstrable economic benefits lasting for decades."
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US study finds little progress in basic literacy among adultsNorth Carolina mirrors the nation in a new report from the US Department of Education showing that about one of every seven adults lacks the literacy skills needed to understand anything beyond short, commonplace text. The report from the National Assessment of Adult Literacy found little change from 1992 to 2003, when the latest survey was conducted. The results are based on interviews with more than 19,000 Americans, ages 16 and older. The latest report does reflect progress in North Carolina since the 1992 survey, when 18 percent of adults in the state were found to have low lliteracy skills. The latest report, based on 2003 data, found a low-skill rate of 14 percent. While factors such as immigration and undiagnosed learning disabilities play a role, high school dropout rates are also cited as a factor in low literacy rates, according to David Harvey, president and CEO of the adult literacy organization ProLiteracy, who was quoted in USA Today. |
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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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