I N N O V A T O R
News about high school innovation
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Jan. 23, 2009
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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In This Issue
Schools in Caldwell and Wayne to be Learning Lab models
Report: States must continue push to reinvent high school
NC legislators call for 90 percent graduation rate by 2015
Colorado grads often need remediation, newspaper finds
Innovative teaching displacing large lectures at MIT
Students in Providence offer ideas for better high schools
Schools in Caldwell and Wayne approved as Learning Lab sites

Caldwell Early College High School and the Wayne School of Engineering at Goldsboro High School will be two of four innovative high schools in North Carolina to receive significant support to allow the schools to showcase teaching and learning that ensures all students graduate ready for college, careers and life.

The two schools were selected by the North Carolina New Schools Project (NCNSP) and the University of North Carolina system to be part of the Learning Laboratory Initiative, a $2.5-million effort funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to accelerate the development of innovative high schools that can demonstrate rigorous, highly effective instruction and deep student engagement to educators, university faculty and policymakers.

Earlier this month, local school boards in Caldwell and Wayne counties approved partnerships with NCNSP and UNC to transform the schools into national models of performance and to begin to host visits to the schools by practitioners and others beginning in 2011.  Last month, the Durham school board approved a similar partnership for Hillside New Tech High School and negotiations are being completed with the school district of the remaining Learning Lab school.

Steve Stone, superintendent of Caldwell County Schools, said he welcomed the opportunity to help strengthen innovative high school practices at the early college and across the state.

"We are glad to partner with the New Schools Project and UNC to provide knowledge and inspiration to educators across the state," Stone said.  "Caldwell Early College is demonstrating every day what happens when we expect the most from all students and create a school that's designed purposefully to help them reach those high expectations."

Wayne Superintendent Steven D. Taylor said he was excited by the prospect of  having educators from around the state coming to Goldsboro to draw inspiration and knowledge from our School of Engineering.

"We know that through its STEM focus, Wayne School of Engineering is providing real opportunity to its students specifically and to our county generally to compete in a global, knowledge-based economy," Taylor said.

All four Learning Lab sites were picked from among 21 schools through a process that involved proposals by each, analysis of the schools' student performance and teacher perceptions, and site visits to the finalists.  The selection process involved a panel of high school innovation experts from outside North Carolina.

The four schools - which include two sites at which traditional high schools are being redesigned and two Learn and Earn early college high schools - were found to be the most ready to accelerate the innovative work they have begun and to hold great promise to grow into models for the state.  Through the initiative, the four schools will receive enhanced coaching and support from NCNSP and a UNC institution linked to each. 

Caldwell Early College is one of 60 early college high schools open on the campuses of two- and four-year colleges and universities across North Carolina.  Students enrolled in early colleges earn a high school diploma and two years of transferable college credit or an associate degree. Wayne School of Engineering is among 10 innovative high schools opened in 2007 with science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) themes.

Since 2003, part of NCNSP's work to establish more than 100 innovative high schools across the state has been to take more than 700 teachers, principals and education policymakers on "study visits" in seven states to well-established innovative high schools that have a track record of graduating all students ready for college, careers and life.

"Through those visits, long-held beliefs about what students can do - and which students can do it - have been reshaped, practical solutions have been conveyed, and the value of teachers watching peers teach has been reaffirmed," said NCNSP President Tony Habit.  "The rapid development of the Learning Lab schools will allow that change to happen more frequently and more regularly for educators in the field or in training, for the university faculty who train them, and for North Carolina's leaders."
States must push harder to transform high school, report urges

Nearly four years after the nation's governors convened for a summit devoted to high school education, a follow-up report says the states must redouble their efforts to ensure that all students are graduating prepared for college, careers and life.

While acknowledging the progress states have made in raising the value of the high school diploma, the report says many states continue to fall short in terms of graduation performance, course rigor and standards for earning a diploma. The report, Accelerating the Agenda, was issued jointly by the National Governor's Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National Association of State Boards of Education and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

The report outlines promising efforts and continuing challenges related to five key issues:
  • Restoring value to the high school diploma by raising course standards and graduation requirements and offering other avenues for strong preparation for college and careers.
  • Redesigning high schools through larger numbers of innovative schools such as early college high schools and virtual schools.
  • Improving schools with strong teachers and principals whose preparation and evaluation is tied to student outcomes, as one measure.
  • Align accountability to college- and career-ready measures by tying postsecondary expectations, incentives and performance to high school expectations.
  • Improve education governance by the formation of p-16 councils that can help provide greater coherence in expectations between high schools and institutions of higher education.
The report singles out several states, including North Carolina, for making gains on the goal of advancing high schools from industrial-era expectations to those in synch with 21st century demands. North Carolina, along with Indiana and Texas, are cited as examples of states that have been particularly effective in bringing to scale innovative schools, such as early college high schools and STEM-focused schools.

North Carolina's efforts to strengthen its accountability system for high schools are also mentioned in the report, as are those in Indiana and Louisiana, for tracking on-time graduation rates and measuring student performance beyond low-level skills. 

Despite those and other promising signs of progress, the report also points to two key indicators that remain troubling: high school graduation rates remain stagnant and the percentages of students needing remedial courses in college are persistently high.  
Legislative panel sets ambitious goal for state's graduation rate

A legislative commission that has spent more than a year studying the state's chronic dropout problem wants the State Board of Education to set aggressive goals for improving the state's four-year graduation rate.

The Joint Legislative Commission on Dropout Prevention and High School Graduation added a new recommendation this week to a set of proposals that it approved last month that would aim for a 90 percent graduation rate by 2015. The class of 2008 represented just less than 70 percent of the 9th grade class that began four years earlier.

To reach that ambitious goal, the commission wants the State Board to adopt a growth model that would set interim targets for school districts to meet, beginning with the class of 2010.

"The Commission believes that aggressive goals which demonstrate continuous and substantial improvement from the prior year should be set to improve the current four-year graduation report," the panel's draft finding and recommendation states.

Rep. Earline Parmon, a Democratic representative from Winston-Salem and the commission's co-chairwoman, was quoted in Thursday's edition of The News & Observer saying the importance of the issue requires a demanding goal.

"Everyone knows how serious this is," Parmon said. "We should be working together to achieve this goal."
Many Colorado high school graduates unprepared for college

High schools everywhere need to do a better job of ensuring that more of their students stay in school and graduate, but they also must make sure that the diploma students receive certifies that they're also prepared for what awaits them.

A recent analysis by the Rocky Mountain News of recent graduates from Colorado high schools  underscores the reality that graduation and preparation often don't match up.

The Denver newspaper found that in some high-poverty high schools, nearly 70 percent of graduates needed to take at least one remedial class in college. Of the state's 70 school districts, the newspaper reported, 10 had remediation rates of 50 percent or more. And in a few districts, including Denver, the problem is getting worse.  Denver's rate increased from 46.4 percent in 2006 to 56.3 percent in 2008.

Colorado's four-year graduation rate was 75 percent in 2007, the most recent year available from the Colorado Department of Education. The state's remediation rate has been about 30 percent for the last four years, with about 53 percent of students enrolling in two-year colleges needing at least one remedial class and  21 percent of students entering four-year institutions needing to do so.
 
While comparisons between North Carolina and Colorado may not be appropriate since the methodology for collecting and reporting data may differ, North Carolina's college-enrollees face a similar problem of readiness.   In North Carolina, where the four-year graduation rate is just less than 70 percent, at least one-fifth (21 percent) of students entering the state's community colleges or UNC system schools were enrolled in at least one remedial class in reading, math or English, according to 2004 data.
 
Juan Evangelista, a recent graduate of a Denver high school, could just have well attended a high school in North Carolina.

"You feel proud with your diploma," said Juan, telling the Rocky Mountain News that he was required to take three remedial courses when he enrolled in community college. "I had a diploma saying, OK, I'm ready for college. But it turned out, I had to go back in to remedial, learning what I should already have been taught."
At MIT, innovative, interactive teaching winning over students

Hands-on learning would seem an essential approach at a place like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

But until recently, a course such as introductory physics continued to be taught in a large lecture hall, students scribbling -- or absent, the New York Times reported in a recent story about a transformation in university teaching that mirrors the kind of instruction that distinguishes innovative high schools.

The reason for the shift, the Times reported, is that students are more likely to learn, attend class and pass the course. Sound familiar?

"The physics department has replaced the traditional large introductory lecture with smaller classes that emphasize hands-on, interactive, collaborative learning," the story explained. Over initial student resistance, the department made the change permanent last fall.  "Already, attendance is up and the failure rate has dropped by more than 50 percent."

North Carolina State University was mentioned in the story among other institutions that are making similar changes.

"Just as you can't become a marathon runner watching marathons on TV," Harvard physicist Eric Mazur told the Times, "likewise for science, you have to go through the thought processes of doing science and not just watch your instructor do it."

Here's a description of one of the newly transformed classrooms:

"Instead of blackboards, the walls are covered with white boards and huge display screens. Circulating with a team of teaching assistants, the professor makes brief presentations of general principles and engages the students as they work out related concepts in small groups.

"Teachers and students conduct experiments together. The room buzzes. Conferring with tablemates, calling out questions and jumping up to write formulas on the white boards are all encouraged."
Providence students raise concerns in youth-led survey

Students in Providence, RI, say in a recent survey they conducted themselves that they want smaller schools, higher expectations and more effective teachers.

The survey, conducted by a local student-led group called Young Voices, found that students are dissatisfied with the quality of their schools and teachers. Among the key findings were these:
  • Students often feel teachers do not explain information clearly or give them the help they need when they ask for it.
  • Hands-on learning and connecting learning to real-life experiences is rare. Too many teachers rely on ditto sheets and textbooks for instruction.
  • Data from focus groups found that 44 percent of students make comments that students find discouraging.
The survey was developed by members of the youth group with guidance from staff at Brown University and Rhode Island Kids Count. The survey data was analyzed by an outside consultant. The findings were presented this week to the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation.

The survey did find that students who attend smaller high schools were more satisfied with the quality of their education, leading them to make these recommendations to education leaders:
  • Forming smaller schools that promote a culture of high expectations for students and teachers, along with a caring, personalized environment
  • Supporting school leadership to select and retain teaching staff who fit the missi0n of the school
  • Cultivating stable, strong school leadership
  • Being highly responsive to parents, with expectations for parent involvement.

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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 [email protected] or call Todd Silberman at (919) 277-3760.