Gov. Perdue's budget supports secondary school innovation

High school innovation in North Carolina would continue to move forward next year under the budget plan Gov. Beverly Perdue presented this week.

The spending plan calls for $3.6 million to be used to open 12 new early college high schools, increasing to 72 the total number of the schools statewide that allow students to earn both a high school diploma and an associate's degree to two years of transferable college credit.

The day before releasing her budget, Perdue specifically mentioned funding for the new early college high schools during a preview of the plan with members of the state's Education Cabinet. "I'm really pleased with that," she said.

The governor's budget would also help the state's efforts to retool its assessment and accountability system with a proposed allocation of $4.7 million. The State Board of Education approved a sweeping plan in October to develop an assessment system aimed at ensuring students are well prepared for college and careers. The revised assessments, which will be based on the development of "essential standards," are envisioned to include written, constructed-response and performance-based items in addition to the multiple-choice questions that make up the entirety of the state's exams.

The accountability funding in the budget is also designated for piloting a commercially available formative, or diagnostic test that can provide teachers with information specific to individual student strengths and weaknesses. The budget calls for the tests to be targeted to elementary grades to ensure that basic deficiencies in reading and math are identified and addressed before students move to middle school. High schools that are partners with NCNSP administer online diagnostic tests to students at the beginning and end of each year to assess student needs.

Long term plans for the state's new accountability model also call for the development of new high school performance measures that includes graduation rates, participation in the high school Future-Ready Core, student performance in core subjects, and other measures of readiness for postsecondary education and skilled work. NCNSP had called for such changes in its recommendations to a blue ribbon panel appointed by the state board to review issues of testing and accountability.

 

Perdue's budget plan for next year also sets aside $6.7 million for dropout prevention grants available to local school districts and communities to try promising strategies for keeping students in school and on track to graduate from high school. The funding would continue a program launched in 2007 to provide grants of up to $150,000 for local dropout-prevention initiatives.

North Carolina wins attention for improved graduation rate

North Carolina's efforts to improve high school outcomes are beginning to pay off, according to a new report that cites the state as a national leader in improving graduation rates.

Between 2002 and 2006, North Carolina's graduation rate increased from 68 percent to 72 percent, based on estimates by researchers at Johns Hopkins University who wrote the report, "Progress Toward Increasing National and State Graduation Rates." Even though North Carolina's rate in 2006 lagged the nationwide rate of 74 percent, the state was one of 12 states where gains were deemed by the researchers as substantial over the preceding four years.

Tennessee led the nation with an 11-point gain, from a four-year graduation rate of 61 percent in 2002 to 72 percent in 2006. North Carolina ranked seventh of the dozen states with the greatest increases. The nation's overall graduation rate was essentially unchanged during the period.

Gov. Beverly Perdue acknowledged North Carolina's progress following the report's release last week and said the state must continue its efforts to improve high school outcomes.

"Being among the top 10 states to increase its high school graduation rate is a good start," Perdue said in the statement published by the Associated Press, "but we still have more to do to keep kids in school and prepare them for the global market. Education is the key to strengthening North Carolina's economy."

The rates used in the report do not correspond to the four-year "cohort" graduation rate North Carolina began reporting in 2007, beginning with the class of 2006, that track individual students from 9th grade through graduation. The rates cited in the report are based instead on estimates that compare the size of the 9th grade class in 2002 (an average of those students in 8th, 9th and 10th grades) with the number of graduates in 2006. The estimates allowed the researchers to make comparisons among states, all of which are not yet reporting graduation rates by cohort.

The key factor underlying the gain in North Carolina, the report said, was a marked improvement in the percentage of students who successfully advanced from grade to grade while in high school. The state saw an increase of nearly 6 percentage points in what the researchers call "promoting power."  Only two other states among the 12 most improved -- New York and Kentucky -- had larger gains, with 7.3 percent and 6.8 percent respectively.

The report also points to North Carolina as one of several states that stand out for gains in numbers of high schools with strong promoting power (the 12th grade class is at least 90 percent of the 9th grade class from three years earlier.) The number of such schools increased by 25 from 2001 to 2006. Conversely, the number of North Carolina high schools with weak promoting power (below 60 percent) decreased by 26 during the same period.

The researchers pointed to North Carolina and the other most-improved states as models for the nation. They said the states that saw success implemented various key reforms, but didn't share one common set of policies or practices.

"We need to learn more about how New York, North Carolina and Kentucky combined accountability, support and intervention to push their rates forward;" the report's authors said, "how Alabama combined progress with higher standards, and how Arkansas pushed its graduation rate to 80 percent." Tennessee's experience, they said, also needs to be examined more closely.

The researchers that such gains came during a time of increasing recognition of the nation's need to strengthen its high schools and improve the outcomes of students.

Bill Harrison, chairman of the State Board of Education and CEO of the Department of Public Instruction, told the Associated Press that North Carolina's gains were tied to efforts to make high school more relevant for students, along with greater use of technology.

He also cited the role played by the North Carolina New Schools Project in launching small, theme-based high schools and early college high schools, where students graduate with a high school diploma and an associate's degree or two years of transferable college credit.

"We've been very proactive in the state to do everything we possibly can to keep kids in school," Harrison said.

The report's authors caution that while improved graduation statistics are critically important, they're not enough. Students who graduate must also meet high standards.

"For the nation to prosper and for all citizens to partake in the prosperity," they said, "all students need to graduate prepared for college or challenging career training."

Chicago schools use early-warning system to boost success

Ninth graders who entered Chicago high schools this year were preceded by their reputations: Detailed spreadsheets about attendance and performance intended to help their new schools better support them during the sometimes rocky transition from 8th grade.

Chicago public schools are using an early-warning system for the first time this year designed to help keep students on track to graduate in four years. Education Week reported in a story earlier this month that the system is arming schools with critical information before students arrive and real-time data during the school year.

"Before the new reports were available," the story explains, "what Chicago's high school educators knew about their new freshmen varied widely. The data were in district office cabinets, but not all high school administrators were aggressive in procuring them, or in harvesting anecdotal information from feeder middle schools about the entering class.

"This year marks the first time that all the information, for every student, has been methodically assembled and sent to every city high school."

The early-warning system draws on the work of the Consortium on Chicago School Research, which has shown that 9th graders who fail core courses and don't accumulate enough credits are significantly more likely not to graduate on time or at all.

Among the data reports issued by the district is a color-coded  "watch list" that schools receive during the summer detailing each student's 8th grade history: math and English grades, attendance, whether the student attended summer school.  Five weeks into the year, a "success report" lists each 9th grader's attendance and grades in core courses.