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I N N O V A T O R
News about high school innovation
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June 5, 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
Study: Early colleges making a difference for students
North Carolina joins national push for common standards
Report finds low expectations among teachers, principals
Study's early findings yield evidence of early college success

Early college high schools promise students both greater challenge and more support in a setting aimed at ensuring they're well prepared for college, careers and life.

Preliminary results of an ongoing, in-depth study of the innovative schools in North Carolina now show persuasive evidence to back up those promises. Students reported high levels of engagement in their academic work and frequent participation in a number of school-provided support activities, ranging from tutoring to skill-building sessions. Test data gathered as part of the study show students are also making good progress towards completing college-preparatory courses.

The research methods used in the study make the findings especially compelling. The study, led by the SERVE Center at UNC Greensboro, uses an experimental design, often considered the "gold standard" in educational research. Out of a pool of students who applied to attend each of the schools in the study, one group was randomly chosen by lottery to attend early college high schools while the remaining students who were not chosen formed a "control" group, enrolling instead in a traditional high school. Using a lottery produces two groups for comparison that have few systematic differences from one another, even on characteristics that are hard to measure, such as motivation.
 
"This kind of study is fairly rare in education,"  said study director Julie Edmunds of SERVE, an educational research and development organization. "It provides the strongest possible evidence of a model's impact and allows you to attribute the results to the model itself, not to any selection process or to any difference in student populations."

Although based on just a few schools that helped pilot the study in 2005-06 and 2006-07, the study's early results find distinct differences between the group of students in the early colleges and those students who applied but attend traditional high schools instead.

In terms of academic progress, researchers found that among three cohorts of 9th graders, a higher percentage of students who were enrolled in the innovative high schools were progressing through college-preparatory track of study. For example, 72 percent of early college students had successfully progressed through algebra I, compared to 61 percent of the "control" students in traditional high schools; 23 percent of the 9th graders had successfully progressed through algebra II, compared to 3 percent of the control students. The study defines progression as completing and passing the required EOC for a course.
 
A difference was measured also in English I, a course typically taken in the 9th grade. Among the cohorts of early college students, 88 percent progressed through English I, compared to 78 percent for the cohort of control-group students in traditional schools.
 
 "These results clearly show that early college high schools are expanding the college preparatory pipeline to a wider range of students," reported Dr. Edmunds.

The researchers also found that early college students received significantly more types of support more frequently than the control group students. The most common support activities included tutoring and sessions to build study skills and math skills. For all nine activities that students were asked about, early college students reported significantly greater participation.

The three cohorts of 9th graders in early college high schools also experienced more positive relationships with their teachers than the control students, the study found, as well as reporting significantly higher levels of academic engagement.

The study is ongoing with 20 schools currently participating. Future reports will include information on the impact of the model on additional outcomes such as achievement, attendance, and dropout rates. For more information about the study, contact Julie Edmunds at jedmunds@serve.org or at 919-402-1060.
 
North Carolina joins national push for common standards 

Gov. Beverly Perdue and North Carolina education leaders announced this week that the state has joined a national effort to develop common standards in math and English language arts.

In all, 46 states committed to the initiative, led the National Governors Association and the Council of State School Officers, to develop a framework of content and skills aimed at ensuring that all states would eventually share the same standards for college- and career readiness as well as grade-by-grade standards from kindergarten through 12th grade.

Perdue said the state's participation is a step in the right direction. "Joining in this work is yet another way to bolster the North Carolina public school system," she said, "to ensure students graduate high school prepared for college and a career in the global, knowledge-based economy."

In each of the 46 states, both the governor and chief education officer signed an agreement committing to the process of developing common -- though voluntary -- standards in math and English language arts. Representatives from 41 states, including North Carolina State Superintendent June Atkinson, met in April to discuss the initiative.

"With the development of national standards, our state will save money and be able to focus more resources and dollars on teacher development rather than test development," Atkinson said. "The time is right for us to work together to raise the bar for all students ..."

As a first step, the groups leading the effort plan to complete a draft of college- and career-readiness standards in July for review by the states and the public. They plan to follow in December with grade-by-grade "learning progression standards." The standards, which will be internationally benchmarked and and based on research and best practices, are being developed by representatives of several leading education organizations: Achieve, the College Board and ACT.

Later, a separate validation committee of members nominated by states will review the standards. Even after the standards have been set, the states still must agree to adopt them.

Through its participation in the American Diploma Project, North Carolina has already taken steps towards aligning its standards at the national level.

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Report: Expectations gap divides educators from students

A new report that explores the views of teachers and principals about the nation's dropout crisis finds an "unsettling" gap with the expectations of achievement held by students and parents.

On the Front Lines of Schools: Perspectives of Teachers and Principals on the High School Dropout Problem, issued Thursday, exposes what the report says is a potential barrier to closing the achievement gap. Even the most effective reform strategies are unlikely to be successful "without the fundamental expectation that all students should meet high academic standards and be provided supports to graduate ready for college and the work force."

Teachers and administrators in public high schools recognize there is a dropout problem, know they are confronted with daunting challenges in classrooms and in schools, and express strong support for reforms to address high dropout rates, the report says.

Still, less than one-third of teachers believe that schools should expect all students to meet high academic standards, graduate with the skills to do college-level work, and provide extra support to struggling students to help them meet those standards. A larger proportion of principals believe schools should hold high expectations for all students, but significant majorities of teachers and principals don't believe that struggling students would respond and work harder.

The report, by Civic Enterprises in association with Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the AT&T Foundation and the America's Promise Alliance, is based on a national survey conducted last year among several hundred high school teachers and principals who said at least a few students drop out of their schools each year. The new report is a follow-up to The Silent Epidemic, a 2006 study that explored the attitudes of high school dropouts. That report found that two thirds of dropouts said they would have worked harder if more had been demanded of them in school.

Teachers and principals tended to attribute students quitting school to a lack of support at home, with 74 percent of teachers and 69 percent of principals saying that parents bore all or most of the responsibility for their children dropping out. And only 20 percent of teachers and 21 percent of principals felt boredom was a factor for most dropouts.

Still, both groups of educators did acknowledge a need for improvement in their own schools in such areas as parent engagement, keeping students interested and engaged in coursework, helping students with problems outside of school affecting schools work, and providing support for struggling students.

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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.