Welcome to INNOVATOR, an update on secondary school change from North Carolina New Schools. Our newsletter aims to inform practitioners, policy makers, and friends of public education on innovation, research and success stories from secondary schools. Please contact us to provide feedback and suggest article ideas.
|
|
Learning in the classroom and workplace
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
 | Lynne Garrison
Vice President
NC New Schools |
James Guy, a history teacher at Edgecombe Early College High School, had his doubts about using learning approaches usually associated with math and science for lessons in his humanities classes at the innovative school, which has a STEM focus on energy and sustainability.
Then he joined a group of teachers last summer for a visit to FREEDM Systems Center, an energy research center at N.C. State University. Guy observed teams analyzing, evaluating, creating and solving problems. Now he challenges his students with energy-related questions such as "what does the energy of the future look like?" He finds it inspiring to hear his students talk about alternative energy sources that can transform the world.
Every teacher and student deserves to benefit from experience that anchors classroom learning to learning in the adult world.
Imagine a school where students learn in classrooms and workplaces alike; where students' "teachers" come not just from the classroom, but also from the kinds of jobs they're likely to hold, like in advanced manufacturing, health care, biotechnology and engineering. Imagine a school where there's no boundary between the classroom and the real world; where the lessons students learn come as much from hands-on experience and real-world challenges as from textbooks or computers.
Imagine a school where students graduate with strong skills that reflect not only rigorous academic standards but also skills that are in sync with the expectations of higher education and employers.
These may sound like the schools of the future, but they're the schools we need now.
Read more ...
|
Rural high schools stress college credit
Students in five rural high schools will be able to get a head start on college starting in January under an innovative new initiative aimed at students who might not have seen college in their future. About 500 students in 10th grade will take the first of several courses through local community colleges.
The approach - blending high school with college - borrows from North Carolina's successful early college high schools, where students can earn as much as an associate degree in addition to a high school diploma. North Carolina New Schools is now leading an effort in a number of rural school districts to provide students in traditional high schools as well with the opportunity to earn college credit before graduation.
The initiative, called North Carolina Investing in Rural Innovative Schools (NC iRIS), is funded by a $15 million grant under the federal Investing in Innovation program along with an additional $1.5 million in support from businesses and foundations. NC New Schools is joined in the effort by several partners, including the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, the N.C. Community College System and 10 rural school districts across the state.
|
Dual enrollment success in rural Virginia
In rural Halifax County, Va., just north of North Carolina's Person County, significant numbers of students are graduating traditional high school with college credit, even associate degrees, Education Week reports in a recent story.
Nearly two thirds of the students at Halifax County High participated in dual-enrollment courses last year; almost one fifth also earned associate degrees.
By making college credit a major focus, similar to North Carolina's NC iRIS initiative, the district has found strategies to overcome its rural limitations. High school teachers are encouraged to become college instructors. College-level classes are offered in career and technical areas. Dual-enrollment courses are taught at satellite locations.
"This is the one program that is most beneficial to rural students to advance them on beyond high school," former Halifax Superintendent Paul Stapleton told Education Week. "It's a great program that really does work for students."
Read more ... |
|
Demographic shifts put focus on gaps
A report out this week argues that the nation's future economic health will hinge increasingly on the educational success of minorities as their share of the population grows.
The report, from the Washington-based Alliance for Excellent Education, says that a focus on educational equity is crucial to policies aimed at rebuilding the U.S. economy.
"In an information-age economy dependent upon consumer activity," the report urges, "any successful economic strategy must eliminate the gaps in education attainment and achievement and enable the fastest-growing populations to reach their full potential as wage earners, consumers and citizens."
Once a moral imperative, ensuring equity in educational opportunity is now also an economic one that if left unaddressed will limit economic growth.
The report lists North Carolina as one of 22 states with minority K-12 enrollments of at least 40 percent as of the 2009-2010 school year.
Data from the N.C. Department of Public Instruction show that the state's 4-year graduation rate in 2012 was 84.7 percent for white students, 74.7 percent for black students and 73 percent for Hispanic students.
"Today's students are quickly becoming tomorrow's workforce and consumers," the report says. "The number of students of color will only get larger; no longer can the nation morally or economically afford to ignore the outcomes of subgroups of students who are both graduating and reaching college and career readiness at lower rates than their white peers."
Read more ...
|
|
|
|
|
 Save the date March 11-12, 2013, for the second annual Scaling STEM conference.
Learn more about the event and requests for proposals.
|
Worth repeating ...
Bill Harrison, chairman of the State Board of Education, recently had this to say in his Chairman's Blog about the Northeast Regional School of Biotechnology and Agriscience, a partner with NC New Schools:
"For many students and parents," Harrison wrote, "the choice to attend this new public school was a leap of faith and a journey into uncharted territory. No one was sure how the school would operate or if it would be successful. Today most will agree that their decision has already paid off. ...
"This school also opens up the door to many other possibilities. Just think that if we are able to create this structure for a regional school, what else as a state can we do? It is clear that through collaboration, a strong commitment to our values, and a willingness to consider options for how to deliver education, we can be truly innovative and effective in designing many different types of approaches to meeting the needs of all children in this state."
| Read more ...
|
|
Meet an Innovator
|
 | | Latoya Scott |
"Modeling instruction is starting from the ground up and flipped."
That's how science teacher Latoya Scott describes the teaching method - known as "modeling" - that she uses in her classroom. If that doesn't make sense to you, then think about your own high school science class from 20 years ago and imagine the opposite of that.
"Listening to the teacher talk and then doing a cookie-cutter lab at the end isn't real science," Scott says. "Modeling allows students to be real scientists and explore. We start with the lab to explore and figure out the concepts, then build the model and then break it down." Scott has been teaching physical science, biology and anatomy/physiology for five years at Atkins Academic/Technology High School in Winston-Salem. She started using modeling during her second year at the school and says the student-focused approach, which puts the teacher in the role of facilitator, works for everyone. "We don't follow the traditional pacing guide. Instead we create a story line that connects everything together. When students acquire new knowledge, they can fit it into the model - and that's how our brains really work. It's not just memorizing bits and pieces of knowledge that are easy to forget in order to pass a test."
|
|
|
