Welcome to INNOVATOR, an update on 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 schools. Please contact us to provide feedback and suggest article ideas.
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NC's educational progress is no accident
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 | Tony Habit
President
NC New Schools |
By Tony Habit
Among the usual indicators issued last year on the performance of North Carolina students - from ABCs results to dropout rates - were two that deserve repeating as we begin a new year and welcome new leadership in Raleigh.
First, the state's high school graduation rate set a new high-water mark, continuing an upward climb that started several years ago.
To be sure, even at 80 percent, there's still plenty of room for improvement. But five years earlier, we need to remember, North Carolina was still shy of graduating 70 percent of its high school students. And although persistent gaps remain, black and Hispanic students have seen even bigger gains. There's no doubt, too, that the readiness of graduates must be strengthened, but completing high school is just essential. And on that count, North Carolina is making real progress.
Second, results from an international assessment released late last year showed North Carolina fourth and eighth graders achieving math scores above the national average and on par or better than students in most high-performing nations. Among nine states that participated in the eighth-grade assessment, North Carolina ranked third behind Minnesota and Massachusetts - two states that often lead the nation in educational outcomes. Again, a sure sign of progress.
These things didn't happen by accident.
Read more ...
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Report: Business engagement is essential
 Schools and businesses must work in tandem, a new national report urges, to ensure the success of all students.
The report, released last week at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce by the Citi Foundation and College Summit, calls for the development of stronger partnerships among schools, businesses and non-profit organizations as a means to transform the nation's schools with a greater emphasis on real-world learning and student engagement.
The report, Business Engagement in Education: Key Partners for Improving Student Success, underscores many of the same kinds of strategies NC New Schools is using to help forge strong partnerships among its partner schools, institutions of higher education and businesses across the state.
Business involvement in schools brings invaluable assets, the report explains, including these examples:
- Teaming with educators to define and implement key skills and knowledge that students need to succeed in college and career.
- Providing hands-on experience for students that expands learning from the classroom to the real world of the workplace.
- Helping to provide key resources for learning materials and technology to improve teaching and learning.
The report is a helpful guide to both educators and business leaders in thinking about the shared goal of an educated workforce.
"It is clear that among our most important national priorities is ensuring schools across the country are effective and engaging environments for learning and personal development," the report concludes. "This is critical not only for the success of the many students who sit in classrooms today, but also for industries and businesses who require a motivated and talented pipeline of young people to drive innovation, and for communities that depend on a productive citizenry for their sustainability."
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Study links suspensions, graduation rates
Research on Florida high school students finds a strong connection between suspensions and graduation, according to a recent story in Education Week.
The newspaper reported that researchers at Johns Hopkins University have found that about three of every four Florida 9th graders who were never suspended from school as freshmen graduated from high school, while only about half the students who were suspended one time reached graduation. For students who were suspended twice, the rate dropped to just 38 percent.
Yet suspensions alone aren't the determining cause for students' failure to graduate, the researchers found. Students suspended also were failing courses or often likely to have high rates of absenteeism.
Finding ways to engage and motivate students are critical to overall student success. Robert Balfanz, co-director of the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins, told Education Week, "We need a more holistic answer to this problem than 'suspend fewer kids.' "
Balfanz said that schools must identify the underlying behavior problems causing the suspensions and engage students in their learning.
Still, the researchers found lasting results related to students and suspensions. Students who were never suspended were more likely not only to enroll in postsecondary education, they were also more likely to complete more coursework after high school.
The research followed 182,000 Florida students who were 9th graders in 2000-2001 through 2008-2009.
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Dropouts few from innovative schools
North Carolina's innovative schools continue to demonstrate strong results by ensuring that students stay in school and on track to graduation.
The latest dropout data show that schools that partner with North Carolina New Schools in 2011-2012 lost comparatively few students. More than a third of the 99 schools which NC New Schools helped support last year had no dropouts from any grade, and eight of every 10 of the schools had no dropouts from 9th grade, when students are most susceptible to quitting school.
Key findings in the state data for NC New Schools partner schools in 2011-12 include:
* 42 NC New Schools partner schools lost no students to dropping out (see list at end of release)
* 77 of the partner schools lost no more than two students as dropouts
* 79 partner schools lost no students from 9th grade
* The 99 partner schools had a combined dropout rate of 1.4 percent, compared to 3.01 percent for the state as a whole.
* The 74 partner early colleges had a combined dropout rate of only 0.5 percent.
The state's 74 early college high schools in 2011-12 had a combined dropout rate of just 0.5 percent, with 39 of the schools losing no students as dropouts. With a combined enrollment of 13,725 students, early colleges last year lost just 74 students to dropping out. |
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Data snapshot
Suspensions per 100 students during the
2011-12 school year...
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Source: NC Report Cards database, NC New Schools analysis
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Meet an Innovator
As a counselor at Caldwell Early College, Donna Doughty believes she has the best job around.
"With the focus on preparing students for college, careers and life, the vision of our school and of NC New Schools is so closely aligned with what a counselor is supposed to do: helping students think about their classes, their future career and their personal well-being," says Doughty.
"When your whole school is dedicated to helping every student reach their full potential, it's a dream job. I feel like I came home when I came to this high school."
After spending seven years in the largest high school in the county, Doughty says her experience at the early college is "almost a completely different job." Instead of focusing on scheduling, testing or other time-consuming tasks, her role at Caldwell Early College primarily includes consulting with teachers, students and parents. Whether she's working closely with the 5th year seminar teacher around college applications and college entrance exams or taking a group of students to Charlotte to see the opera, Doughty is deeply connected in the school.
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Overheard
| From an editorial published in the Hickory Daily News Jan. 10:
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"The North Carolina New Schools Project is working. Proof is at Challenger Early College High School, on the campus of Catawba Valley Community College. Challenger is one of 42 institutions in the New Schools project that did not have a single dropout in the previous school year, 2011-12. ... "Our schools have reduced student dropout rates, but they must be cut even more. Opportunities are few for dropouts. We have to eliminate dropouts if we are to give all our students a chance in the workplace. ... "Challenger High and its New Schools companions appear to be well-positioned and going in the right direction." Read more ...
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