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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Community colleges help expand access
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Stelfanie Williams
President
Vance-Granville Community College
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The evidence keeps growing: High school students need more access to college courses to graduate well-prepared for the challenges that await them, whether they're bound for a two- or four-year degree or at least some postsecondary preparation that will help them land a good job.
As North Carolina responds to this new reality by working to erase more of the boundaries that have long separated K-12 schools and higher education institutions, the state's early college high schools have been exploring this important new middle ground - often with community colleges as their partner.
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David Shockley
President
Surry Community College
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More than 13,000 high school students across North Carolina are now taking a different route to graduation and a diploma. Instead of attending the traditional high school their parents may call their alma mater, these students go to high school on a community college campus, where their experience tends to share more in common with that of college students than with their peers from elementary and middle school.
North Carolina leads the nation in the development of early college high schools, and most of those 76 schools are located at one of the state's 58 community colleges or a satellite campus. Since the first of those innovative high schools opened in 2005, community colleges have opened their doors to students with a model that is serving students by removing barriers and streamlining a new pathway to high school success.
Those schools and community colleges have been learning valuable lessons that are already being shared as more types of schools - traditional and non-traditional - focus more attention on expanding access for a growing number of students to earn college credit while still in high school.
Read more ...
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We all benefit from support for teachers
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Tony Habit
President
NC New Schools
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By Tony Habit
A new report indicates that job satisfaction among teachers decreased over the past five years to the lowest level in at least 25 years. The report, issued by MetLife and Achieve, notes that only 39 percent of teachers report being very satisfied at their job. Nationally, between 40 and 50 percent of teachers leave the classroom within the first five years of entering the profession.
Just about every day, expert coaches from NC New Schools support teachers across North Carolina as they navigate a maze: changing standards, new assessments, unfamiliar technology, new practices linked to  graduating all students career and college ready, and demands that often have little to do with actually teaching students. The stress heaped on teachers during a time of unprecedented change in education is driving many of them from the classroom, much less helping them grow and learn to be at the top of their profession. The use of tests is simply misguided for any other purpose than to assess individual student progress and needs and to help teachers advance their knowledge and skills. ...
With the consistent gains in student achievement and school performance by innovative schools partnered with NC New Schools, one lesson rises above all others. It's this: elevating teachers with the tools and supports to succeed with every student requires that all approaches to teacher support, including the role of administrators, must be focused laser-like on developing the talent of these professionals, long term.
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Grad Nation report highlights the South
 A number of states across the South, including North Carolina, are cited in the annual Building a Grad Nation report for outpacing the nation in most aspects of graduation rate improvement. The 2013 report, released this week, also names North Carolina New Schools among state and local organizations helping to lead innovative approaches to educational improvement.
While the report commends the South as a region that has achieved significant gains in graduating more students, it also points to such challenges as improving educational outcomes for low-income and minority students. North Carolina, with one of the largest enrollments of black students in the nation, has made gains, narrowing the gap in graduation rates between white and black students by about 2 percentage points during the last few years. For 2011, the gap was 11 points, smaller than seven other states in the South, and greater than three. Overall, the report says the nation can reach a graduation rate of 90 percent by 2020 if recent trends continue. The number of "dropout factories," branded for particularly low graduation rates declined at a faster rate from 2008 to 2011 than during the previous six years. The concentration of black and Hispanic students in such schools has also declined. The percentage of black students attending "dropout factory" high schools has fallen from nearly 50 percent in 2002 to 25 percent in 2011; for Hispanics, from 39 percent in 2002 to 17 percent in 2011. Such results, the report concludes, are the outcome of concentrated effort by many to solve the nation's dropout crisis. "While there is no silver bullet to raising [graduation] rates," the report says, "the evidence consistently shows that the greatest improvements in graduation rates occur in schools, districts and states where active, sustained, multi-dimensional, a multi-sector efforts are undertaken with the dual goals of increased standards of excellence and and increased graduation rates." Read more ... |
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New data on college completion by state
New national data on college completion released this week show that many students who begin degree programs fail to complete within six years.
A report from the National Student Clearinghouse released this week finds that of 1.9 million students who entered 4- and 2-year institutions for the first time in 2006, only about 54.1 percent of them had completed within six years. About 30 percent were no longer enrolled and about 16 percent were still pursuing a degree.
While there's no overall completion data comparing individual states with the national rates, data by institution type, age group and full- or part-time status show North Carolina ahead of the nation for public 4-year institutions and lagging the nation slightly for six-year completion from community colleges.
Among students who started at public 4-year institutions in North Carolina in 2006, 66 percent completed within six years, compared to 61 percent for the nation. For 2-year institutions, 35 percent of first-time students in 2006 completed within six years, compared to 36 percent for the nation as a whole.
A useful interactive tool from The Chronicle of Higher Education provides a deeper look at the data for all states.
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Data snapshot
North Carolina has seen steady improvement in high schools with low graduation rates - schools sometimes called "dropout factories" -- where 12th grade enrollment is 60 percent or less of 9th grade enrollment three years earlier.
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Meet an Innovator
 | | Colleen Pegram Principal SandHoke Early College |
If you call Principal Colleen Pegram's office at SandHoke Early College High School and get her voicemail, you'll hear a greeting that ends this way: "I will return your call within 24 hours. In the meantime, you have a great college- and career-ready day!" And in case that 24-hour response promise isn't enough, Pegram posts her cell phone number on the school's website.
That kind of direct access and an unwavering focus on graduating ready sets the tone for a culture of personalization at SandHoke ECHS, where everything is focused on ensuring student success.
"My opinion is that we have the number one early college high school in the nation," says Pegram. "We are great at personalization here. Once students trust in us and believe in themselves, there's nothing we can't or won't do to get students on track to success."
Student achievement results for the school suggest that she's on the right track. Not a single student dropped out of any grade at SandHoke ECHS during the 2010-11 or 2011-12 school years. This year the school expects to graduate 50 students, with 43 on track to get an associate degree.
A native New Yorker who served in the United States Navy for 22 years, Pegram became principal at SandHoke ECHS in 2010. She puts her commitment to a personalized experience for each into action by teaching the freshmen seminar each year.
Read more ...
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Overheard
"The best investment in economic development a state can make is in K-16 education."
Will Powers, executive vice president and CFO, Rolls-Royce North America, Inc., at the Emerging Issues Forum, N.C. State University, Feb. 12 |
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