Welcome to INNOVATOR, an update on school and district transformation from North Carolina New Schools. Our newsletter aims to inform practitioners, policy makers, and friends of public education on innovation, workforce development, research and success stories from schools, districts and regions across the state. Please contact us to provide feedback and suggest ideas.
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Education: Linchpin for rural prosperity
 By Lynne Garrison
Senior Vice President,
Strategic Partnerships
NC New Schools
Rural North Carolina can't wait. Not for the old factories to reopen. Not for good jobs to drop from the sky. Not for the pace of change to slow or the clock to turn back. There's no denying the skills gap that afflicts much of North Carolina, not the least in many of the state's rural counties where unemployment is chronic and deep rooted. A story in The News & Observer last month revisited this growing challenge, concluding that any workable strategy comes down to the kind of education that leads to "innovation jobs."
Many regions in the state continue to suffer from permanent structural changes in the state's economy brought by the decline of traditional industries, such as textile and furniture manufacturing. The old jobs are gone. Even where new ones have emerged, they often require skills that workers too often don't have. For rural areas to prosper in the new economy, one expert in the story explained, they must have a workforce skilled in information technology, life sciences and other digital industries.
There are promising efforts now underway to create that kind of highly skilled workforce that can thrive as new opportunities begin to replace the ones that have disappeared. In a growing number of North Carolina's rural counties, economic development is becoming synonymous with a focus on education closely tied to local economic conditions and future prospects that are both realistic and ambitious.
The premise couldn't be simpler: education and good jobs go hand in hand. An educated workforce is the linchpin for the state's rural regions working to reinvent themselves for the 21st century. A growing number of broad-based partnerships involving educators, business people and government leaders are coalescing around that principle and taking steps along a number of fronts to improve educational opportunities.
Read more ...
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Study highlights Wayne Engineering
Wayne School of Engineering is highlighted in a new case study funded by the National Science Foundation for its success with a STEM-focused program that serves a diverse enrollment.
"Wayne School of Engineering is an excellent example of a school that utilizes the community, both within and outside of the school, to accomplish the goal of higher expectations of academics," the study concludes. "Faced with limited  budgetary, technological and logistical resources, [the school] administrators, teachers and students work collectively to overcome these barriers and provide high quality education by finding ways to blur the lines of traditional secondary schools."
The study, by researchers from George Mason and George Washington universities and SRI International, was designed to examine a rural STEM-focused school that "has successfully dealt with the challenges faced by rural schools and offers an innovative and productive learning environment, despite limited resources."
The Goldsboro school, a partner with NC New Schools, was selected because of the state's "inclusive" STEM high school initiative, its diverse enrollment and the school's participation in the Learning Laboratory Initiative, a partnership between NC New Schools and the University of North Carolina to develop several schools where visiting educators can learn innovative practices.
The study's authors cited as particular strengths of the school its close-knit community, its resourceful use of community college courses to extend its offerings and improve college-readiness for students, and its application of project-based learning to engage students in learning that connects them to their community.
Read more ...
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US students lag on global assessment
Results from a closely-watched assessment of 15-year-old students in the developed world are more a sobering reminder than revelation that the United States continues to face growing competition from other nations in academic achievement. The performance of U.S. students in 2012 remained largely unchanged from 2009 on the assessment of reading, math and science skills known as the PISA (Program for International Assessment.) But other industrialized nations comparable to the U.S. -- including Ireland and Poland -- scored higher. On all three portions of the assessment, U.S. performance in 2012 was outpaced by a larger number of other countries and jurisdictions than in 2009. In math, the margin widened to 29 nations from 23 in 2009; in reading, 19 scored higher, compared to nine three years ago; and in science, 22 achieved better results, up from 18 in 2009. The U.S. is losing a key advantage, gained in the years after World War II, of huge enrollment increases, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which administers the PISA. "This advantage is eroding quickly as more and more countries have reached and surpassed the U.S.'s qualification levels among its younger age cohorts," the OECD says in an analysis released with the results. "Over time, this will translate into better workforce qualifications in OECD countries. In contrast, changes in graduation rates have been modest in the United States and, as a result, only 8 of the 34 OECD countries now have a lower high school graduation rate than the United States." Jack Buckley, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, told Education Week: "While we're standing still, other countries are making progress." The economic impact is clear, the OECD argues in a 2011 report on the assessment, "Lessons from PISA for the United States.""The aim is no longer just to provide a basic education for all," the report says, "but to provide an education that will make it possible for everyone to become "knowledge workers." To be sure, the PISA results are generating healthy debate about the assessment itself and the validity of comparisons among different nations. But the global competition that young adults in the U.S. now face for good jobs is a reality of the 21st century. Read more ... |
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College readiness
Results from the ACT college readiness assessment taken by all NC 11th graders in 2013 showed that students in schools partnered with NC New Schools outperformed the state as a whole.
Percentage of 11th graders in 2013 meeting minimum ACT composite score of 17 required for admission to UNC campuses:
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*NC New Schools network includes schools served at least three years.
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Meet an Innovator
Ten Years of Progress
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Jane Burke
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When Jane Burke was named principal in 1989 of Hertford County High School - a high-minority, high-poverty school with close to 1,600 students - the local gas station had a bet going that she wouldn't last more than two weeks "That little lady can't control that school," she remembers hearing later. Luckily no one told the 5-foot-3-inch Burke about the bet until the end of the school year. She went on to serve four years as Hertford's principal and was named North Carolina's Principal of the Year in 1992 before being named superintendent of the district. Today, Burke serves as a leadership coach with North Carolina New Schools, working with principals across the state. She carries with her four decades of experience in education innovation to best meet the needs of all students. "As a principal, it is critical that you understand instruction and that you can talk with your teachers about instruction," said Burke, a leadership coach for the last seven years. "My philosophy as a principal and superintendent aligned from the beginning with what NC New Schools expects around innovative instruction, leadership and personalization," she said. "When I first looked at the Design Principles, it was everything I truly believe. It's very natural for me as a leadership coach now to talk with principals about the importance of those principles and what they stand for." Since working with principals in the first 10 STEM-themed schools in 2006, Burke has seen NC New Schools grow and change, while maintaining an unwavering focus on student success. Read more ...
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