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.
|
|
Education: An engine for job growth
 | |
Tony Habit
|
By Tony Habit
President
NC New Schools
North Carolina's political leaders are justifiably focused on job creation. The state is not alone in its need to overcome sluggish economic growth with strategies to help existing businesses expand, lure others to relocate and help new start-ups get launched. Jobs follow.
Financial incentives can help, to be sure, but a new study finds that an educated workforce matters more when it comes to entrepreneurial and start-up growth that brings jobs.
The study, from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, reached this important conclusion: College attainment means more start-ups, and a region's high school completion rate further increases the development of those new businesses. The researchers found less evidence to support the connection between venture capital - including public venture funds - and strong start-up activity.
The findings of this latest study only reinforce the time-tested belief that North Carolina's economic future turns on the educational attainment of its citizens. That means high school, of course, and also education beyond high school. As a public investment, the study suggests, education is a powerful engine for job creation - perhaps the most powerful.
But we also know that the education now demanded in the job market and in society is very different from what even the last generation experienced. Schools must now prepare graduates to lead, solve problems and create with confidence. That means they need teachers who possess the knowledge and skill to link high academic standards with inquiry and open-ended exploration in the classroom. They must encourage students to take chances in their learning, and assure them that failure is part of growth and there often is no right answer.
Read more ...
|
|
Partnership supports career academies
North Carolina New Schools is forging a partnership with the National Academy Foundation to develop and support a growing network of career academies in North  Carolina. The joint effort is aimed at capitalizing on the particular strengths of each of the two organizations - effective career-focused learning by the National Academy Foundation plus intensive and proven development for educators and administrators aimed at powerful teaching and learning by NC New Schools.
The new partnership will focus initially on Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, where the National  Academy Foundation already supports 10 career academies. Five additional academies will open in the 2014-2015 school year, including three under the new partnership between the National Academy Foundation and NC New Schools. An additional school is in planning for the 2015-2016 school year. The new academies opening for the 2014-2015 school year are an academy of health sciences at Butler High School, an academy of engineering at Independence High School, and a new Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Early College High School on the campus of UNC Charlotte.
The two organizations will blend their two approaches. The National Academy Foundation provides a strong career orientation for students, while NC New Schools focuses on whole school development through professional development and coaching for teachers and school administrators. NAF and NC New Schools already have begun ongoing, joint professional development activities in Charlotte-Mecklenburg.
"This partnership builds upon our focus on workforce development and the creation of a seamless education system that helps all students graduate well prepared," said Tony Habit, president of NC New Schools. "The National Academy Foundation has a proven model for providing students work-based experiences that will motivate learning. We see this as a wonderful opportunity to make that approach even stronger with our emphasis on developing the talent of teachers and school leaders."
|
New STEM teachers off to strong start
Cynthia Keech knows how challenging it can be to find great teachers, especially to teach science and math. Last year, the principal of Carroll Middle School in Raleigh interviewed  more than 200 candidates to fill 25 positions as her school transitioned to a magnet school for leadership and technology with a focus on STEM, shorthand for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. More than half the teaching vacancies in North Carolina secondary schools are in math and science classrooms, according to data from the N.C. Department of Public Instruction. Then Mary Samuels and Matt St. Clair showed up, and Keech thought she'd struck gold.  | |
Mary Samuels
|
"They walked in like they've been teaching their whole lives," Keech said. "I couldn't ask for better than Matt and Mary. They have the content knowledge combined with an ability to work with kids. Usually we spend an inordinate amount of time working on basic classroom management [for new teachers]. With Matt and Mary, we just haven't had to do that." Yet before the summer of 2012, Samuels and St. Clair had never worked in a classroom. They spent the next year as members of the inaugural class of an innovative, on-the-job program that makes teachers of mid-career
 | |
Matt St. Clair
|
professionals and recent college graduates with STEM-related majors. Now in its second year, the NC STEM Teacher Education Program is a cost-free certification initiative that blends hands-on training in the classroom with online learning. After watching St. Clair and Samuels in the classroom this year, Keech says she's sold on the program. "I'll have positions next year in math and science and I'll be looking to NC STEP for graduates to hire. The NC STEP teachers are so much better prepared, they're just a whole different caliber," Keech says. Read more ... |
|
|
|
|
Data Snapshot:
Nearly two-thirds of grades earned in community college courses by early college students in 2012-2013 were A's or B's, surpassing the performance of college-age students.
Community college course grades, 2012-2013, early college students vs. college-age students
|  | |
|
|
Meet a few innovators
Geoff Barham, Tonya Bodie, Dramaine Freeman and Susan Kimbrough have spent the past decade working together at the Early/Middle College at GTCC-Jamestown with Principal Loretta Rowland-Kitley. As part of our 10th anniversary celebration, we asked them to share their thoughts on teaching at an innovative high school in the NC New Schools network.
Tonya Bodie, math teacher: "During my second year at GTCC-Jamestown, we joined with NC New Schools and started putting words to ideas we had been informally practicing - things like 'power of the site' and 'rigor-relevance-relationship.' Now it is an expectation that each student will take college classes during their high school years. We've created supports for the kids taking college classes and work on maintaining effective relationships with students taking full college loads."
Geoff Barham, social studies teacher: "We all have the goal of doing what is best for the students. We also know each other's strengths and are a building to improve our school based on each other's capabilities."
Dramaine Freeman, career development counselor: "The teachers and students have a better chance to get to know each other outside of class, so it builds those relationships and helps students get through those tough experiences in high school. Because of the close knit family that we have here, we are able to help students overcome obstacles that they wouldn't have been able to in a traditional high school."
Susan Kimbrough, curriculum facilitator and SAT prep/leadership teacher: "I actually was a pretty traditional 'stand and deliver' type of teacher when I started teaching here. It's how I was taught, and I also like to feel in control. It was a leap of faith to turn over most of the learning to the students. I remember my heart beating so fast the first time I really used collaborative learning in my class. Once I saw what was happening in my class, there was no turning back."
Read more ... |
|
High achievement
 Danielle Winter, a senior at Early College of Forsyth, has been awarded a prestigious Park Scholarship to attend NC State University starting this fall.
Danielle is one of about 40 students to win the full-ride, four-year scholarship. She expects to graduate from Early College at Forsyth with both an associate degree in arts and an associate in science. |
|
|
