North Carolina New Schools - INNOVATOR - May 2014
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May 20, 2014
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Leadership center brings strong results

Tony Habit
Tony Habit 
By Tony Habit
President
NC New Schools

High performing schools and districts succeed based upon their ability to attract, retain and grow effective teachers and to remain committed to continuous improvement.  Strong leadership by principals and district administrators provides the foundation for achieving those critical goals. This means setting high goals, charting a clear course, and fostering a strong climate of collaboration among teachers centered on effective teaching focused directly on the needs of students.

Transforming schools and school systems to become student centered demands leadership vastly dissimilar from that of school administrators in the last century, when the focus was on management, not instructional leadership. At NC New Schools we launched the NC Center for Educational Leadership to help build a culture in schools and in districts that supports collaboration and growth among educators and individualized learning and success for each student.  We're also now focusing on helping district leaders develop pragmatic strategies for innovation that lead to strong student outcomes.

Our 10-year focus on developing great leaders in education is delivering strong results, according to a new report, which focuses on principals from our partner schools now in district-level and community college positions. The study found a wide range of benefits that the former principals and their superintendents attribute to their participation with NC New Schools leadership activities.

"Participants were overwhelmingly positive of training and support they received from NCNS," the researchers concluded, "and our findings suggest that their experience not only prepared them for their new role, but also directly impacted their current practice."
       

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Dropouts decline with rural initiative

A two-year-old initiative aimed at boosting student outcomes at 18 rural high schools across North Carolina is helping keep students in school and on track to graduation. The combined dropout rate for the first five schools to join the effort fell by nearly 30 percent in 2011-2012 to 2.43 percent from 3.53 percent the year before, according to recently released state data.

The rural initiative, led by North Carolina New Schools, strengthens traditional high schools by embedding master educators in schools to work collaboratively with teachers and principals who actively participate in intense professional development around proven strategies that increase expectations for classroom rigor, relevance and student engagement. That critical support, along with other innovative elements such as access to college courses, is yielding significant results in the state's growing number of successful early college high schools.

The U.S. Department of Education recently highlighted early colleges on its rigorous What Works Clearinghouse website based on national research, including early colleges in North Carolina. The research found significant evidence of positive results in the schools.

An initial group of five North Carolina high schools that pioneered the rural initiative beginning in the 2012-2013 school year saw a significant decline in the number of dropouts during that first year. Together, the five schools counted 38 fewer dropouts in 2012-2013 compared to the year before - improving from 117 students who quit in 2011-2012 to 79 last year.

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"A sea change in our classrooms"

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan called for continued focus on innovation in teaching and learning at the release last month of Building a Grad Nation, a report showing that the nation's graduation rate in 2012 reached 80 percent for the first time ever. The following  excerpts from his comments strike a chord with the work of NC New Schools:

"It's going to take a sea change in our nation's classrooms to prepare our young people for a different world than the one so many of our schools were designed for.
"

"To get there, we have to do a couple of things. We have to make sure all of our young people -- all of them -- have the kind of education that truly prepares them for that future. That's not about a little more of the same thing we've been doing. It's about big changes in our classrooms -- changes that have been long in coming."

"The real world our young people will inhabit requires not just having knowledge-though, obviously, that's important -- but being able to find knowledge, interpret it, share it and shape it. It requires new levels of problem solving, individually and in groups. It requires the ability to innovate, and fluency with technology."

"To get there, our classrooms can't be primarily about lecturing and listening -- they have to be about inquiry and invention. As one teacher remarked recently, our classrooms must, and I quote, 'challenge students and foster a sense of joy' -- or, as another teacher said, be a 'learning lab fueled by curiosity and passion.' Only by engaging young people as active participants in their learning can we prepare them for a knowledge-driven economy."

"To improve outcomes for students, fundamentally, we have to have better systems and better supports for great teaching. The good news is that the work of strengthening them is under way, in schools, districts, and states throughout the country."  
A teacher's take on the Common Core

Ben Owens
Ben Owens, a math teacher at Tri-County Early College High School, wrote recently in The News  & Observer of Raleigh in defense of the Common Core State Standards. Owens is a 2014 Hope Street Group National Teaching Fellow.

 

The recent proposal by a joint legislative committee to replace the Common Core State Standards with "homegrown" standards overseen by political appointees is another blow to education in our great state.  

 

As an engineer turned teacher with 20 years of industry experience, I can strongly say that the CCSS provide a framework of what is needed in today's modern workplace: an emphasis on skills that can help our students compete with anyone on the planet.

 

Not being able to easily find skilled talent is unacceptable and the reason I decided to leave an engineering career to teach in the rural mountains of Western North Carolina. The committee's recommendation to return to a patchwork model of state-to-state disparity will inevitably lead to less thorough and inadequately vetted standards, which will negatively affect the education of our state's youth and the future of its workforce.

 

Believe me, I have some issues with the CCSS and how they were originally implemented. I also respectfully take issue with the testing approach my colleagues and our students must face at the end of each course. What I don't do, however, is lump all of these problems together and blame them on the standards themselves. Indeed, I support calls to review the standards, isolating and correcting problems to make them better. Businesses follow this process on a daily basis to stay competitive. But don't scrap the whole thing, especially over claims that are not based on solid evidence.

 

As a high school teacher who has spent seven years teaching math to students in Cherokee County, I know that these standards work. If you don't believe me, then I challenge you to spend an hour in my classroom. There, in a second-hand trailer, you will see students solving difficult problems in a collaborative, student-centered manner and building critical skills such as communication, accessing and analyzing information and the ability to transfer knowledge to real-world scenarios. This method of instruction is aligned with the rigorous expectations of the common core and is helping to equip my students with skills they will benefit from for the rest of their lives, regardless of their intended career or academic path.


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In This Issue
Dropouts dip in rural schools
Innovation key to grad gains
In defense of Common Core
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Success for all

Sean Bulson, superintendent of Wilson County Schools, spoke last week to graduates of Wilson Early College Academy.  Here's a brief excerpt from this address:

"The research on North Carolina's early colleges shows that students stay on track better for college work, complete more college-level work, show higher passing rates on state assessments, and graduate at much higher rates in comparisons to students in traditional high schools in the state.  But the statistic that speaks to me the most is that the early college high school model closes the achievement gap between groups of students and provides higher levels of success for all students.  This is the type of education innovation that advances the spirit of educational equity that began 60 years ago this week, and you are among the innovators who have helped make this a reality." 

Meet an innovator

Kelly Leovic 

A decade ago, Kelly Leovic wanted to start an outreach
program to connect the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's RTP office with area schools and the community. She got an unexpected lesson in the kind of persistence that has led to countless scientific discoveries. She had to pitch her idea to eight different managers before winning the support she needed.   
Today, there's plenty of evidence that proves her idea was worth the effort. Leovic serves as director of EPA's Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Outreach Program in Research Triangle Park,  where more than 10 percent of employees now participate in outreach as mentors and other volunteers. The program reached more than 31,000 people in eight counties last year, with more than 170 school-based events.

"I see what the needs are in the community, from K-12 schools to universities and civic groups, and match them up with the expertise of our employees," Leovic says. "Through active school and community engagement, we can better share EPA's mission of protecting human health and the environment."

EPA's employee outreach programs are extensive. They range from sending expert guest speakers into K-12 classrooms, universities and the community; hosting teacher externs and STEM Day field study visits for faculty from NC New Schools partner schools.

In addition to running EPA's outreach, Leovic also serves as a member of NC New Schools' Energy & Sustainability Industry Innovation Council, is past co-chair of the Durham Public Schools Superintendent's Business Advisory Council and helped found the Business Advisory Council at Durham's Southern School of Energy and Sustainability.

Leovic sees NC New Schools' mission of ensuring students are ready for the future as a great fit for EPA employees.

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Google this speaker
Jaime Casap, Global Education Evangelist at Google, Inc., will be the keynote speaker at this year's NC New Schools Summer Institute, June 24-26, at the Concord Embassy Suites and Convention Center.

Casap evangelizes the power and potential of the web, technology, and Google tools as enabling and supporting capabilities in pursuit of creating powerful learning models. He works with educational organizations around the world, helping them find ways to continuously improve the quality of education by utilizing and enabling technology capabilities.

In addition to his role at Google, Casap serves on the Arizona Science Foundation Board of Directors, on the Board of Directors for New Global Citizens, and in advisory roles to dozens of organizations focused on improving education. He is a faculty associate at Arizona State University, where he teaches classes and guest lectures.

Watch his TED talk
Kenan for STEP grad

Mary Samuels, who started teaching middle school science after completing NC New Schools'  STEM Teacher Education Program last year, has been selected as a Kenan Fellow for 2014-2015. Samuels, now at Carroll Middle School in Raleigh, was a member of the first cohort of the STEP program, targeted at mid-career professionals interested in teaching STEM-related fields.

Samuels will focus on nanotechnology in wearable health devices as her fellowship project.