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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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Schools cited for innovation and excellence
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NC New Schools is highlighting four schools within its statewide network as "schools of innovation and excellence" for making strides toward student-centered learning and solid progress toward high achievement for all students.
Winning the recognition are:
- Caldwell Early College High School
- Henderson County Early College High School
- Johnston County Early College Academy
- Wake Early College of Health and Sciences
 All 140 schools within the NC New Schools network in 2013-2014 academic year were eligible to seek the special recognition, intended to commend innovative education that helps all students succeed. With additional support from NC New Schools, the four schools will serve as models of innovation for educators, policy makers and community leaders from North Carolina and other states.
The schools were singled out not only for strong performance on conventional measures such as the ACT and other test-score gains, but also for the progress they're making towards student-centered approaches that NC New Schools promotes as key elements for highly effective education. These approaches are defined by a set of six evidence-based "design principles" that the network schools are asked to adopt to create a culture of high expectations and strong support.
Read more ...
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Competency based on mastery, not time
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Genuine student-centered teaching and learning is at the heart of the education transformation advanced by NC New Schools since it first started helping develop and support innovative secondary schools more than 10 years ago. But educators working in and with these schools to make students the masters of their own learning have long felt hamstrung by an educational framework that often works at cross purposes to their goals of empowerment and success for all students. As a first step to address that gap, NC New Schools and the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at NC State University invited a broad range of educators and policy makers to spend a day in
 | | Cathy Guyer, a teacher at Challenger Early College, discusses competency-based learning |
December focusing on competency-based learning as a promising approach gaining momentum in a growing number of states. Four national experts in the field - from the perspectives of both policy and practice - presented the benefits and challenges of what they described as a major shift in mindset and application. Competency-based education upends traditional approaches to schooling by trading time for mastery. Instead of learning being defined by a grade level or course, learning is defined by the skills or content a student is expected to master - irrespective of time. The finish line isn't the end of the grade or course but proficiency with a defined set of learning objectives. Tony Habit, president of NC New Schools, opened last month's session at the Friday Institute by emphasizing the promise of educational equity that competency-based learning holds. "We need to understand how innovation is going to lead to deeper supports for students who historically have not succeeded," Habit said. "Competency-based education shouldn't be viewed as a way to accelerate advantaged children but to help students who have not always met with success." Read the full report ... Read a recent post on our FutureReady blog from Julia Freeland, a research fellow with the Clayton Christensen Institute.
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Survey: More US graduates lack preparation
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A national survey finds a high percentage of recent high school graduates who report gaps in their preparedness for college and work. Nearly half of those surveyed said they were "somewhat well" or "not well" prepared for the expectations they face in college or the working world after high school - an increase of nearly 10 percentage points from 2004, when the survey was last conducted.
On the flip side, the proportion of graduates reporting that they felt "very well" or "extremely well" prepared dropped from 61 percent in 2004 to 53 percent in 2014.
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Literacy matters in math classrooms, too
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By Maria Derivan-CampbellNC New Schools Instructional Coach | Marie Derivan-Campbell
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Math teachers do math. English teachers do, well, English things, like words and vocabulary and meaning. Never the two shall mix. But is this common perception true? No. The reality is that, even in math classrooms, literacy matters just as much as it does in a language arts class. Just ask Tim Ellis, a math teacher at Riverside High School in Williamston. I first met Tim at the beginning of the 2014 school year. I thought it was an unusual partnership: he a math teacher, me an English teacher who breaks out in hives at the mere mention of numbers. I really didn't know wh  at I could bring to the table until, one day, he told me: "I don't understand it. My students can solve equations, but the second I hand them a word problem, they shut down. They can't do them." Being a new coach, I found this interesting. How could this be? In looking at word problems, what was being asked seemed pretty self-explanatory ... and then it hit me: These children didn't understand what they were reading. Apparently, this is not an uncommon problem. According to education specialists Edwards, Maloy, and Anderson, "Readers who are confused and distracted by everyday language, math words, or a combination of both may know how to do the necessary math operations, yet answer incorrectly because they do not clearly comprehend what the question is asking them to do" (2009). In other words, in math classrooms, language matters.
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Partners sought for federal Scale-Up grant
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North Carolina New Schools is seeking both an additional in-state and out-of-state partner for its federal i3 Scale-Up grant awarded in November to extend early college strategies in rural communities.
The Early College Strategies for All initiative encompasses a whole school reform effort in which all students are expected to participate in college-level courses and requires schools to align their academic programs with standards for access and success in college courses.
The reform effort includes a comprehensive talent development approach, which leads to highly capable teachers, principals and district leaders as a way to support students.
Read more about NC New Schools' work as a national leader in early college models.
In addition to funding scale up efforts within North Carolina, the Early College Strategies for All initiative includes providing state- and regional-level capacity building to other states to set the foundation for opening schools with early college strategies in the future. This request for proposals is to identify a fourth state partner for this work, joining Illinois, Mississippi and South Carolina in the effort.
Download the complete RFP for additional details and instructions for submitting an out-of-state proposal. Interested states must apply by Feb. 9.
Further information about the RFP for the in-state partner will be available soon on the news section of the NC New Schools website.
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STEM conference highlights promising practices
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 The 2015 Scaling STEM conference will focus on how to design, create and inspire student engagement. Sessions will highlight promising practices, tools and resources to:
- Design solutions for school-based problems of practice
- Create engagement in critical thinking through the "making" movement
- Inspire through partnerships with industry, community and higher education
The conference, set for April 13-15 at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel & Convention Center in Research Triangle Park, is designed for educators, STEM advocates, education innovation leaders, industry and community leaders and policymakers. The event is co-hosted by the NC Science, Mathematics & Technology Education Center and NC New Schools.
Click here to register and learn more about the conference. |
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STEP Program open to lateral entry teachers
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 The NC STEM Teacher Education Program (NC STEP) is now accepting new lateral-entry teachers of science, technology, engineering or math working in NC New Schools network schools.
NC STEP is an alternative licensure program for mid-career professionals and recent college graduates with STEM majors interested in becoming secondary science, technology, engineering or math teachers. Administered by NC New Schools and approved by the State Board of Education, this cost-free, non-traditional teacher prep program is supported by a federal Transition to Teaching grant.
Applications are now being accepted for the cohort that starts in July 2015.
Contact George Ward at gward@ncnewschools.org or 919-277-9002 for details. |
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