High School Redesign: Getting a Workable Model

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High School RedesignGetting a Workable Model
Gene Bottoms Senior Vice President Southern
Regional Education Board gene.bottoms_at_sreb.org
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Policies for Achieving High-Performing Schools

• Rigor achieved
• Focus partially achieved
• Relevance partially achieved
• Engaging assignments not addressed
• Relationship and Support weak
• Improved transitions weak
• Leadership not addressed

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Strengths of the Current Louisiana Graduation
Policy

• Four years of mathematics, Algebra I and higher
• Options fourth science course under core 4
• Academic concentration (complete core 4) and
  academic endorsement core 4 added requirement
• CT concentration (4 primary credits and 2 related
  credits) and CT endorsement

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Gaps in Existing Policies

• Higher value placed on academic endorsement than
  on CT endorsement
• 11th grade is too late for many students to
  choose a default program of study
• Fails to recognize alternative assessment beyond
  English/reading and mathematics
• Simplify endorsement requirements and provide
  incentive to increase number earning endorsement

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Why a Rigorous Academic Core?More Students Meet
Readiness Goals
Career Cluster Mathematics Academic Core Completed 2 to 3 Parts 0 to 1 Part Mathematics Academic Core Completed 2 to 3 Parts 0 to 1 Part Gap
Agriculture 75 44 31
Business 70 45 25
Health Sciences 73 39 34
Hospitality/FamilyConsumer Sci. 59 35 24
Manufacturing/ Transportation 62 44 18
STEM 83 55 28
Source 2006 HSTW Assessment
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How many students in CT courses meet college- and
career-readiness goals without completing
HSTW-recommended curriculum?
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Percentages of CT Graduates Meeting Readiness
Goals without Completing the HSTW-Recommended
Curriculum
Career Cluster Reading Math
Agriculture 38 44
Business 39 45
STEM 45 55
Health Sciences 40 39
Hospitality 36 35
Manufacturing and Transportation 35 44
Source HSTW Assessment
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Gaps in Existing Policies

• Absence of adequate incentives and optional
  pathways for poorly-prepared students to graduate
  from high school prepared for postsecondary
  studies and careers
• Require students to complete a concentration, but
  no requirement that schools increase the
  percentage of students earning an endorsement by
  program
• Fail to present an optional ways for becoming a
  high-performing school

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Gaps in Existing Policies

• Do not address transitions from middle grades to
  ninth-grade and from senior year to college and
  careers
• Need to encourage non-traditional approaches to
  advancing student achievement
• Stress the quality of guidance and advisement
  needed
• Do not address expectations for district and
  school leaders to engage students, teachers and
  parents for improved results.

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Guiding Principles of High-Performing High
Schools to Engage All Students in Challenging
Learning

• Each student is pursuing a career-focused program
  aligned with his or her talents, interests and
  aspirations and aligned to grade-level and to
  college- and career-readiness standards core 4
  and core 4 plus.
• Each student in academic, CT and fine arts
  classes has intellectually challenging
  assignments built around authentic, real-world
  tasks and rich in opportunities to
• solve problems.
• make decisions.
• use academic knowledge and skills.
• reflect on and assess performance and technical
  and academic knowledge gained.
• maintain a reflect by a portfolio of work
  accomplished and learning acquired.

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Guiding Principles of High-Performing High
Schools to Engage All Students in Challenging
Learning

• Each student is enrolled in courses where
  expectations regarding quality of work are clear
  and redo opportunities are expected until
  standards are met.
• Each student has a continuing opportunity to
  investigate, explore and reflect on his/her
  talents, interests and aspirations and to make
  adjustments in learning experiences and the
  customized program of study.

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Guiding Principles of High-Performing High
Schools to Engage All Students in Challenging
Learning

• Each student is enrolled in academic, fine arts
  and CT courses where teachers communicate
  frequently and help students make connections in
  learning assignments.
• School leaders and teachers use data to drive
  improvements in school and classroom practices,
  achievement, aptitude, interests, students
  perceptions, etc.

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Expansion of Louisianas Graduation Opportunities

• Develop policies and initiatives to reduce the
  number of students leaving grade eight unprepared
  for high school studies.
• Study successful efforts in accelerating
  mathematics achievement in middle grades
  (Delaware, Maryland, Texas and Virginia).
• Study Floridas legislation on the middle grades,
  which places a strong emphasis on career
  exploration and accelerating middle grades
  curriculum with a special emphasis on adolescent
  literacy. (See SREB draft report.)

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Replace the Minimum with Accelerated
Career-Focused Program of Study

• Set aside the requirement that all students
  participate in the core 4 curriculum for a
  minimum of 2 years.
• Provide incentives to districts and schools to
  redesign their ninth grade.
• Establish a vision and criteria for ninth-grade
  redesign.
• Reward schools that are successful in raising
  achievement and graduation rates of at-risk
  students.

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Create an Accelerated Career-Focused Program of
Study

• Allow at-risk entering ninth-graders to choose a
  career-focused program of study that is organized
  into a coherent sequence of school-based and
  work-site learning experiences and includes at
  least two CT credits per year.
• Greater emphasis on project and problem-based
  learning that integrates academic and technical
  content

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Create an Accelerated Career-Focused Program of
Study

• Require students in a career-focused program to
• complete at least four years of mathematics,
  including Algebra I and geometry.
• pass the GEE exams in English/language arts and
  mathematics, and choose other optional
  requirements to meet graduation requirements.

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Create an Accelerated Career-Focused Program of
Study

• Consider a variety of options for teaching
  Algebra I to a full range of students.
• Allow school districts to adopt an applied
  Algebra I, geometry and Algebra II series.
• Allow algebra and geometry to be taught through
  approved hybrid courses developed collaboratively
  by mathematics and CT teachers.
• Commission a study on the effectiveness of taking
  2 years to teach Algebra I.

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Create an Accelerated Career-Focused Program of
Study

• Award grants to schools that are willing to
  develop and implement an improvement plan that
  meets established criteria.
• At the end of the four years, allow schools to
  continue to receive the grants if they have met
  and continue to meet the targets for increased
  graduation rates.

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Beyond Tracking Multiple Pathways to College,
Careers and Civic Participation

• Consider offering same weight in the index for
  academic endorsement and a CT endorsement.
• Consider giving greater weight to schools who
  take at-risk students entering grade nine below
  grade level and who then complete the
  career-focused program of study option.
• Allow students choosing a career-focused program
  of study in grade nine to opt into either core 4
  or core 4 plus.

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Beyond Tracking Multiple Pathways to College,
Careers and Civic Participation

• Allow students in the career-focused pathway to
  take the same CT credits as students who earn the
  ct endorsement.
• Emphasize reading, writing, listening and
  speaking for learning in all courses in the
  career-focused, advanced academic and technical
  endorsement programs of study. (See SREB
  adolescent literacy report.)

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Expand Key Goals to Include

• Reduce failure rates in the middle grades and
  ninth grade, and increase the percentage of
  students meeting grade-level standards.

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Expand Strategic Intent to Include

• Improve transitions from the middle grades to
  ninth grade and from the senior year to
  postsecondary studies and careers.
• Create a reflective school leadership team that
  focuses on continuous improvement of school and
  classroom practices.
• Instill the value that failure is not an option
  and having all students meet standards is the
  mission of he school.
• Form partnerships to make use of community work
  sites, virtual learning opportunities and
  postsecondary institutions to achieve key goals.
• Redesign career/technical courses so students use
  academic and technical knowledge and skills to
  complete intellectually demanding, authentic
  assignments.

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Expand Strategic Intent to Include

• Broaden the high school redesign to focus on
  establishing readiness for the ninth grade and
  the redesign of the ninth grade as a major
  statewide educational priority. (See HSTW
  Ninth-Grade Redesign report.)
• Define ninth-grade readiness standards, and
  benchmark for success in Algebra I in grade nine,
  college-preparatory-level language arts and
  science.
• Identify students early in the middle grades who
  are at risk of being unprepared for high school
  and provide a system of accelerated instruction
  and support. Study the Texas and Virginia
  approaches.

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Expand Strategic Intent to Include

• Require accelerated intensive academic help in
  reading and mathematics for students before they
  begin the ninth grade or early in the ninth-grade
  year.
• Redesign the ninth grade so students who are
  behind receive the help they need to catch up,
  particularly in reading and mathematics.
• Make the emphasis in middle grades and early high
  school on having students meet standards, not on
  failure.

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Establish a statewide process for determining
high school juniors readiness for college and
careers.

• Allow students who are ready for postsecondary
  study at the end of the junior year to earn at
  least nine semester hours of credit during the
  senior year.
• Enroll students who are planning to enroll in
  postsecondary studies but who fail to meet
  readiness standards in specially designed
  mathematics and English transitional courses the
  senior year.
• Use the senior year to allow students who are not
  planning to attend college to earn employer
  certification.

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Redesign high school CT courses and make them
more intellectually demanding .

• Identify the most essential reading, writing,
  mathematics and science standards that are needed
  for work and further study.
• Establish a process to support teams of
  outstanding academic and CT teachers and experts
  from the technical field to prepare course
  syllabi for each CT course.
• Develop authentic problems and projects to engage
  students in using essential college-readiness
  standards.
• Train teachers to use the course syllabi, using
  the AP model.
• Create a repository of these syllabi and projects
  for all schools to share.

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Recognize and encourage good CT instruction that
can foster 21st-century skills/intellectually
challenging work.

• Trouble-shooting and problem-solving skills
• Use of research skills to collect and organize
  information into a work plan
• Use of mathematics to support decision-making and
  planning
• Use of writing to aid learning and to complete
  tasks
• Communication and interaction with adults outside
  the school
• A setting where students experiment, invent,
  design and construct

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Gains in Number of CT Students Per 100 Meeting
Readiness Goals Who Experienced 21st-Century
Assignments
Source HSTW Assessment
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Success Stories
Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical
Center Franklin, Massachusetts Rigorous,
Intellectually Demanding Assignments
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Expand Students Opportunities for Study in
High-Quality, High-Demand CT Fields

• Dual credit courses meeting established standards
• Career academies
• Adopt new kinds of programs such as PLTWs
  pre-engineering and biomedical science curricula
• Formulate an apprenticeship program similar to
  the one that has been developed by the state of
  Georgia and other proven work-site learning models

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Average Point Gain in Achievement Scores on HSTW
Assessment2004 to 2006
100 Non-Improved Sites 100 Most-Improved Sites
Reading -11 15
Mathematics -8 12
Science -12 16
Source 2004 and 2006 HSTW Assessments Source 2004 and 2006 HSTW Assessments Source 2004 and 2006 HSTW Assessments
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Average Point Changes in Reading Achievement
100 Non-Improved Sites 100 Most-Improved Sites
All Students -11 15
Black -12 16
White -10 13
Parents w/ no college education -11 14
Parents w/ some college education -11 14
Source 2004 and 2006 HSTW Assessments Source 2004 and 2006 HSTW Assessments Source 2004 and 2006 HSTW Assessments
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Average Point Changes in Mathematics Achievement
100 Non-Improved Sites 100 Most-Improved Sites
All Students -8 12
Black -9 13
White -6 11
Parents w/ no college education -7 11
Parents w/ some college education -8 12
Source 2004 and 2006 HSTW Assessments Source 2004 and 2006 HSTW Assessments Source 2004 and 2006 HSTW Assessments
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Average Point Changes in Science Achievement
100 Non-Improved Sites 100 Most-Improved Sites
All Students -12 16
Black -12 19
White -10 15
Parents w/ no college education -11 17
Parents w/ some college education -12 16
Source 2004 and 2006 HSTW Assessments Source 2004 and 2006 HSTW Assessments Source 2004 and 2006 HSTW Assessments
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Changes in Percentages of Students Completing
HSTW-Recommended Academic Curriculum 2004 to 2006
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Changes in Percentages of Students Experiencing
HSTW Indicators at Most-Improved and Non-Improved
Schools 2004 -2006
Expectations
Literacy
Numeracy
Science
Quality CT
Work-based Learning
Guidance
Extra Help
High School Importance
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Resources for Your Consideration

• Beyond Tracking Multiple Pathways to College,
  Career and Civic Participation, edited by Jeannie
  Oakes and Marsha Saunders, Harvard Educational
  Press
• The Mind At Work Valuing the Intelligence of the
  American Worker, Mike Rose
• Crafting a New Vision for High School How States
  Can Join Academic and Technical Studies to
  Promote More Powerful Learning
• Lost in Transition Building a Better Path from
  School to College and Careers

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Resources for Your Consideration

• Preparing Middle Grades Students for High School
  Success
• A Critical Mission Making Adolescent Reading a
  priority in SREB States
• Redesigning the Ninth Grade Experience
• Measuring Technical and Academic Achievement
  Employer/Certification Examinations role in High
  School Assessment