New Hampshire: Making high school learning more meaningful via Expanded Learning Opportunities

President Obama's recent State of the Union address has unleashed a Pandora's box of questions related to the proposal for all states to raise their upper compulsory school age to 18. Many ask: Will simply requiring students to be in school have a meaningful effect? While there is some research suggesting that requiring students to stay in school until they are older has positive impacts, common sense also cries out that students need to feel that what they are learning in school has real implications for their post-high school educational and career directions.

An evaluation published last year suggests that a pilot New Hampshire voluntary program may be a template for other states to consider if they want more students to stay in high school AND feel their high school experience is preparing them for the world after graduation. Conducted by researchers at the University of Massachusetts' Donahue Institute, the study (executive summary here) found that while challenges existed, there were numerous positive outcomes for students participating in Extended Learning Opportunities (ELO), which allows students to earn high school credit via a variety of out-of-school learning experiences. (And perhaps it should be stated first that more than 1 in 3 of ELO participants "met one or more of the criteria for an underserved learner".)

While ELOs held students to rigorous expectations:

• Most students believed they learned more from their ELO than they would have through a traditional classroom experience. Faculty surveys also indicated that ELOs sparked students' academic interests.
• ELOs positively impacted "students’ awareness of skills they will need for the future, self-confidence, work readiness, and clarity about interests and goals"
• Students and teachers concurred that students in ELOs "became deeply knowledgeable about a specific topic area and learned new skills through their ELO, and that students were able to explain what they learned through the experience"
• Community partners (for example, a business at which a student completed an apprenticeship) were highly pleased with the ELO experience, with virtually all (98%) "indicating that their organization would consider leading another ELO."

However, the evaluation was of just four pilot high schools in the state. Meanwhile, some have pointed out that New Hampshire is not like many places in the U.S. Could ELOs work in a large urban district? In a larger state? What else (if anything) needs to be in place to transfer New Hampshire's success to jurisdictions serving larger numbers of English language learners, or low-income students?

North Carolina: Evaluation of online credit recovery

There's little research on the impact of online credit recovery programs so far. However, a recent North Carolina study does shed some light on teacher and student perceptions, as well as student success, in online credit recovery in that state.

While the report notes that "mastery rates" (successful completion of credit recovery) have been on the rise since the program's launch in 2008, fewer than 7 out of 10 students (67%) achieved mastery in summer 2010. Yet online credit recovery students seemed very pleased with the model, and identified specific approaches that supported their success. For example, students noted that teachers used various approaches to address the self-discipline issues that led many students to fail the course the first time around. Students also were very likely to agree or strongly agree on the presence of several key teaching quality indicators in their credit recovery programs:

• "'My teacher does a good job teaching in the online environment.' 93.7% of CR (credit recovery students) agree/strongly agree"
• "'My teacher provides timely and regular feedback on course assignments, assessments, and my progress.' 89.3% of CR agree/strongly agree"
• "'My teacher provides content and assignments that address students' different levels of understanding.' 80.8% of CR agree/strongly agree"
• "'My teacher provides or suggests strategies to help students succeed in this course.' 90.5% of CR agree/strongly agree"
  

Wow! The researchers also noted that credit recovery students were more likely than online general studies or honors students to agree/strongly agree on the presence of these teacher attributes in their courses. Would fewer students have been in credit recovery in the first place had their original teachers been creating a positive learning environment, providing student success strategies and differentiated instruction? Quite possibly. This study provides a toehold in the research on what students positively respond to in the online credit recovery environment.

ECS 12 for 2012 is here!

Yesterday, ECS released its 12 for 2012 report, identifying not necessarily the "hottest" or "biggest" issues of the year, but the issues that demand our attention as a nation and, if we act in a thoughtful and meaningful way, through which we have the potential to greatly improve public education in this country, from the earliest years through postsecondary. Of course, there are other critical issues that didn't make the list--improving high school graduation rates, improving college-readiness and transitions for traditionally underserved students, and improving state accountability systems, to name just a few--but we had to draw the line somewhere.

What are your thoughts? Where were we spot-on? Are there issues you feel do not meet the criteria that all 12 for '12 entries were expected to meet? Other criteria for inclusion we did not consider? Looking forward to receiving feedback, as there has already been talk about doing this again in 2013.

New York: Let's run schools more efficiently

State of the state season is upon us. One of the first governors to deliver a state of the state address was Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York. Among Governor Cuomo's proposals: appointing a bipartisan education commission to work with the legislature to recommend reforms in critical areas, including management efficiency.

Approaches already implemented in Virginia and Texas may provide food for thought for this proposed commission. Virginia legislation requires the department of planning and budget, upon a district's request, to initiate a review of the district's noninstructional expenditures. This review should identify opportunities to improve operational efficiencies and reduce costs for the division in such areas as overhead, human resources, procurement, facilities use and management, financial management, transportation, technology planning, and energy management. School districts must pay 25% of the cost of the review in the fiscal year following the completion of the final report.

Texas takes a slightly different approach. Legislation directs the comptroller to identify districts and campuses that use resource allocation practices that contribute to high academic achievement and cost-effective operations. In doing so, the comptroller must ensure resources are being used for instruction, and must evaluate the operating cost for each student and for each program, and the staffing cost for each student.

Using our most effective teachers more effectively

What would I recommend to a state leader who wants to broaden access to high-quality teachers across school systems? As noted in two reports from the organization Public Impact, increasing teacher recruitment and retention efforts will only get us so far. What is needed is a complete rethinking of the roles of the most effective teachers.

In 3X for All: Extending the Reach of Education's Best, and Opportunity at the Top, Emily Ayscue Hassel and Bryan Hassel propose that the top quartile of effective teachers should not limit their impact to the relatively small number of students assigned to them during the traditional classroom during the regular school day, during the regular school year. These most effective teachers should broaden their impact through three approaches:

• In-Person Reach Extension: More one-on-one in-person contact with students by reorganizing schools and teacher roles. One example of what this would look like would be a lead teacher overseeing "pods" of two or more classrooms with the help of other teachers.
• Remote Reach Extension: These most-effective teachers interact one-on-one with students, but by either asynchronous or real-time exchanges, either within the same building or across distances. The authors note that this can take the form of "e-mail exchanges, multiperson blogs or online discussion boards, and individualized feedback about work submitted online."
• Boundless Reach Extension: Delivered just via technology, and "boundless" considering the limitless number of students who can be impacted.
  

Great ideas all. Yet various policy barriers described in the reports limit the implementation of these approaches. Let's hope states address these obstacles in 2012 to bring the best teaching to many, many more students.

Wisconsin: "Vocational Diploma" under debate

There has been a lot of discussion in the press and the blogosphere about Wisconsin's Sept. 2011 Special Session S.B. 18, a proposal that would allow a high school student to substitute vocational courses for the 13 credits specified in statute. As indicated on the legislative Web site, the bill is supported by certain business interests, and opposed by Disability Rights Wisconsin and various membership groups representing educators.

I'll throw my hat in the ring and note that while many states are making efforts to engage CTE students in their high school experience, some states have been much more specific in what those approaches look like. A few examples:

• Virginia legislation calls for the state standards to be incorporated into CTE courses, as appropriate. Students may substitute a traditional academic end-of-course exam required for graduation with an industry certification or state licensure exam, again where appropriate. The legislation also directs the state board to "develop a plan for increasing the number of students receiving industry certification and state licensure as part of their career and technical education. The plan shall include an annual goal for school divisions. Where there is an accepted national industry certification for career and technical education instructional personnel and programs for automotive technology, such certification shall be mandatory. " The legislation also creates a division within the department of education to help districts incorporate these standards into local CTE curricula, provide professional development for CTE teachers, and elicit business and industry representatives' input on the "content and direction of career and technical education programs in the public schools".
• Alabama, Louisiana, Indiana, Ohio and Virginia have all created a diploma or endorsement (in the case of Alabama, two diplomas) that are designed specifically for CTE students who want to strut their stuff. These diploma options generally allow a student to substitute only a small number of specified credits with CTE credits; some states also require students to earn an industry credential.
  
• Numerous states allow students to substitute a CTE credit for traditional academic credit for completion of graduation requirements, provided the credit meets state-specified criteria. There are also various efforts afoot (Math in CTE, teacher certification provisions as two examples) to help ensure the rigor and quality of CTE programs.
  

"Last in, first out" employment policies on the way out in some states

I was recently asked how many states have done away with "last in, first out" policies--policies that require districts to make layoff or reduction-in-force decisions based on criteria other than seniority. It appears that 9 states--Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Utah--have adopted such provisions. With the exception of Arizona, which adopted its legislation in 2009, all these provisions were enacted in 2011.

In addition, in 2005 Arkansas enacted legislation that required districts to “have a written policy on reduction in force based upon objective criteria for a layoff and recall of employees.” However, the legislation does not define “objective criteria.”