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NATIONAL
NETWORK OF CONSTITUENT ORGANIZATIONS E-NEWSLETTER
June 12, 2006
NNCO BUSINESS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
Conference Call
Our first NNCO conference call was held on May 23. NNCOs
updated each other on their work and offered suggestions for collaborative
activities. See the NNCO Organizational Updates section below for details.
June Meeting
Our next NNCO meeting is scheduled for June 22 from 9:00-3:00 at IEL (4455 Connecticut Ave, NW).
The agenda will focus on discussing the policy issue of defining and
communicating about increasing academic rigor in high schools, developing
strategies to improve coordination between NNCOs,
and smaller discussions between NNCOs about
potential collaborative activities.
National High School Calendar
Please continue to contribute to the National High School Alliance’s
calendar of high-school related activities. To make this calendar as
useful as possible, we need you to send us dates of relevant events, meetings,
and report releases with the date, location, and short descriptions of the
event and intended audience to Sara Goldware
at the National High School Alliance (goldwares@iel.org). The
calendar can play a valuable role in improving coordination if you begin
consulting it when you are planning events and even thinking about ways to
coordinate your meeting agendas and presentations with already planned
events. You can find it at http://www.hsalliance.org/calendar/index.asp We
are also interested in other ideas for making the calendar as useful to you
as possible.
National High School
Alliance Meeting
The Spring 2006 National High School Alliance Partners meeting took place in Providence, Rhode
Island from May 16-18, 2006. The purpose of
the meeting was to examine the Rhode Island Diploma System across all levels
of policy and practice: state, district, school, and classroom. Partners had
the opportunity to explore how policy is developed at the state level, and
how it is translated into practice at the district, school, and classroom
levels. For more information, see the meeting summary at http://www.hsalliance.org/learning/index.asp. As
part of the meeting, participants selected one of eight high schools to visit
throughout the state of Rhode
Island. Participants used a site visit
protocol, developed by HS Alliance partners, which used the Call to Action
framework with relevant components integrated from resources developed by America’s
Choice, the Academy for Educational Development’s Schools for a New
Society, and the National Academy Foundation.” The protocol was
intended to provide a method for participants to note involvement at all
levels of practice in the school they visited. The protocol was
intentionally general and comprehensive so that the conversations from these
visits could be translated into a larger context for high school reform in other
states. Click
here to view the protocol.
STATE HIGHLIGHTS
(Excerpted from the NGA, Honor
States Phase One Update)
These states have taken steps to increase academic rigor through
strategies such as building public will for a more rigorous curriculum,
defining college preparatory curricula, and increasing the number of students
who participate in more rigorous curricula.
Arkansas
Through a competitive bidding process, Arkansas
awarded a $200,000 contract to a state-based communications firm with
experience building coalitions and public will for the Smart Core curriculum
(a college-ready curriculum required for high school graduation). Arkansas’
current communications campaign is designed to build public support for the
adoption of new state-wide college and work-ready standards. The strategy
incorporates a high school reform Web site, a series of local/regional
forums, partnerships with key constituent groups, print materials, and media
outreach.
Massachusetts
Massachusetts
is developing a high school definition of a Curriculum for College and Work
Readiness for both academic courses and content, based on input from K-12 as
well as higher education and business representatives. Massachusetts has been chosen as one of
eight new states to participate in the State Scholars Initiative (SSI). The
SSI is a national business/education partnership effort working to increase
the number of students who take a rigorous curriculum in high school. Massachusetts will
receive $300,000 over an 18 month period to implement SSI and plans to work
with five pilot high school sites. Through the NGA grant program, the
Massachusetts Department of Education has expanded and strengthened
partnerships for high school redesign by working with postsecondary
institutions, business and community leaders, and organizations such as the
Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, the Rennie Center, the
Center for Collaborative Education, and Jobs for the Future.
Michigan
In April 2006, Governor Jennifer Granholm signed
into law rigorous high school graduation requirements, which include 4
credits of math and English, 3 credits each of science and social studies, 1
credit of physical education/health, 1 credit of the arts and two years of a
foreign language. The State Board approved new high school content
expectations for English Language Arts and Mathematics at its April 11, 2006
meeting. Work on the science and social studies content expectations
continues to progress ahead of schedule.
NNCO ORGANIZATIONAL UPDATES
National Association of
Secondary School Principals
Contacts: Dick Flanary, Honor
Fede
- Held Breaking Ranks II
training in Arkansas
on June 14
- Similar training to be
held in Washington, DC
- Discussions underway
with Virginia
for additional sessions focusing on mentoring and coaching
- Creating opportunities for
NNCO members to participate in planned Breaking Ranks sessions
State Higher Education
Executive Officers
Contacts: Paul Lingenfelter,
Sharmila Basu Conger
- Planning with ACE, NASH, Achieve and others to include sessions
on high school reform in upcoming meetings and conferences, including
SHEEO Annual Meeting (July 2006)
- Preparing
articles related to high school reform for the Chronicle of Higher
Education and organizational publications
- Working
with authors on revision of P-16 publication, Student Success
- Developing
meeting (January 2007) for higher education leaders from ADP and Honor States to build momentum around
higher education’s role in high school reform
National Conference of State
Legislatures
Contact: Sunny Deye
- Completing toolkit for
legislators, which includes six publications and will be distributed to
education committee chairs and vice chairs, legislative leadership,
Legislative Education Staff Network members and others in all 50
states
- Preparing article
for State Legislatures magazine on high school reform
issues
- Planning for upcoming NCSL
Annual Meeting session: "Keeping Kids in School: Recent
Efforts to Improve High School Outcomes." (Wednesday,
August 16, Nashville,
TN)
- AYPF/NCSL joint site visit
to tour schools and meet with policy makers in New York City took place May
25-26. Upcoming site visits will be in October and November - dates
and locations TBD
National Association of State
Boards of Education
Contact: Carlas McCauley
- Completed the second
policy update/brief for state board members on exit exams
- Completed the 1st edition
of the NASBE newsletter designed to keep State Boards up-to-date on
state progress toward meeting the goals identified in the NGA Honor
States Grant
- Completed the NASBE
web page describing the work of the NGA Honor States Grant program and
high school reform generally
- Collaborated with AYPF to
send board members on a tour of a New
York school and meet with policy makers
Council of Chief State
School Officers
Contact: Angela
Hernandez-Marshall
- Completed the Spring
Quarterly newsletter on state secondary reform efforts, see http://www.ccsso.org/whats_new/newsletters/high_school_redesign_monthly/index.cfm
- Held monthly conference
calls with CCSSO State Network on Secondary Redesign-- April featured
NASSP/ Breaking Ranks in the Middle, May featured Achieve/ Closing the
Expectations Gap Report
- Held the CCSSO
Secondary School Redesign Conference, June 7-9, Atlanta -- 130
attendees, ~75 state officials, Keynote and plenary speakers include:
Gerald Tirozzi (NASSP); Matt Gandal (Achieve),
Henry Johnson, Ass't Secretary, OESE, USED,
and Ross Wiener (Education Trust). Breakout session speakers
include representatives from Achieve, NGA
National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People
Contact: Michael Wotorson
- Held the Brown Commission
Meeting on May 24-25
- Completed the report, Lost Opportunities: Racial and Ethnic
Disparities in Higher Education, which provides a picture of
the status of minority youth in higher education based on empirical data
and current research
UPCOMING EVENTS
For information about these events, please see the HS Alliance National
Calendar of High School and Youth Events.
June 7-9
Council of Chief State School
Officers
Rigor and Reality: Taking
Secondary School
Redesign Statewide
June 12-13
Achieve/National Governors Association
Communications Workshop for Honors & ADP States
June 13-14
Achieve
American Diploma Project Leadership Team Meeting with 22 states
June 15
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People/Bill &Melinda
Gates Foundation/National Governor’s Association
Guest Speaker Symposium
June 25-28
International Center for Leadership in Education
2006 Model Schools Conference
July 19-22
State Higher Education Executive Officers
SHEEO Annual Meeting
July 20-22
National Academy Foundation
Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing: NAF Partnerships
in Action
RESOURCES AND INFORMATION
Below are a few resources you might find of interest related to our focus
issue for the next meeting—increasing academic rigor.
Benefits of a High School Core Curriculum
This brief summarizes ACT’s research on
students’ course taking and its relationship to their performance on
the ACT. Another report by the ACT, Ready
to Succeed, All Students Prepared for College and Work provides a number
of strategies for ensuring that all students are ready for college and
work—by encouraging students to take rigorous high school courses,
monitoring their academic progress, making timely interventions, and
communicating early and often about how well they are progressing toward
their goals.
Ready or Not: Creating a High School Diploma that Counts
This report by Achieve, describes how high schools have failed to prepare
students for success in postsecondary education and work and offers a number
of solutions for increasing the value of a high school
education. Another recent study by Achieve, Rising to the Challenge: Are High School Graduates Prepared
for College and Work? polls recent high school
graduates, college instructors, and employers about the quality of high
school education and its ability to prepare students for higher education and
work.
The A-G Curriculum: College-Prep? Work-Prep? Life
Prep-Understanding and Implementing a Rigorous Core Curriculum for All
This report argues that the A-G Curriculum, California's college preparatory
curriculum, should not just be for college bound students, but for all
students. It argues that the A-G Curriculum would better prepare all students
for success in postsecondary education and work. It also describes the
experiences of districts that have adopted this curriculum for all of their
students.
Getting it Done: Ten Steps to a State Action Agenda
As part of his initiative as chairman of the National Governors Association
(NGA), Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, working with the NGA Center for Best
Practices, identified 10 steps governors could take to redesign high schools
in their states. The report describes the steps and provides examples of
states that have implemented them.
Ensuring
Rigor in the High School Curriculum: What States Are Doing
This policy brief from the Education Commission of the States identifies several policy options – and provides
examples of state action for each – for ensuring rigor in the high
school curriculum.
Results that Matter: 21st Century Skills and High School
Reform
This new report from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills defines
rigor to include not just mastery of core academic subjects, but also mastery
of 21st-century skills and content. The report also includes a vision for
21st-century learning and assessment and provides a set of recommendations
for federal, state, and local education leaders to follow to make this vision
a reality.
Rigor on Trial
In this article featured in Education Week, Tony Wagner questions traditional
definitions of academic rigor. He presents a rubric and process for assessing
rigor at the classroom level that consists of seven questions that are asked
of students.
Newsletter produced by the National High School Alliance.
If there are any resources you would like to share with the recipients of
this newsletter, please send an e-mail to chaitr@iel.org.
National High
School Alliance
4455 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20008
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