Thursday, March 3^rd

Turnaround High School Ratchets Up Improvement

Challenge Is Maintaining Momentum in Long Term

The test scores aren't in yet, but by almost every other measure that matters-school climate, instructional strategies, staff satisfaction–the former Shawnee High School isn't the same place it was just a year ago.

More than half the teachers are new to the persistently low-performing school. Those who remain say they no longer feel that their own classes are the only ones that push students. The school has stepped up its focus on using data to pinpoint students' weak points and to adjust instruction. It even has a new name: the Academy @ Shawnee.

The three turnaround specialists sent in by the Kentucky Department of Education to oversee Shawnee's transformation–part of a nationwide, federally financed school turnaround effort–are confident the school will meet the goal set by the state: raise test scores by 10 percentage points this school year. Read More

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Workforce3 One March 2011 Newsletter

This month's issue highlights a number of new tools that have been developed by ETA, other federal agencies and state and local providers that are intended to help One-Stop Career Center staff better serve customers. Some of these tools are self-service resources, while others are aimed at building the capacity of workforce system staff to respond to the multiple needs of its customers. There is also provide information about a funding opportunity for the Green Jobs Innovation Grant.

If you have an innovative program or practice, please submit it to Workforce3 One. To do this, click here

In The Issue:

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An Instructional Approach Expands Its Reach

Response to intervention started out as a way to identify and teach struggling readers and special education students, but it's fast becoming a way to change schooling for all students.

Response to intervention burst onto the national scene thanks to two major efforts by the federal government.

The $1 billion Reading First program ushered in with No Child Left Behind in 2002 gave a boost to the educational framework by encouraging schools to use it for their literacy programs.

Two years later, the 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act said that states must permit districts to use RTI as one tool for determining if a child has a specific learning disability.

The process has been growing exponentially ever since, morphing along the way into new forms and educational uses.

In 2010, a survey of district administrators found that 61 percent had implemented an RTI educational framework or were in the process of spreading RTI throughout their districts. In 2007, that proportion was only about a quarter. Read More

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How Teacher Development Could Revolutionize Our Schools

As the nation's governors gather in Washington for their annual meeting, they are grappling with more than state budget deficits. They're confronting deep education deficits as well.

Over the past four decades, the per-student cost of running our K-12 schools has more than doubled, while our student achievement has remained virtually flat. Meanwhile, other countries have raced ahead. The same pattern holds for higher education. Spending has climbed, but our percentage of college graduates has dropped compared with other countries.

To build a dynamic 21st-century economy and offer every American a high-quality education, we need to flip the curve. For more than 30 years, spending has risen while performance stayed relatively flat. Now we need to raise performance without spending a lot more. Read More

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Unveiling a New Blueprint for Successful Youth/Young Adult Offender Reentry

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Study: Peer Pressure May Change Students' Brains

Any teacher who has tried to get an 8th-grader to admit an interest in algebra when his friends find it boring knows how difficult it can be to get students to swim against the tide of social influence. A study set to be published in the April issue of Psychological Science may point to why peer pressure is so hard to fight: It changes the brain itself.

"I think for a long time conforming has been viewed as a bad thing...predicated on the idea that conformity is a form of lying; it's that you know what your private preferences are and the only reason you would conform is to suck up to a group or a person," said Jamil Zaki, a psychology postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., "but maybe it's not really like that at all; maybe it's something a lot more profound, that it changes the way you think." Read More

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Board of Education Approves Model Gang Activity Policy

The Maryland State Board of Education approved a statewide model policy Tuesday afternoon in Baltimore to help prevent and deal with gang activity in schools.

The policy states that local school systems must set standard consequences and remedial actions for gang involvement, put in place procedures for reporting and investigating gang activity, provide information for those involved about how to get help, and develop prevention programs.

The state's 24 school systems are responsible for developing policies of their own and submitting them to the board for approval by Sept. 1. If approved, the local policies would go into effect this fall. Read More

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African-Centered Charters on Sidelines in Turnaround Effort

By many indicators, Imhotep Institute Charter High School is one of Philadelphia's most successful high schools.

The school sends more of its graduates–66 percent–to college than any other charter school in the city. And last year, its 525 students, 99 percent of them African American and 87 percent low income, had proficiency rates above 70 percent in reading and math.

Just as importantly, says 10th grader Khaliah Arrington, Imhotep's African-centered approach creates a nurturing atmosphere that more traditional schools can't match.

"They teach you like your family teaches you," says Arrington. "At other schools, you might get good academics, but when you go to Imhotep, you learn about yourself." Read More

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