Changing Urban High Schools

This report chronicles a Cross City Campaign working meeting co-sponsored by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform

Leadership for Transforming High Schools

Explores the unique tasks and challenges faced by education leaders in the face of stricter accountability reforms associated with the federal No Child Left Behind legislation and associated state-level education policy initiatives

Community Service Programs in High Schools

Raskoff and Sundeen examine youth socialization and civic participation through community service among high school students, with special focus on California. The look at high school community service programs --their practices, their collaborative relations with community organizations for which the students volunteer, and the perspectives of students regarding their participation in these school-sponsored programs

Teacher Perceptions of Small High Schools

This research brief uses data from the School District of Philadelphia teacher survey to assess teacher perceptions of small and large neighborhood high schools

Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High-Achieving Arkansas Schools, 2013

The GPA measure, we believe, is a better representation of student achievement on statewide standardized exams. In this report, we are presenting a list of the top 25 schools in each area. In some cases, these top 25 lists will contain more than 25 schools as some schools\u27 GPA scores will be identical. This is not a new phenomenon, as we also exceeded 25 schools in previous reports when using the percent proficient and advanced metric as an indicator for student achievement; however, there are fewer ties using the more precise GPA measure. After we present our overall snapshot of high-performing schools, we will release subsequent reports every few weeks focusing on different subsets of schools. For example, in section two of the OEP Awards AER, we will feature schools that are beating the odds (that is, schools that have high levels of student achievement while serving a high percentage of low-income students). In the following weeks, we will focus on high-performing elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools in the various regions across the state. Finally, we will conclude our report by focusing on the schools with the greatest improvement in test scores

Challenged Schools, Remarkable Results: Three Lessons from California's Highest Achieving High Schools

Springboard Schools' New Report Reveals 3 Secrets that Help Low-Income, English-Learning, and Minority Students SucceedTen "challenged" high schools in California beat the oddsSpringboard Schools, a San Francisco-based nonprofit and non-partisan research organization focused on education reform, today released a new report identifying California's highest achieving, challenged high schools - those with large numbers of low-income students, English learners, and few resources. Most importantly, the report reveals the three secrets of their success.According to the report, Challenged Schools, Remarkable Results: Three Lessons from California's Highest Achieving High Schools, these schools, unlike average high schools with similar demographics, share three secrets of success: use of consistent curricula coupled with frequent diagnostic tests, adoption of best practices, and investment in teacher improvement. The three practices resulted in dramatic gains for these high schools serving large populations of low-income, minority, and English-language learners."These strategies sound simple, but they are challenging and even revolutionary, because they call into question many commonly held beliefs about teaching and about how high schools work," said Merrill Vargo, executive director of Springboard Schools.The report identifies 10 high-performing, challenged California high schools. They are located throughout the state, and all have recently made dramatic turnarounds in student achievement. At one, Bolsa Grande High School (Garden Grove USD), with high populations of English-language learners and low-income students, 57.4% of all students scored at the proficient or advanced-proficient level for English Language Arts and math this year -- more than 2-1/2 times better than the 2005 AYP target under NCLB.The report also reveals that the definition of "best practices" - which traditionally meant classroom-level practices or programs - needs to be dramatically expanded to include every aspect of administration, teaching, and testing, at every level.More information, and the 73-page report, Challenged Schools, Remarkable Results: Three Lessons from California's Highest Achieving High Schools, are available on Springboard Schools' website: www.SpringboardSchools.org

Mathematics achievement in the transition from intermediate school to high school : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for Master of Educational Studies in Mathematics at Massey University

This study investigates the nature and level of communication between the primary and intermediate schools and the high schools in relation to student achievement. It also investigates how information relating to mathematics achievement is passed between the schools and makes some suggestions to improve the current situation. Four high schools, three intermediate schools and three full primary schools were identified for the study and a survey was conducted of two teachers in each of these schools to identify what happens in these schools in relation to the transition of students from Form 2 to Form 3. It was found that there were significant differences in the ways that schools on either side of the transition viewed and implemented the National Curriculum in Mathematics. The primary and intermediate schools were much more enthusiastic about the National Curriculum than the high schools. As a consequence it was found that the primary and intermediate schools have made considerable progress toward reporting student progress against the objectives of the curriculum and were able to determine levels of achievement in each strand. It was found that primary and intermediate schools are moving away from the "Primary Progress Record, Senior School" (known as the blue record card) as the main means of handing information about student achievement on to the high schools. Many schools are developing their own "profile" or progress sheets as a way of better tracking student progress and therefore are more able to accurately indicate where the student is when they enter high school. The high schools have generally not been using this information as a basis for their third form programmes. They report that there is a large variation in the quality and quantity of the information which comes from their provider schools and in many cases would prefer a single document which gave a general idea of student ability. The high schools were therefore placing students in classes on general ability, gained by enrolling staff, or on entrance tests which they developed. The high schools were much less enthusiastic about measuring against the objectives of the curriculum and were able to present a number of reasons for their reluctance. There is therefore a need to develop a model for communicating student achievement across the transition into high school. It was found that many of the high school teachers did not value the information provided by the primary and intermediate schools because they had no part in determining what information should be collected and how it could be used. Revising the data collection process, involving the teachers who could potentially use the information, would be one way of overcoming this. Results of this study show that there is a need for teachers to be more aware of the practises of schools on the other side of the transition

Charter Schools and the Road to College Readiness: The Effects on College Preparation, Attendance and Choice

The analysis here focuses on Boston's charter high schools. For the purpose of this report, an analysis of high schools is both a necessity and a virtue. It is necessary to study high schools because most students applying to charters in earlier grades are not yet old enough to generate data on postsecondary outcomes. Charter high schools are also of substantial policy interest: a growing body of research argues that high school may be too late for cost-effective human capital interventions. Indeed, impact analyses of interventions for urban youth have mostly generated disappointing results.This report is interested in ascertaining whether charter schools, which in Massachusetts are largely budget-neutral, can have a substantial impact on the life course of affected students. The set of schools studied here comes from an earlier investigation of the effects of charter attendance in Boston on test scores.The high schools from the earlier study, which enroll the bulk of charter high school students in Boston, generate statistically and socially significant gains on state assessments in the 10th grade. This report questions whether these gains are sustained

Informing High School Choices: The Progress & Challenges of Small High Schools in Philadelphia

In the School District of Philadelphia in 2007-08, almost one third of high school students attend one of the district's 32 small high schools. Of these, 26 have been newly created or significantly changed since 2002. These small schools have a range of admissions criteria with two thirds being selective admission and one third neighborhood high schools. Along with this increase in high school options has been a growing interest in high school choice, with 73% of eighth graders applying to high schools outside their neighborhood in 2006. However, within the School District of Philadelphia, there is only one 'choice'-the neighborhood high school-for the 51% of rising ninth graders who try to exercise choice but are not accepted to any of their preferred choices. For those students who do attend small high schools, our research suggests that this more personalized environment is demonstrating promising outcomes with regard to improved school climate, improved interpersonal relationships between adults and students and student-to-student, and students' perceptions of their school experience. The small high school model is particularly promising for neighborhood high schools where positive relationships may help stem high dropout rates. Among our five case study high schools, the one small neighborhood high school reported great improvements in climate compared to its previous large configuration, although some lingering climate challenges remained. While positive relationships and improved climate create the conditions for learning, principals and teachers at all five case study schools reported that more was needed to develop and maintain a rigorous academic program for all students. They described the need for common faculty planning time to strengthen their academic program and more flexibility and resources to meet the unique staffing and rostering challenges of small high schools