NORTH CAROLINA EDUCATION NEWS
October 2006
Copyright © 2006 Queue, Inc.
IN THIS ISSUE:
NCAE receives grant to close achievement gap
High school
assistance is broadened
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Please note that there are 6 NC public schools in NewsweekÕs top
100: Raleigh Charter is No 53 and
William G Enloe Magnet, in Raleigh, is ranked No. 59. Both of these are higher than a couple of schools you
mention here. You might want to
add them!
Thanks.
Diana Bloomfield
A
$20,000 grant from the National Education Association is helping the North
Carolina Association of Educators revise state education policies and create
initiatives to close the gaps in student achievement. The grant will help NCAE
provide support and training to three low-performing high schools, and use
research-based school improvement models to make the case for improved
education funding in North CarolinaÉ
To
read the rest of this article please go to:
http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200661018020
U.S. Secretary of
Education Margaret Spellings has announced the award of $12.9 million in grants
to school districts in 22 states to help dramatically increase the number of
Americans learning foreign languages deemed critical to national security and commerce.
The grants, part of
President Bush's National Security Language Initiative, are intended to address
the shortage of critical foreign language speakers by supporting new and
expanded programs in grades K-12.
"Languages like
Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindi and Farsi are not only essential for trade in
the global economy, but also to our national security," Secretary
Spellings said. "When it comes to foreign languages, our students get
started too late—and too few study critical languages. We can and must
turn this around."
For more information
on the initiative, visit
http://www.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/competitiveness/nsli/index.html.
Grant recipients in
North Carolina:
WINSTON-SALEM,
Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, $57,745
North
Carolina Department of Public Instruction, Raleigh, $95,367
Participation
rates and access to Advanced Placement courses in low wealth districts will
increase thanks to the state's recent receipt of an Advanced Placement
Incentive Grant worth up to $1.6 million over the next three years.
State
Superintendent June Atkinson said she was pleased that North Carolina once
again received the Advanced Placement (AP) Incentive Grant, which will be
chiefly used to help widen access for minority students, rural students and
others who are under-represented in these courses. "Participation rates
show that access to AP courses has spread much more quickly over the past five
years. Thanks to this grant, more low-income students, African American
students and Hispanic students will continue to be encouraged to take these
rigorous courses," Atkinson said.
Since
2000, the number of AP exams taken by low-income North Carolina public school
students has grown by 2,553, by 4,134 for African American students and by
1,226 for Hispanic students.
The
incentive grant also can be used to develop additional AP online courses, provide
targeted professional development to middle and secondary teachers in low
wealth districts and develop Summer Pre-AP Academies for middle school students
in selected low wealth districts.
Department
staff will be sending an announcement to the state's low wealth districts
regarding the availability of these grants and how they can participate in the
competitive Request for Proposals process. Staff will review local proposals
and award subgrants based on identified needs. The funding level for the grant each
year is $549,297.
Access
to AP exams is important in encouraging students to reach high standards. It's
also an important indicator of future college success. Students who take these
college-level courses are more likely to complete their bachelor's degree in
four years or less.
Advanced Placement courses are college-level courses
offered in 35 subject areas and assessed through the annual AP exams. These
exams are graded on a scale of 1-5, with a 5 being the highest score. Most
colleges and universities in the United States and North Carolina use AP exam
results in their admissions process and may give college credit to students
earning grades of 3 or better. AP exams, with the exception of AP Studio Art,
which is a portfolio assessment, consist of dozens of multiple choice questions
and free-response questions.
Fifty-seven
percent of North Carolina high schools made expected or high academic growth
under the state's school accountability model in 2005-06 and a total of 71.4
percent of end-of-course tests scores were reported at the proficient level or
higher.
The
results are based on new ABCs growth formulas, which raise standards for
meeting academic growth targets. Higher academic standards and a stronger focus
on academic rigor are at the heart of the State Board of Education's agenda for
21st century skills and learning for all students.
The
2005-06 results are the first provided using the new ABCs formulas developed in
2005 to replace the original ones. The new formulas were developed after the
General Assembly directed the State Board of Education to complete a thorough
evaluation of the ABCs standards. This evaluation highlighted reasons for
re-developing the ABCs formulas based on more recent growth rates and on
lessons learned from a decade of experience with a statewide accountability
model.
The
new formulas calculate growth using previous assessments of students to predict
performance on the following eight mandated end-of-course tests: Algebra I, Algebra
II, Biology, Chemistry, English I, Geometry, Physical Science and Physics. US
History and Civics and Economics will be included in growth calculations
starting with the 2006-07 school year although results from these two
end-of-course tests as well as results from the grade 10 writing assessment are
included in the performance composites for this report. In addition, the
percentages of students completing College/University Prep or College Tech Prep
courses of study, the ABCs dropout rate, and the passing rate on the high
school competency test are included in the ABCs calculations.
Results
for K-8 schools will not be available until Nov. 1. Elementary and middle
school students took new mathematics assessments in the spring of 2006, and
additional time is needed to set achievement cut scores for the new assessments
and to perform other analyses before the K-8 ABCs results can be compiled.
]
Because
this year's ABCs results are based on new formulas, state school accountability
officials cautioned against comparing results to previous years.
In
the 2005-06 school year, three high schools earned a designation of Honor
Schools of Excellence, the highest category of performance. Honor Schools of
Excellence also met the federal requirement of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)
in addition to having met at least Expected Growth and having 90 percent or
more of their students' test scores at or above the proficient level.
Two
schools (0.5 percent) are Schools of Excellence, which means that they met at
least Expected Growth and had 90 percent or more of their students' test scores
at or above the proficient level.
Twenty-eight
schools (7 percent) are Schools of Distinction, which means that they met at
least Expected Growth and had 80-89 percent or more of their students' test
scores at or above the proficient level.
A
total of 146 schools are Schools of Progress, which means that these schools
met at least Expected Growth and had 60-79 percent of their students' test
scores at proficient or better.
One
hundred and twenty-one schools, or 30.6 percent, are No Recognition Schools.
These schools did not meet their Expected Growth goals even though they had 60
percent or more of their students' test scores at the proficient level or
better.
Sixty-one
schools, 15.4 percent, are Priority Schools – schools with less than 60
percent of their students' test scores at the proficient level or better and
making Expected Growth or High Growth and schools that have 50-59 percent of
students' test scores at the proficient level or better regardless of growth.
Eight
schools had no ABCs status because they are special schools.
The ABCs program provides incentive awards to teachers, principals and
other certified school-based staff, in addition to teacher assistants. In all
schools that attain the High Growth standard, certified staff members each
receive up to $1,500 incentive awards and teacher assistants receive up to
$500. In schools attaining Expected Growth, certified staff members each
receive up to $750 and teacher assistants receive up to $375. This year, funds
for incentive awards will be released to local school districts following the
November release of the K-8 ABCs accountability results with the goal of
districts being able to provide the incentive awards in December to all staff
who earn them.
This year, 14 high schools were identified as Low-Performing Schools.
These schools have significantly less than 50 percent of their students' test
scores at the proficient level or above and did not make Expected Growth or
High Growth.
Based on State Board of Education action, state assistance teams were
assigned to the following schools: Bertie High School (Bertie County), Hertford
County High School (Hertford County Schools); Carver High School and the School
of Pre-engineering (Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools); Reidsville High
School (Rockingham County Schools): Andrews High School, Middle College at
A&T, Guilford Technical Community College Middle College, (Guilford County
Schools); Northwest Halifax High School and Southeast Halifax High School
(Halifax County); Red Springs High School (Public Schools of Robeson County);
and Hillside High School and Southern High School (Durham Public Schools); and
Garinger High School (Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools).
ABCs assistance teams are just one form of state assistance or
intervention in schools that are not performing well. In addition to the ABCs
assistance teams, teams have been working with 44 high schools identified in
2005 because of performance composites below 60 percent. High school assessment
staff also will be working with approximately 200 high schools identified in
2006 as having performance composites below 70 percent.
In September, State Board Chairman Lee and State Superintendent Atkinson
joined Gov. Mike Easley to launch a statewide effort to conduct performance
audits in all 115 school districts with a goal of ensuring the smart, targeted
use of resources in all public high schools. One goal of the audit — to
be performed by researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill and a team of school finance experts — is to identify best practices
in spending and allocating resources in the highest performing high schools and
replicate them in other schools.
High school reform and redesign also is underway statewide. Through the
partnership of the State Board of Education, the Department of Public
Instruction and the NC New Schools Project, 25 redesigned high schools and 33
Learn and Earn early college high schools have been launched since 2003, and
more are planned in future years.
Adequate yearly progress (AYP) is a performance measure required by the
federal No Child Left Behind education law. Each state must set AYP targets for
the percentage of students proficient on state tests. Under federal law, each
state's ultimate goal is 100 percent proficiency by 2013-14. AYP requires
measuring progress on these targets by groups of students — a very rigorous
standard. Among North Carolina's high schools, 47.8 percent of the state's 395
high schools with an AYP status met AYP.
The ABCs accountability model measures school achievement in two primary
ways: the percentage of students' test scores at or above the proficient level
(performance composite) and whether the school has met academic growth
expectations from one year to the next. The growth measurement provides the
basis for awarding incentive awards, but both measures are important indicators
of schools' success over time.
The ABCs results for 2005-06 high schools released today provide
school-level performance results for 395 high schools. High schools were held
accountable under the ABCs beginning with the 1997-98 school year. The ABCs
model began one year earlier, in 1996-97, for elementary and middle schools. At
every level of schooling, the ABCs model emphasizes school-building level
accountability and a focus on instruction in basic, core subjects.
The tests used for ABCs accountability purposes—the end-of-course
and end-of-grade assessments—include the assessments used to determine
Adequate Yearly Progress and for the state's student accountability standards.
The end-of-course assessments are given to students during the final five days
of each course (semester-long course) or during the final 10 days of each
course (year-long course) and take approximately two hours each.
The complete ABCs high school report is available online
at http://abcs.ncpublicschools.org/abcs.
North
Carolina's State Board of Education has raised proficiency standards for
elementary and middle school students when it approved the achievement levels
for the state's new end-of-grade mathematics assessments. These assessments
were given for the first time in May 2006 to measure student performance on the
revised and more rigorous mathematics curriculum.
In
setting the new achievement levels, the State Board of Education made good on
months of discussion regarding the need to raise standards for student
performance to more closely align with proficiency standards of the National
Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and to be more challenging in
preparing students for 21 st century skills and learning.
Under
the new standards, the percentage of students considered to be proficient
ranges from 61 percent (eighth grade) to 69 percent (third grade). This level
of proficiency is similar to where the state's proficiency levels were in 1993
– the first year that end-of-grade assessments were required. The percent
proficient is the primary factor in each school's performance composite
reported under the ABCs of Public Education accountability model. The
performance composite indicates the percentage of student test scores that are
at or above the proficient level.
Kristen
Stone, a third grade teacher at Tanglewood Elementary School (Public Schools of
Robeson County), probably began her morning anticipating another typical school
day. Little did she know that her day was going to be anything but ordinary;
today she became North Carolina's 2006 Milken Family Foundation National
Educator award recipient.
State
Superintendent June Atkinson made the surprise announcement during a
school-wide assembly. Stone is among the nation's 100 most recent recipients of
the Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award, which carries with it an
unrestricted financial award of $25,000 and membership in a network of over
2,200 past recipients from across the nation who serve as both expert resources
and collaborators to network members. Stone is the only North Carolina educator
to receive the award this year.
Superintendent
Atkinson said that participating in this event is one of the highlights of her
job as the state's public schools' leader. "Kristen's third grade students
are incredibly fortunate to have such an exceptional teacher. She is a
wonderful example of the quality of teachers that call North Carolina's public
school classrooms home." Noting that North Carolina has been a participant
in Milken for the past 12 years, Atkinson said she finds this a truly humbling
experience. "I am honored to have had the opportunity to recognize such an
exemplary teacher and shine a light on all the wonderful things she does to
inspire and motivate her students to learn and excel."
An
independent, blue ribbon committee (appointed by each state's department of
education) selects the recipients on a state-by-state basis for the award.
Predetermined criteria include exceptional educational talent as evidenced by
effective instructional practices and student learning results in the classroom
and school; exemplary educational accomplishments beyond the classroom that
provide models of excellence for the profession; strong, long-term potential
for professional and policy leadership; and an engaging and inspiring presence
that motivates and impacts students, colleagues and the community.
Stone
is noted for her ability to inspire and motivate her students to learn. She
peppers her instructional methodology with varied activities targeted at a wide
range of student interests and abilities that her pupils can't help but become
engaged by the subject matter. For example, she teaches the geographical
regions of the state by decorating a cookie that shows the topography of
particularly those below grade level – to make sure students are on track
for academic growth. She is known for doing whatever it takes to help a child
learn.
Stone
earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1994 from The University of North
Carolina at Charlotte and her Master of Arts degree in 2003 from The University
of North Carolina at Pembroke. She also is a National Board Certified teacher.
She currently serves as grade-level chairperson for the third grade and is
mentor to a third-grade teacher. She is a member of Tanglewood Elementary
School's Writing Committee, Conferencing Committee and the School Improvement
Team; serves as Accelerated Math Coordinator; teaches in the school's Saturday
academies; and tutors after school. She is actively engaged in coordinating
staff development opportunities for the school and is currently applying for admission
to a Masters Degree in School Supervision and Administration program.