Do you want to have a successful school? Are you searching to work for a success school system? Check out this article to understand nine characteristics of success schools.
Successful schools often have exemplary leaders at their head. Other factors also define effective learning environments. A recent study conducted by the Office of the Superintendent for Public Instruction (OSPI) discovered that successful schools, which performed well on standardized testing measures, had nine characteristics in common:
1. Everyone in the school—students, faculty and administrators—shares a common goal and vision. The school’s individual mission statement has been arrived at collectively with input provided by many interested stakeholders.
2. Everyone in the school believes that all students can achieve and attain high standards. Students are encouraged to rigorously follow grade-appropriate courses of study.
3. School leadership is proactive in seeking solutions and is effective at promoting achievement among all concerned: students, staff, and interested stakeholders. In a high-performing school, leadership is assumed at many levels and is not simply confined to a principal; teachers and other staff are encouraged to take on leadership responsibilities.
4. Teamwork is apparent. Everyone in the school works together, communicates effectively with one another, and collaborates to ensure student success.
5. The curriculum is in line with state standards. Teachers understand state assessment procedures and use effective instructional methods grounded in research to support student performance on assessment measures.
6. Students are continuously assessed and are offered support whenever necessary. Teachers make adjustments to their teaching methods to ensure that all students have access to learning.
7. Instructional staff receive professional development opportunities in line with the school’s vision and educational mission. The ongoing learning of the staff coincides with the school’s direction.
8. Students are treated with respect and feel connected to the staff. Learning is personalized to meet individual student needs. Class sizes tend to be small.
9. The community is actively involved in the school. Education is not simply a responsibility for educational professionals.
Is your school successful? If not, what changes can you make or suggest to help your school implement these characteristics of success?
The Internet is firmly here to stay. Computers and the World Wide Web have come a long way since the net first launched in the late sixties. Computers and all their silicon associates have cemented themselves into the modern world. Cell phones, laptops, iPods, iPads, tablets – the list goes on and on. Technology-literacy has become a mandatory part of success in today’s world.
We are living in the Information Era. This has changed many aspects of the education system and its components. Among many other changes, there is a new concept of what a student is. Industrial-age schools saw students as passive individuals who sat and absorbed whatever a teacher taught them. Students growing up during the Information Era are expected to take ownership of their learning process. They are taught to be problem solvers and to use the resources available to them as efficiently as possible. Students educated within this new concept of schooling seem to be much more confident in their work. They are building their knowledge themselves and work with information to come to their own conclusions and opinions.
Technology is a very broad term. Essentially, it’s the intersection of several areas of science and engineering and refers to how we improve our lives through technical means. In today’s classroom setting, technology usually refers to sophisticated digital electronic devices. Key terms to be familiar with are hardware and software. Hardware is the physical infrastructure making up a certain item of technology. When referring to a personal computer, this includes things like the hard disk drives, the motherboard, and other components that make up the physical machine. Software is a set of instructions for the hardware—the programs, applications, and operating system.
Of particular importance in the realm of teaching is instructional software. These are programs or applications designed to provide instruction to a computer user, making use of various methods. Instructional software has been around since the late 1970s. Instructional software is usually not designed to replace the role of the teacher, but rather to assist teachers in providing students with more individual opportunities to learn. It can be a powerful aid to teaching when used and promoted correctly.
An important concept to be aware of is open-source software. While companies such as Microsoft or Apple do not allow their users to view the code that makes up their applications, large online communities have been created around software with freely available source code. These companies include Linux, Apache, Mozilla, and many others. The software they develop is free to download and can be modified extensively by the user to create any additions they desire, which can then be redistributed for free. Even without extensive experience in programming or modifying source code, you’ll be able to use these online communities to acquire open-source instructional software solutions at no cost to yourself other than your patience and time.
Another concept to be aware of in technology is cloud computing, which uses the capabilities of the Internet to provide services to technology users that are largely independent of their location or usage device. Gone are the days of having to use a personal computer to access the Internet. We can now use mobile phones and tablet computers to access the Internet while we are on the move. But the graphic-processing capabilities of a desktop-based personal computer are usually far more powerful than that of a handheld device. Programs have to be adaptable enough to be used efficiently on these different technology platforms. Cloud computing, which moves the heavy processing to remote servers, will become of increasing importance as the diversity of user devices continues to evolve and increase.
As a teacher, it’s your job to make sure your students are technology-literate. Limiting students’ exposure to all of today’s digital devices in favor of sticking with more traditional media will only hurt them in the end. Students need to be able to learn and compete effectively in a world where technology is only becoming more and more important to higher education, work, and every day life. Take the time that you need to become familiar with all the buttons and wires of the modern age, and you’ll become a resource as invaluable to your students as Wi-Fi.
In the decades of attempted educational reform, the U.S. government has been the biggest player. Following the Nation at Risk report the federal government became more focused on the achievement of all students in the nation’s schools.
In 1994, the Goals 2000: Educate America Act passed with the goal of supporting states’ efforts to develop curriculum standards that would outline what students should know and be able to do, as well as state and district efforts to improve student achievement along the standards. The act did not stop at standards-based education. It included goals focused on safe schools, parental involvement, and teacher development, all of which ostensibly influence student achievement. And it also addressed goals for education from early childhood to adulthood. Goals 2000 included the following:
All children in America will start school ready to learn.
The high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90%.
All students will leave grades 4, 8, and 12 having demonstrated competency over challenging subject matter, including English, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, the arts, history, and geography; and every school in America will ensure that all students learn to use their minds well, so they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment in our nation’s modern economy.
U.S. students will be first in the world in mathematics and science achievement.
Every adult American will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
Every school in the United States will be free of drugs, violence, and the unauthorized presence of firearms and alcohol and will offer a disciplined environment conducive to learning.
The nation’s teaching force will have access to programs for the continued improvement of their professional skills and the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to instruct and prepare all American students for the next century.
Every school will promote partnerships that will increase parental involvement and participation in promoting the social, emotional, and academic growth of children.
The NCLB of 2001 built on goals outlined in Goals 2000, and in many ways NCLB amplified and extended goals that originally appeared in Goals 2000.
NCLB is the leading federal legislation governing K–12 schooling. Its introduction meant that the federal government took a greater role in education in the United States. A major objective of NCLB was to decrease the achievement gap between students with low scores and those with high scores. Schools and districts not reaching stated annual progress toward the goal of removing the achievement gap would be penalized.
NCLB has divided opinion. It has been positively recognized for requiring a disaggregated format for student performance reports, enabling evaluation of the performance of different groups of students. This has particularly benefited disadvantaged students, whose performance was often overlooked in the past. However, as you’ll see in the following section, NCLB also has many detractors.
Reforming NCLB
Many have called for reform of NCLB itself. Suggested changes include removing the 2013–2014 target years for eliminating the achievement gap among different groups of children, because educators and policy makers alike believe the target year is unrealistic. Critics state that NCLB places too much emphasis on standardized testing and too little on the education of individual students. They also suggest that using standardized tests as the only measure of progress has led to instruction more aligned with students’ performing well on tests rather than learning a broad array of topics. Critics suggest that student growth should be a measure of the difference between students’ performance level at the beginning of the year and their performance level at the end of the year, rather than an arbitrary expectation for annual performance. And critics recommend expanding the measures used to determine student performance, so that standardized tests are not the only measures used.
The funding arrangements for NCLB are also the subject of discontent, with suggestions that much more funding is required to achieve the stated objectives. Under NCLB, states are responsible for the type and level of assessments given to students. Critics have suggested that variations across states in terms of levels of performance proficiencies makes it next to impossible to accurately compare performance across states. The focus on testing only mathematics and reading has also come under scrutiny, with suggestions that knowledge and skills in other subjects should be assessed as well.
NCLB requires states to staff their public schools with “highly qualified teachers.” This provision of NCLB can be viewed as a successful school reform measure, because research has shown that excellent teachers have a positive impact on student achievement. The provision seeks to ensure that students are taught well-prepared and highly qualified staff—teachers who know their subject matter and how to teach it.
Although not explicitly required by NCLB, gaining National Board Certification is one way to become a highly qualified teacher. National Board Certification is an advanced teaching credential that is offered by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. It supplements, but does not supplant, a state teacher license. National Board Certification is achieved on successful completion of an optional assessment initiative intended to identify effective and accomplished teachers who meet high standards based on what teachers should know and be able to do.
National Board Certification is available nationwide for most pre-K–12 teachers and has been a positive school reform measure since its inception. Whatever your thoughts on educational reform, National Board Certification is a powerful tool to have in your toolbox to help you be an effective educator and voice for change.
When you think about credit-recovery programs, you likely think of truant or at-risk students. These students, who need a push to catch up after falling behind, are getting lost in the shuffle, leading to lower overall graduation rates in high schools across the country. But with a well-structured academic support system combined with credit-recovery options, district leaders at Lawrence County Community Unit School District experienced a 9% increase in graduation rates.
Now here’s a typical story from Lawrence County CUSD. The only thing between Joe (a senior whose name has been changed) and his hard-earned high school diploma was one English final. Thinking he could breeze by, Joe failed the test, meaning that walking the stage to collect his diploma with the rest of his class was no longer a reality. After a series of meetings with the school’s guidance counselor and the principal, the team created a credit recovery plan. Joe was given three days to complete an entire semester’s work. Two all-night study sessions, three long days in the computer lab, and a passing grade got him a diploma—and the overwhelming feeling of success earned through determination.
Joe was lucky. He had a second chance, something many students don’t ever get. The reputation and perceived expense of credit-recovery and second-chance programs has caused schools across the country to quietly cut these programs, leaving students to find their own options. The truth is, not every student who could benefit from credit recovery or alternative options is an at-risk student. Many are special ed, are working to get ahead of the curve, or graduate on time with the rest of their class.
Lawrence County CUSD started its Second Chance Program about 13 years ago to help the group of nonconforming, at-risk students gain diploma status. Students would leave the traditional classroom setting to receive extra time and help from a specialized teacher. Within eight years, the school’s graduation rates increased dramatically.
But in 2012, funding for Lawrence County’s Second Chance Program was cut, leaving at-risk students to struggle through courses in the traditional classroom setting. Graduation rates quickly dropped to less than 70%. Two years later, the Second Chance Program was revived with a new look, a new name, and a new online component allowing for even more flexibility. Since its resurgence, graduation rates have increased from 70% to 79%. This school year, administrators at Lawrence County CUSD hope to reach their goal of an 85% graduation rate.
Here are the steps Lawrence County CUSD are taking today to dramatically increase their graduation rates after they restarted their Second Chance program.
1. Students get special attention. At Lawrence County CUSD, teacher Barbara Fabyan has her own school within a school classroom at the high school where students needing extra academic support can come during the school day. It’s an environment that removes students from their regular classrooms, so they’re able to concentrate on their schoolwork without distraction. At any given time, she may have a 9th-grade student with an IEP needing special assistance on a project or another student who is at risk of dropping out and without determination may miss the deadline to graduate with the rest of his or her class.
2. Technology is used to make individualized instruction easier. While dozens of students come into her class strictly to recover failed credits, “Odysseyware, the customizable online curriculum program and credit recovery software we use, allows me to restructure entire courses or individual topics and assessments to best fit the student’s needs,” Fabyan said.
Fabyan’s classroom also serves as an alternative for students wishing to work at a faster pace. For example, one of her students had knee surgery and couldn’t participate in gym class. Instead, she worked through an online curriculum provider to earn a year’s worth of history credits in one semester.
Online options give students the freedom to work at their own pace while sticking with Illinois State Standards. Lawrence County offers a blended learning option which, based on the increase in graduation rates, has proven successful for students so far.
3. Fabyan uses a “tough love” approach to teaching in the credit-recovery classroom. “Making mistakes is part of learning,” she said. “When students come in, they know it’s their last chance to complete the work and make it to graduation. Some students have dug themselves a deep hole with truancy and behavioral issues, and they know my classroom is the only place they can go to dig themselves out. It’s a wake-up call.”
4. Students develop an unshakeable belief in themselves. When students enter Fabyan’s classroom, they often have negative thoughts about specific classes, teachers, and school in general—prejudices that hold them back from success. Her mission is to break down the walls of what “school” is and show students success is possible, but it won’t come easy. With the support from her fellow teachers and administration, Fabyan and her students are constantly empowered to beat the odds and push through adversity. It’s the encouragement that keeps the program alive, allows students to reach their goals using whatever means it takes.
5. Students actually get to explore their interests in school. According to the Center for Public Education, 47% of high school dropouts cite “uninteresting classes” as the major reason for leaving, and 35% say “failing in school” was a major factor in dropping out. With the virtual labs, videos, audio, and games that they get from an online curriculum, students are pleasantly surprised, then challenged and engaged.
“My students realize the traditional courses they were taking may have been easier compared to Odysseyware,” said Fabyan. “Students that used to be failing are excelling with more difficult content. They realize they really have to work hard to pass. It’s more challenging, but in a way they are more engaged in the content and actually learning.”
She notes many students saying, “I really feel like I’m learning something,” and, “If I had this online option for more of my courses I would know more, and wouldn’t have fallen behind in the first place.”
That sort of realization makes students sprint to the end and get their diplomas. By the time at-risk students have their certificate in hand, they’ve learned a lot more than the Common Core. They’ve mastered the art of overcoming challenges and are part of changing the reputation of students using credit recovery. And now, because of the great success of the Second Chance Program, classroom teachers all over Lawrence County CUSD are using Odysseyware to better align their lessons with CCSS and engage students in a typical classroom setting.
If you are an educator in a school struggling with graduation rates, what are some steps you are taking to improve them? Feel free to leave a comment.
Understanding philosophy is important for educators not only so that they possess an individual philosophy but gain more awareness to the philosophies of their students and administrators. In this series on the four main schools of philosophies idealism, realism, postmodernism, and pragmatism will be reviewed to assist with understanding the elements of philosophy. This article focuses on idealism.
Philosophy has a number of well-defined schools of thought. Philosophical schools of thought have had a profound influence on approaches to teaching and learning, as well as on the progression of human society. The role of teachers also evolves according to the dominant accepted philosophy of the time.
The underlying principle of idealism is that reality is largely an extension of mental processes, which are the true reality. Idealism proposes that ideas are universal and eternal, unlike physical objects, which are subject to the alteration of the forces of nature. Idealism can be categorized into three main sections: classical, modern, and religious.
Classical idealism refers to the set of theories put forward by Socrates and Plato (427–347 BC) in their search for an Absolute Truth. Socrates and Plato questioned the fundamentals of reality, knowledge, and human nature. From these teachings emerged the Socratic method—the process of gaining knowledge by carefully questioning and then criticizing the answers. Socrates believed that all humanity possessed and was capable of such knowledge. Plato believed his ideas, referred to as forms, were all connected and arranged in a hierarchy, with the greatest of all forms being the Forms of Good. He believed that only the most knowledgeable would reach ultimate truth.
Religious idealism theorizes that there are two separate worlds: the worlds of God and humanity.
St. Augustine (AD 354–430) was a religious idealist who speculated that God created knowledge and that we must uncover this unchanging truth. Throughout the history of the United States, the religious idealism of Christianity has been the most influential on education, although idealism from other religions is a strong part of education worldwide.
Modern idealism is hypothesized by both René Descartes (1596–1650) and George Berkley
(1685–1753). Modern idealists also believed in two worlds: a material world and a world of the mind.
Modern idealists questioned existence, God, and perception, most famously in Descartes’ declaration:
“I think, therefore I am.” Modern idealist educators consider their students to be rational, thinking beings who are capable of seeking and understanding the truth.
They generally believe in going beyond the mere development of the mind and seek to bring about an overall character development in their students. These idealist educators act as moral and mental role models for their students and encourage them to achieve ideas of the highest quality possible by learning from the wisdom of great thinkers of the past. The approach to teaching is generally governed by the concept of viewing the world as the sum of many parts, with the core skill required being to generate and analyze ideas to gain an understanding of the whole. Idealist educators highly value self-directed activity, engaging their students in activities and reading materials that encourage reflection on their own nature, as well as promoting a comprehensive understanding of the world at large.
Reform schools provide a good example of an idealist education. Reform schools typically seek to train students that need further instruction in character development, creating or strengthening morals and values in each of the students, all while teaching the basic core curriculum that is taught in a typical school.
Based on the three segments of idealism what is your philosophy and does it align with your school’s education system? It is necessary to know the philosophy behind your school because as a teacher you are viewed as one who is upholding these values and beliefs. Continue reading the other sections of this series to understand the schools of thought pertaining to philosophy.
While technology is a major force across the world, its impact is not felt equally. While it’s wonderful when obtaining new technology for experiment and implementation isn’t a problem for schools and everyone in them, that condition is anything but the norm. Classrooms, teachers, and students across the nation – and across the world – suffer from being on the wrong side of the digital divide.
The digital divide is the disconnection between those with access to technology and those without. This disconnection includes the following aspects:
1. European American students have much more access to computers than African American students: 81% of European American students use computers at home, but only 44% of African American and 49% of Latino students do.
2. Wealthy schools have more and better technology resources than schools that serve poor students.
3. There is a difference in computer literacy in favor of boys over girls.
In the classroom, computers are used differently by middle-class children who have been in touch with computers than by children who have spent more time in rural areas or are from a low-income family. Middle-class children have better knowledge and a deeper understanding of how a computer works, and so they can take advantage of the technology and concentrate on building new knowledge rather than the basics of learning how to use a computer.
Schools have made great efforts toward reducing the digital divide by increasing the number of computers in schools. Currently, 88% of public high school students have access to computers at their school. In the public school setting, the percentage of European American, African American, and Latino students with access to computers is almost equal.
Race and class may influence how students use computers in schools. Studies have shown that European American students use computers primarily for simulations and applications, and less for drill-and-practice use. Simulations and applications are computer-focused research. Drill-and-practice are more basic activities, focusing on practicing a certain mechanical skill. In contrast, African American students reported using computers for simulation and applications only 14% of the time and reported spending 52% of the time on drill-and-practice. This difference is also apparent in institutions that serve poor students, because the time they dedicate to simulation and application use is only 13% of the total, while in wealthier schools this percentage rises to 30%.
Another aspect of the digital divide is in terms of gender. Several studies on the various differences between girls and boys and their response to or interaction with technology show that both boys and girls use technology, but for very different reasons. The girls studied spent more time using social networking tools, favoring activities and software tools that emphasize creativity, collaboration, and cooperation. The boys, on the other hand, spent more time with software and tools that emphasized competition and allowed them to develop abilities that would differentiate them from their peers. These studies demonstrated no differences in how quickly children of either gender adapt to technology, but there may be gender differences in how well the technology is used by students in the classroom setting for various tasks.
What is the composition of your classroom like? Do students and their families have the economic resources necessary to extend technology from the classroom to the home? Are there limitations on what your school can obtain? What does the pre-existing technology literacy look like among your students?
While modern technology is great, blind application of it can be detrimental in more ways than one. Think about where your classroom falls around the digital divide, and plan out how you’ll bridge the gap accordingly.
Teacher turnover – the continuous cycling of new teachers through a district, with very few or even none staying beyond a year or few – is a big problem. It affects the state of education overall, and while it may not seem like it at first glance, it also impacts you as a prospective or freshly certified teacher. But how? Why should you care about teacher turnover?
1. It impacts the budget that school districts have to spend on you.
High teacher turnover has resulted in astronomical costs to the nation. According to Barnes, Crowe, and Schaefer, who completed a study for the NCTAF in 2007 about the cost of teacher turnover in America, the average cost for each teacher leaving in Chicago was $17,872, and the total cost nationally is estimated to be over $86 million per year.
In 2000, a study in Texas indicated that the state’s overall teacher turnover rate of 15.5% costs around $329 million a year. Schools with high turnover rates spend money recruiting and training new teachers who are unprepared to start.
2. It stresses the teachers who would serve as your mentors.
A few senior teachers are expected to mentor a large number of new teachers, and they feel unable to meet these expectations. Under these circumstances, it’s the children who suffer most. Therefore, it’s imperative that not only to recruit and train new teachers, but also to retain and reward the best teachers who currently serve in public schools all over the nation.
3. The long-term consequences will affect your entire career experience.
Quick-fix solutions will not serve the purpose and are likely to do more harm than good in the long run. Although some of these quick-fix solutions may increase the supply of new teachers, they provide no guarantee that new teachers in the profession will stay in the profession. As mentioned previously, the best solution to significantly reduce teacher turnover is to devise new ways to retain existing teachers.
So, what to do about the problem of teacher turnover? Some of the ways to attract new teachers include revamping the public education system in a manner that provides opportunities for teachers to voice their opinion on policy matters, recognizing teachers for their professional achievements, and providing adequate and competitive financial compensation.
If you’re a new teacher, ask your district what their plan is to reduce teacher turnover, and how you can help. Don’t just sit by and watch the problem keep happening – become a part of the solution. In the long run, it will help you, too!
If your classroom has students with special needs, modern technology can be a massive blessing. Digital devices and screen capability have helped countless students overcome communication hurdles and obstacles to class participation. While technologies from across the field have been coopted to help students with special needs and disabilities succeed in school, specially designed technology, or “assistive technology,” has proved particularly useful.
Assistive technology in K–12 classrooms is designed to improve the functional capabilities of a child with a disability. While the word technology automatically conjures up images of cutting-edge electronics, some assistive technology is possible with just simple accommodations. Whether high tech or simple in design, assistive technology has the ability to transform the learning experiences for the children who benefit.
With so much talk about mobile devices at K–12 desks and teaching technology for the majority of students, it can be easy to overlook the strides also being made for students with disabilities in assistive technology. Here’s a look at strides being made in some common assistive technology areas:
Alternative Input Devices
These tools are designed to allow students with disabilities to use computers and related technology easily. Some alternative input devices include touch screens, modified keyboards and joysticks that direct a cursor through use of body parts like chins, hands, or feet. Some up-and-coming technology in this area is sip-and-puff systems, developed by companies like Microsoft, to perform computer functions through the simple process of inhaling and exhaling. On-screen keyboards are another area of input technology that is providing K–12 learners with disabilities better use of computers and mobile devices for learning.
Text-to-Speech Options
This technology is making mainstream waves through its use in popular cell phones like the Android-platform Razr M. While it is a convenience tool for people without disabilities, text-to-speech provides a learning advantage for students who have mobility or dexterity problems, or those who are blind. It allows students to speak their thoughts without typing and even navigate the Internet. Text-to-speech options can also “talk back” to students and let them know about potential mistakes or errors in their work.
Sensory Enhancers
Depending on the disability, children may need to learn differently than their peers. Instead of ABCs and numbers first, a child with language hindrances may benefit from bright pictures or colors to learn new concepts. Sensory enhancers may include voice analyzers, augmentative communication tools, or speech synthesizers. With the rapid growth of technology in the classroom, these basic tools of assistive technology are seeing great strides.
Screen Readers
This technology is slightly different from text-to-speech because it simply informs students of what is on a screen. A student who is blind or struggling to see what is on the screen can benefit from the audio interface screen readers provide. Students who struggle to do what so many other Americans accomplish so easily—glean information from a computer screen in a matter of seconds—can learn more easily through technology meant to inform them.
Assistive technology in simple and complex platforms has the ability to lift the entire educational experience and provide a better life foundation for K–12 students with disabilities.
If you have students an Individual Education Plan or any kind of learning disability, consider contacting your district’s special education coordinator to see what kinds of assistive technologies are available to you.
When you think about credit-recovery programs, you likely think of truant or at-risk students. These students, who need a push to catch up after falling behind, are getting lost in the shuffle, leading to lower overall graduation rates in high schools across the country. But with a well-structured academic support system combined with credit-recovery options, district leaders at Lawrence County Community Unit School District experienced a 9% increase in graduation rates.
Now here’s a typical story from Lawrence County CUSD. The only thing between Joe (a senior whose name has been changed) and his hard-earned high school diploma was one English final. Thinking he could breeze by, Joe failed the test, meaning that walking the stage to collect his diploma with the rest of his class was no longer a reality. After a series of meetings with the school’s guidance counselor and the principal, the team created a credit recovery plan. Joe was given three days to complete an entire semester’s work. Two all-night study sessions, three long days in the computer lab, and a passing grade got him a diploma—and the overwhelming feeling of success earned through determination.
Joe was lucky. He had a second chance, something many students don’t ever get. The reputation and perceived expense of credit-recovery and second-chance programs has caused schools across the country to quietly cut these programs, leaving students to find their own options. The truth is, not every student who could benefit from credit recovery or alternative options is an at-risk student. Many are special ed, are working to get ahead of the curve, or graduate on time with the rest of their class.
Lawrence County CUSD started its Second Chance Program about 13 years ago to help the group of nonconforming, at-risk students gain diploma status. Students would leave the traditional classroom setting to receive extra time and help from a specialized teacher. Within eight years, the school’s graduation rates increased dramatically.
But in 2012, funding for Lawrence County’s Second Chance Program was cut, leaving at-risk students to struggle through courses in the traditional classroom setting. Graduation rates quickly dropped to less than 70%. Two years later, the Second Chance Program was revived with a new look, a new name, and a new online component allowing for even more flexibility. Since its resurgence, graduation rates have increased from 70% to 79%. This school year, administrators at Lawrence County CUSD hope to reach their goal of an 85% graduation rate.
Here are the steps Lawrence County CUSD are taking today to dramatically increase their graduation rates after they restarted their Second Chance program.
1. Students get special attention. At Lawrence County CUSD, teacher Barbara Fabyan has her own school within a school classroom at the high school where students needing extra academic support can come during the school day. It’s an environment that removes students from their regular classrooms, so they’re able to concentrate on their schoolwork without distraction. At any given time, she may have a 9th-grade student with an IEP needing special assistance on a project or another student who is at risk of dropping out and without determination may miss the deadline to graduate with the rest of his or her class.
2. Technology is used to make individualized instruction easier. While dozens of students come into her class strictly to recover failed credits, “Odysseyware, the customizable online curriculum program and credit recovery software we use, allows me to restructure entire courses or individual topics and assessments to best fit the student’s needs,” Fabyan said.
Fabyan’s classroom also serves as an alternative for students wishing to work at a faster pace. For example, one of her students had knee surgery and couldn’t participate in gym class. Instead, she worked through an online curriculum provider to earn a year’s worth of history credits in one semester.
Online options give students the freedom to work at their own pace while sticking with Illinois State Standards. Lawrence County offers a blended learning option which, based on the increase in graduation rates, has proven successful for students so far.
3. Fabyan uses a “tough love” approach to teaching in the credit-recovery classroom. “Making mistakes is part of learning,” she said. “When students come in, they know it’s their last chance to complete the work and make it to graduation. Some students have dug themselves a deep hole with truancy and behavioral issues, and they know my classroom is the only place they can go to dig themselves out. It’s a wake-up call.”
4. Students develop an unshakeable belief in themselves. When students enter Fabyan’s classroom, they often have negative thoughts about specific classes, teachers, and school in general—prejudices that hold them back from success. Her mission is to break down the walls of what “school” is and show students success is possible, but it won’t come easy. With the support from her fellow teachers and administration, Fabyan and her students are constantly empowered to beat the odds and push through adversity. It’s the encouragement that keeps the program alive, allows students to reach their goals using whatever means it takes.
5. Students actually get to explore their interests in school. According to the Center for Public Education, 47% of high school dropouts cite “uninteresting classes” as the major reason for leaving, and 35% say “failing in school” was a major factor in dropping out. With the virtual labs, videos, audio, and games that they get from an online curriculum, students are pleasantly surprised, then challenged and engaged.
“My students realize the traditional courses they were taking may have been easier compared to Odysseyware,” said Fabyan. “Students that used to be failing are excelling with more difficult content. They realize they really have to work hard to pass. It’s more challenging, but in a way they are more engaged in the content and actually learning.”
She notes many students saying, “I really feel like I’m learning something,” and, “If I had this online option for more of my courses I would know more, and wouldn’t have fallen behind in the first place.”
That sort of realization makes students sprint to the end and get their diplomas. By the time at-risk students have their certificate in hand, they’ve learned a lot more than the Common Core. They’ve mastered the art of overcoming challenges and are part of changing the reputation of students using credit recovery. And now, because of the great success of the Second Chance Program, classroom teachers all over Lawrence County CUSD are using Odysseyware to better align their lessons with CCSS and engage students in a typical classroom setting.
If you are an educator in a school struggling with graduation rates, what are some steps you are taking to improve them? Feel free to leave a comment.
Since the 1980s, there has been robust real-world evidence of a preference for hiring women for entry-level professorships in science, engineering, technology and math (STEM). This evidence comes from hiring audits at universities. For instance,in one audit of 89 US research universities in the 1990s, women were far less likely to apply for professorships – only 11%-26% of applicants were women. But once they applied, women were more likely to be invited to interview and offered the job than men were.
But what went on behind the scenes with these hiring decisions? Did women applicants give better job talks than men, publish more or in better journals, or have stronger letters of recommendation? Were hiring committees trying to address the faculty gender balance that typically skews more male than female?
To find out why academic faculty preferred women, an experiment was needed, and we recently conducted one.
Collecting hypothetical hiring data
Previously, in five national experiments, we asked 873 faculty from 371 colleges and universities in all 50 US states to rank three hypothetical applicants for entry-level professorships, based on narrative vignettes about the candidates and their qualifications. We told participants our goal was to collect information about what faculty looked for in job applicants when hiring, so we could advise our own graduate students.
We asked them to imagine that colleagues in their department had already met these hypothetical applicants, evaluated their CVs, attended their job talks, read their letters of recommendation – and rated the applicants as 9.5 out of 10 (very impressive) or 9.3 (still impressive, but just less so).
One of the applicants was an outstanding woman, pitted against an identically outstanding man. Because men and women were depicted as equally talented, any hiring preference had to be due to factors other than candidate quality. We included a third, male, foil candidate as one of the many ploys we employed to mask the gendered purpose of the experiment. In this previously published research, we found that both female and male faculty strongly prefer (by a 2-to-1 margin) to hire an outstanding woman over an identically outstanding man. The sole exception to this finding was that male economists had no gender preference.
Faculty of both genders exhibit 2-to-1 preference for hiring women applicants with identically outstanding qualifications, with the exception of male economists.
Even when we gave faculty only a single applicant to evaluate, those given the woman rated her more hireable than did those given the identical applicant depicted as a man. Not surprisingly, this finding caused a media frenzy, as it contradicted what many believe to be sexist hiring in academia.
Note that these experiments were not designed to mimic actual academic hiring, which entails multi-day visits, job talks and so on. The purpose of our experiments was not to determine if women are favored in actual hiring but rather to determine why data suggest they are in real-world conditions. To answer this question, one needs a controlled experiment to equate applicants.
Remember that our experiment looked at typical short-listed candidates – who are extremely qualified – at the point of hiring, and did not address advantages or disadvantages potentially experienced by women, girls, men and boys throughout their development. It is worth acknowledging, though, that a 2-to-1 advantage enjoyed at the point of tenure-track hiring is substantial and represents a pathway into the professoriate that is far more favorable for women than men.
Finding the limit to a preference for women
We wondered how deeply the faculty preference for women that we’d previously identified ran. Do faculty prefer a woman over a slightly more qualified man? How about a much more qualified man?
Ourmost recent experiment, just published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, examined this question.
Using the same methods from our earlier study, we presented 158 STEM faculty with two male applicants and one female applicant for a tenure-track assistant professorship in their specific field. We presented another 94 faculty with two female applicants and one male applicant. In one contest, the female applicant was slightly less outstanding than her two male competitors, although still impressive; in the other, the male applicant was slightly less outstanding than his two female competitors.
It turned out that faculty of both genders and in all fields preferred the applicant rated the most outstanding, regardless of gender. Specifically, faculty preferred to hire slightly more outstanding men over slightly less outstanding women, and they also preferred to hire slightly more outstanding women over slightly less outstanding men.
Reconciling with other STEM sex bias research
These results show that the preference for women over equally outstanding men in our earlier experiments does not extend to women who are less accomplished than their male counterparts. Apparently, when female and male candidates are not equally accomplished, faculty view quality as the most important determinant of hiring rankings.
This finding suggests that when women scientists are hired in the academy, it is because they are viewed as equal or superior to males. These results should help dispel concerns that affirmative hiring practices result in inferior women being hired over superior men.
The absence of preference for a less outstanding man does not necessarily imply that academic hiring is meritocratic under all conditions. It is possible that with different levels of candidate information (or if the candidates were somewhat less competent, as opposed to being stellar), results might differ. Discrimination may be a concern when candidate qualifications are ambiguous, but, based on our study, not when candidates are exceptionally strong. Thus, our interpretation of our results is that women who are equal to or more accomplished than men enjoy a substantial hiring advantage.
These findings may provoke concerns. If affirmative action is intended to not merely give a preference to hiring women over identically qualified men, but also to tilt the odds toward hiring women who are slightly less accomplished but still rated as impressive, gender diversity advocates may be disheartened. Those who’ve lobbied for more women to be hired in fields in which they are underrepresented, such as engineering and economics, may find the present findings dismaying and argue that extremely well-qualified female candidates should be given preference over males rated a notch higher.
One claim finds no support in our new findings: the allegation that the dearth of women in some fields is the result of superior female applicants being bypassed in favor of less accomplished men. If excellent women applicants were given short shrift, the slightly less qualified man would have been chosen frequently over more qualified women. But this scenario occurred only 1.2% of the time – similar to the number of times a slightly less accomplished woman was chosen over a more accomplished man.
None of this means women no longer face unique hurdles in navigating academic science careers.
Nor do the present findings deny that historic sexism prevented many deserving women from being hired, or that current implicit stereotypes associating science with menare not related to lower science course-taking.
All of these studies suggest areas in need of further work to ensure equality of opportunity for women.
On the other hand, based on hundreds of analyses of national data on the lives of actual faculty women and men across the United States, we and economists Donna Ginther and Shulamit Kahn found that the overwhelming picture of the academy since 2000 is one of gender fairness. Our analyses examined hiring, remuneration, promotion, tenure, persistence, productivity, citations, effort and job satisfaction in every STEM field. The experiences of women and men professors today are largely comparable, as is their job satisfaction.
Our new experimental findings call into question unqualified claims of biased tenure-track hiring. Sex biases and stereotypes might reduce the number of women beginning training for the professorial pipeline, but when a woman emerges from her training as an excellent candidate, she is advantaged during the hiring process.
