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Federal Role in High School Improvement
Question 3: What is your recommendation on how states can most effectively bring about improvement in high schools? And given the emphasized role of the Governor in the Race to the Top Initiative, what sorts of new opportunities does this present for Governors leading high school improvement in their states? |
Almost every governor will be confronting the reality of longstanding lackluster student outcomes combined with ongoing budget shortfalls. With state revenue forecasts remaining dismal for the next several years, the required assurances in Race to the Top provide encouragement, resources, and structure for state leaders who want to lead education reform efforts.
First, state leaders are responsible for setting expectations. In the case of education, expectations are set through standards and graduation requirements. Under the current system, expectations for what students should know too often differs according to their zip codes.
State leaders must be constantly educating the state’s citizens about the need for high standards supported by the commitment and financial resources to meet these academic goals. If you look at state test scores on eighth-grade reading tests, you’ll see that students in several states score very well on the state assessment, but fare poorly on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). However, in a state like Massachusetts, which is known for its high standards, students score near the same percentage on both the state and national test.
Lowering the bar on state standards may result in good headlines when the results on the state tests are announced, but students—and the state’s business community—will soon learn they have been shortchanged. In the global economy of the 21st century, in which students in Boston and Birmingham compete against students in Beijing and Berlin, it makes no sense to have fifty different standards. A customer in a car dealership does not ask whether the car was made in Michigan or Alabama; she expects that it is made to the same high-quality standards no matter where it was assembled.
One way state leaders can ensure they are setting high expectations for students that are aligned to the demands of the 21st century economy is by participating in a growing state-led effort to develop a common core of state standards in English language arts and mathematics for grades K-12. Significantly, the governors and state commissioners of education of forty-eight states (all but Alaska and Texas) have signed on in support of the initial phase of the initiative—developing the standards. While this is a good first step, it does not guarantee actual change. That comes when states commit to adopting the standards that emerge from the process, as well as participate in collaborative efforts to develop common assessments that align with those common standards.
Second, state leaders play an important role in ensuring the system is accountable for improving its high school outcomes. The most recent state example of effectively using data to assist decision-making is in the Virginia Department of Education, which now employs a comprehensive state longitudinal data system that assigns individual student identifiers that track students throughout their educational career. As important as permitting the reporting of more reliable graduation rates, the data system also enables the state to zero in on low-performing schools and students through identifying early warning indicators.
For example, Virginia was able to determine that more than half of its dropouts (51.4 percent) left school by the end of the tenth grade. Additionally, it discovered that students who drop out are frequently absent, attended multiple schools, and repeated grades. Sure, that’s not a surprising discovery. However, by tracking individual students and indentifying early warning indicators such as absenteeism, a state can target students at risk of dropping out and intervene with the appropriate supports.
Lastly, state officials must target and support efforts to turn around low-performing high schools. Graduation rates, early warning information, and other data can help identify low-performing schools, struggling students, and the underlying causes so that the most important work—interventions and improvement strategies—can be implemented. Several states are leading efforts to turn around low-performing high schools and address the needs of struggling students.
State leaders desperately need to recognize that reading and comprehension skills are vitally important for high school students. Unfortunately, the most recent NAEP results disclose that almost 30 percent of entering ninth graders read “below basic,” which means that they read at least two years below grade level. These students can often read words on a page, but they lack the skills to comprehend what they read. Consequently, they often struggle when they encounter more challenging content in high schools. It is no coincidence that our national graduation rate is almost a perfect inverse of the percentage of students reading below basic.
In Alabama, a statewide effort to improve the literacy skills of secondary school students is underway. Although primarily a program for elementary students, the Alabama Reading Initiative (ARI) is offered to students in over one hundred of Alabama’s middle and high schools. Since the program’s inception in 1998, the number of students who have demonstrated reading proficiency has increased by nearly 10 percent in ARI schools—more than double the progress of schools not in the program. Florida is another state that has committed attention and resources to improving literacy skills for secondary students when, in 2004, then-governor Jeb Bush signed legislation that will put reading coaches in middle schools throughout the state and provide more rigorous middle school coursework to help prepare students for high school.
Confronted by the twin challenges of declining education revenues and the need to dramatically raise student outcomes, state leaders must be the ones willing to challenge all of us—educators, citizens, parents, students, business leaders and community members—to recognize that in a technology age, the process of education must also undergo changes. Online learning and other means of delivering complex content to hundreds of thousands of classrooms must be an area in which state leaders are willing to explore and assist development. Florida Virtual Schools is one of the many examples of an initiative that is evolving because of state leadership.
Turning to the Race to the Top question, I understand the tremendous challenge that the current budgetary situation poses on local and state budgets. I was governor during the last economic recession and know what it is like to look up at a mountainside and see an avalanche barreling its way toward you. And, unlike at the federal level, there is little you can do at the state and local levels to control the economic forces that are dragging the economy down. You are more worried about decisions like, “Can I extend the life of this school bus for one more year?” or “Can we just patch this roof rather than replace it entirely?” That is how deep this crisis has become.
But, at the same time, Race to the Top provides governors with an extraordinary opportunity to impact education reform. In 2010, there will be more than thirty-five governors who are either retiring or will be up for re-election. Anyone leaving public office thinks about the legacy they’re going to leave. My message is that the public does not erect statues for governors who simply were effective managers or made budget cuts. The governors that people remember are the ones who were able to create something new or reform a program in a way that made individuals’ lives better. And there is no more important time than in this economic—and education—crisis to address challenges. The public wants and expects change—no one expects business as usual.
Governors and other state leaders should take the opportunities presented by Race to the Top and the stimulus dollars to raise expectations, use data to identify problems, and target funding and solutions to where they matter most.
Many of our leaders in cities and states all over this country are rightly focused on this reality and the truth is that those with the clearest, boldest vision for the future will pave the way for everyone else for years to come. In relation to the total amount spent annually for education, Race to the Top is a relatively small amount. In terms of the opportunities to encourage and reward state leadership, its outcome could be immense.
Resources:
Alliance for Excellent Education. (2009, September). Legislative Updates. Washington, D.C. Retrieved from http://www.all4ed.org/federal_policy/
Bacevich, A., & Salinger, T. (2006, Sept.). Sustaining Focus on Secondary School Reading: Lessons and Recommendations from The Alabama Reading Initiative. Washington, D.C.: National High School Center. Retrieved from http://www.betterhighschools.com/docs/NHSC_ARI_ResearchBrief_010907.pdf
U.S. Department of Education. (2009). Race to the Top. Washington, D.C. Retrieved from http://www.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html
