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Internet Resources & Research
This annotated resource list provides links to websites and research articles from other organizations throughout the nation that are currently working to support AISD Redesign. These organizations identify and assess high-performing high schools and districts, capture knowledge of the field’s best and most promising practices, and provide tools and resources to educators, policymakers, and others who are working to redesign comprehensive high schools.
 Websites Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation focuses its education investments in two primary areas: creating more small high schools and reducing financial barriers to higher education. The foundation is helping large, troubled high schools transform themselves into smaller, more personalized learning environments, while at the same time funding the replication of successful small school models. The Institute for Research and Reform in Education (IRRE) The Institute for Research and Reform in Education (IRRE) partners with districts and schools to help all students develop the academic strengths they need for good jobs and post-secondary education. IRRE is best known as the developer of First Things First, a reform framework currently at work in nine districts with 70 schools. IRRE's research and technical assistance support First Things First and strengthen the entire field of educational reform. IRRE also provides consultation to state education officials, foundations and other education professionals. International Studies Schools Network (ISSN) Asia Society has 18 public schools that are developing globally competent, college-ready high school students. Research shows the model has higher graduation rates and academic achievement than other schools with similar profiles. Eastside Memorial Global Tech High School is the newest addition to the ISSN. Jobs for the Future, Boston, MA Jobs for the Future studies, supports, and develops ways to provide young people-particularly those who are poorly served by current educational and employment systems-with the learning and credentials they need to make the transition to productive adulthood. The New Tech Network works nationwide with schools, districts, and communities to develop innovative high schools. We help schools fundamentally rethink teaching and learning, empowering students to become the creators, leaders, and producers of tomorrow. Founded in Napa, California, in 1996, New Tech is made up of 41 schools in nine states serving more than 8,500 students. New Tech provide learning environments centered on a strong culture of trust, respect, and ownership in which students and teachers are all equally responsible for success. New Tech schools graduate collaborative, critical thinkers who are capable of framing and solving the problems that will shape our collective future. AISD New Tech Schools include Akins, Eastside Memorial Green Tech, and Eastside Memorial Global Tech. MDRC (New York, NY & Oakland, CA) MDRC is a non-profit, non-partisan education and social policy research organization dedicated to learning what works to improve programs and policies that affect the poor. They design and study new approaches to the problems confronting public education; low-income children, families and communities; and low-wage workers and people with serious barriers to employment. Serves as a catalyst to position 21st century skills at the center of US K-12 education by building collaborative partnerships among education, business, community and government leaders. [ TOP ] Articles Why Redesign? "Public High School Graduation and College-Readiness Rates: 1991-2002" The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research's February 2005 report shows grad rates are still unacceptably low across the U.S. This study uses a widely respected method to calculate graduation rates, both nationally and for each state, for each public school graduating class from 1991 to 2002. It also combines graduation rate calculations with data provided by the U.S. Department of Education to calculate the percentage of all students who left high school eligible for college in each year. Because the requirements to graduate from high school are set lower than the requirements to apply to a four-year college, many high school graduates are ineligible to enroll. "Making the Case for Small Schools" A concise, informative summary of the research illustrating the shortcomings of comprehensive high schools, including information on average high school drop-out rates, low daily attendance rates, large pupil loads for teachers and guidance counselors, and the impact of "large, impersonal" learning environments on student academic achievement. "Are Small Schools Better? School Size Considerations for Safety and Learning" This 3-page policy brief from WestEd provides a concise summary of the research on small schools. It includes an explanation of why size matters, an overview of barriers to implementing small schools, and a short list of policy recommendations. "Closing the Graduation Gap: Toward High Schools That Prepare All Students for College, Work, and Citizenship" The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is committed to helping all students graduate from high school ready for college, work, and citizenship. This commitment is based on a vision of a secondary education system built on rigor and relationships-a system of high-quality, small high schools that offers rigorous preparation for any post-secondary education or employment pathway. This document outlines the foundation's thinking on these issues, the evidence and research underpinning them, and a policy agenda that supports this vision of high quality high schools for all students. [ TOP ] Guiding Principles for Redesign "State Strategies For Redesigning High Schools and Promoting High School to College Transitions," This issue brief focuses on what increasingly are seen as the major stumbling blocks that students face in high school and in enrolling in postsecondary education. It summarizes recommendations from several national reports and conference proceedings on how high schools should be redesigned and how the transition to postsecondary education can be made more seamless for students. This brief also provides several examples of what state leaders are doing to deal with these issues and some sources for additional information. "Crisis or Possibility?: Conversations About the American High School" This report offers an overview and analysis of the conversations that took place during a series of conferences about high schools held in the fall of 2003. While conference participants agreed about the need to rethink and reinvent today's high school, there emerged two very different ideas about how to proceed. Regardless of viewpoint-"crisis or possibility," participants agreed on "seven key levers" that can positively affect high school reform. The levers include: integrating K-12 and postsecondary education, preparing all students for college, improving teacher competence, ensuring literacy among students, decreasing dropouts, creating smaller learning environments, and setting appropriate standards. The paper concludes that the path toward high school reform will be long and hard. "Breaking Ranks: Changing an American Institution" and "Breaking Ranks II: Strategies for Leading High School Reform" "Breaking Ranks" offers a series of recommendations that have become a guiding force for high school redesign throughout the nation. It reflects the belief that "teaching and learning must provide the focus for high school reform," and emphasizes that "the high school of the 21st century must be much more student-centered and above all much more personalized in programs, support services, and intellectual rigor." "Breaking Ranks II" was formulated from the first edition of "Breaking Ranks" and is intended to assist principals by providing strategies for implementing the recommendations; illustrating possible entry points or areas in which to begin reform; and profiling the successes, challenges, and results of schools implementing the recommendations. Copies of these reports can be ordered from the NASSP website. [ TOP ] Implementation Strategies for Redesign "How Boston Pilot Schools Use Freedom Over Budget, Staffing, and Scheduling to Meet Student Needs" This publication uses the Boston Pilot Schools, which are district schools that have increased flexibility and autonomy in exchange for increased accountability, as a case study to explain why autonomy is important and how it can be used effectively. "Big Buildings, Small Schools: Using a Small Schools Strategy for High School Reform" This article describes emerging efforts by communities such as Boston, Oakland, New York City, and Sacramento to convert large, comprehensive high schools into "education complexes" made up of multiple autonomous small schools under one roof. Lili Allen and Adria Steinberg of JFF draw on strategies being undertaken in these communities to explore implementation issues that arise concerning school-level autonomies, governance, and leadership of high school reform at the district level. They also delve into the challenges for "central office" leaders of managing a system of learning options that offers a broader range of choices for students and parents. [ TOP ] Evaluations of AISD Redesign Initiatives "An Early Report on Comprehensive High School Conversions" This report describes the early stages of the conversion of three large Washington state high schools into several small learning communities. Each of these schools received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation under one of three different programs: the Washington State Achievers Program, the Model School Initiative, and the Model District Initiative. The report offers insights and recommendations to other schools in the early stages of conversion, such as having strong principal leadership, using data to make the case for change, making the process inclusive and transparent, and balancing structural and teaching issues. "Reinventing High School: The Coalition Campus Schools Project" This report thoroughly describes the design features that, in the research of the six coalition campus schools of New York, were found to have significant student achievement and engagement results. The study found that five new schools that were created to replace a failing comprehensive high school produced, as a group, substantially better attendance, lower incident rates, better performance on reading and writing assessments, higher graduation rates, and higher college-going rates than the previous school, despite serving a more educationally disadvantaged population of students. The schools shared a number of design features, detailed in this study, that appeared to contribute to these outcomes. The study also describes successful system-level efforts to leverage these innovations and continuing policy dilemmas influencing the long-term fate of reforms. [ TOP ] |
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