School & District Management Reporter's Notebook

High School Educators Encouraged to Offer More Math and Science

By Michele McNeil — July 25, 2006 4 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Twenty years into an effort to improve the nation’s high schools, the leaders of High Schools That Work used the program’s recent national conference to encourage nearly 8,000 educators to require more mathematics and science, and to make those classes tougher.

Data from two new studies help explain why. Just 20 percent of this past school year’s 9th graders who were surveyed said they were encouraged by counselors or teachers to take more-challenging math classes, according to a High Schools That Work survey completed in April by 11,493 students in 129 schools. The research was released at the 20th annual conference, held here July 12-15.

In the second study, based on a survey of 6,535 students, the program’s researchers discovered that once in college, nearly one in five students from the class of 2004 who had attended a High Schools That Work site had to take remedial math.

High Schools That Work, which is a product of the Atlanta-based Southern Regional Education Board, started in 1987 and has grown to a network of more than 1,200 schools in 43 states. The program’s goals include strengthening the schools’ academic cores while bolstering standards in career and technical programs.

“I believe it is possible to create a new talent pool that will be interested in math, science, and applied sciences,” said Gene Bottoms, the senior vice president of the SREB, a school improvement group representing 16 member states.

Here’s how teachers at 360-student Lincoln High School in Lincoln, Ark., did it.

In 2002, fewer than 5 percent of students tested proficient on end-of-course exams in algebra and geometry. Then, in 2005, the passing rate jumped to 60 percent, Lincoln High School master teacher Carolyn Farrell told attendees.

The school raised expectations by requiring students to take a fourth year of math, she said, and starting students in pre-algebra in 7th grade. Students who want to drop a rigorous class must meet with the principal and their parents, then wait three weeks before quitting.

Getting many minority students interested in math and science—particularly engineering—is even tougher than it is for U.S. students overall, according to officials of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, or NACME. The White Plains, N.Y.-based group, which used to focus its recruiting efforts solely on college students, is turning to high schools to get underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities interested in engineering.

NACME Senior Vice President Tom Price told attendees that of the nearly 660,000 minority graduates of U.S. high schools a year, just 4 percent have the math and science backgrounds to apply to engineering programs. Of those who are accepted and enroll in engineering programs, 61 percent drop out of the program before graduation.

“Our goal is to make sure a minority kid has the same probability of graduating as a majority student,” Mr. Price said.

To that end, the group is working to expand partnerships with high schools and create an “engineering high school” prototype that can be duplicated anywhere.

No matter what the school subject, the drive to improve schools must include policymakers at the district and state levels, according to local and state education board members from Georgia, Virginia, and West Virginia.

State boards of education in particular have been “late to the dance” of school reform, said Brad Bryant, a member of the Georgia state board of education.

“But now we’ve tried to bring our curriculum into a narrow focus and go far, far deeper,” he said. He was joined in that policy discussion by Mark Emblidge, the president of the Virginia state board of education, and Terry LaRue, a board member of the 4,700-student Mineral County school board in Keyser, W.Va.

While the three shared success stories they agreed on one area in desperate need of good policy: the transition from middle school to high school. “I don’t think we’re dealing with that yet,” Mr. Emblidge said. “Certainly not across the board.”

Not everything at the conference was heavy on policy and pedagogy.

One of the most popular sessions was led by a 28-year-old Texan who is not a trained educator. Jason Dorsey dabbled in medicine and archaeology as a college student before falling into his career as a motivational speaker.

Jason Dorsey

Mr. Dorsey’s talk, titled “50 Ways to Improve Schools for Under $50,” was standing-room-only; it was so popular he repeated the lesson to another full audience after normal conference hours.

So, how do you improve schools for under $50? Here are a few of Mr. Dorsey’s suggestions, gleaned from visits to more than 500 high schools:

• Administrators could make brownies for teachers and present them in class.

• Students could be appointed to serve as nonvoting members on school boards.

• Schools could ban holiday gifts to teachers, and instead encourage students to make homemade cards.

The other 47 ways are listed in a book of the same title—Mr. Dorsey’s third published work.

Related Tags:

A version of this article appeared in the July 26, 2006 edition of Education Week

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Reading & Literacy Webinar
The Future of the Science of Reading
Join us for a discussion on the future of the Science of Reading and how to support every student’s path to literacy.
Content provided by HMH
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
College & Workforce Readiness Webinar
From Classrooms to Careers: How Schools and Districts Can Prepare Students for a Changing Workforce
Real careers start in school. Learn how Alton High built student-centered, job-aligned pathways.
Content provided by TNTP
Student Well-Being Live Online Discussion A Seat at the Table: The Power of Emotion Regulation to Drive K-12 Academic Performance and Wellbeing
Wish you could handle emotions better? Learn practical strategies with researcher Marc Brackett and host Peter DeWitt.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

School & District Management How One Principal Got Kids to Pay Attention in Class
Utah principal Shauna Haney brought about one of the first classroom cellphone bans in the state.
2 min read
Cellphone wearing a sleep mask. Cellphone policy.
Irina Shatilova/iStock
School & District Management Celebrate Five Years of The Savvy Principal—A Newsletter Just for School Leaders
The Savvy Principal is full of news, insights, and actionable tips on school leadership.
1 min read
Close cropped photo of a laptop, planner and phone with ear phones attached to it. The phone is displaying an edition of Education Week's The Savvy Principal enewsletter.
Liz Yap/Education Week + Adobe Stock
School & District Management Worried About Withheld Education Funding? Here's How Leaders Can Speak Up
Education leaders must communicate the consequences of withheld K-12 funding to Congress and their own communities.
6 min read
Superintendents Dr. Alex Marrero, Alberto Carvalho, and Joe Gothard
Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero, left, Madison Superintendent Joe Gothard, and Los Angeles Superintendent Alberto Carvalho are among district leaders who've pushed for the release of withheld federal K-12 funding. The three have also sought to explain the consequences to their own communities.
David Zalubowski/AP, Andy Clayton-King/AP, Anthony Behar/AP
School & District Management Opinion ‘You’re Woke’: A Former Superintendent Responds to Intense Backlash
My critics hurled “woke” at me like a verbal grenade—but we need education leaders who are wide awake.
Robert Sokolowski
4 min read
Diverse group of multiethnic multicultural people silhouette. The weaponization of woke.
iStock/Getty Images