In cities with the highest dropout rates, 40 percent of freshmen will repeat the ninth grade, and of those students only 10 – 15 percent will make it to graduation day. These numbers make up what is referred to as the “freshman bulge” – given that name because more students are retained their freshman year than in any other grade. So, what causes the freshman bulge? The school culture changes drastically for a high school freshman. The workload gets harder, relationships intensify, schedules get crammed with part-time jobs, after school functions, homework, etc., and the thought of college moves closer to becoming a reality. Students need guidance during this vulnerable time in their life to reach academic, social and emotional success.

Statistics show a staggering number of inner city students failing at a much higher rate than their suburban peers. In a 2009 study, Cleveland was placed as the city with largest gap with 38 percent of high school inner-city freshmen graduating within four years, compared to an 80 percent graduation rate in the suburbs. The gap cannot be ignored. However, writing this book I found two universal truths: Everybody is unique, different, and special and nobody has it easy. Inner city and suburban high schoolers face different daily problems, but every teen must face the cultural shift and will either succeed or fail based on the choices they make and the actions they take.

Making the Most of High School infuses humor and real-world instruction from students who talk about how to navigate the choppy waters of adolescence and get the most out of high school and beyond. Prompting students to learn their strengths, engage in healthy habits and develop a vision for themselves, Making the Most of High School also addresses critical issues such as:

• Making wise peer choices
• Managing time and priorities
• Harnessing 21st century technology safely
• Developing writing, thinking and reading skills

Share this book with your friends and colleagues who have students who are in their freshmen year of high school or getting ready to start next year  Ask powerful questions about their fears, their goals, their dreams and other topics that allow them to anticipate and fully consider the transition in the most successful terms possible.  Troubleshoot any areas of difficulty, for example in academics they may need extra help through tutors or school resources, and encourage students to be their best self-advocate. Don’t do this work for them or they will not learn adult skills.

Learn more about Making the Most of High School at www.lifebound.com or amazon.com. You can also click here to read a free sample chapter.

Carol’s Summary:

How do high schools increase the number of graduating seniors? One way is to introduce career opportunities as early as middle school to expose students to all their options. We expect high school students to reach a goal, like graduating from high school, when they barely know themselves or their interests.   What if we changed the goal not only to graduation day, but also to their life, their purpose, their mission? If students are given the choice to explore different careers, they will feel more involved in the experience, more motivated to advance to higher education, and develop the ability to see their education as the stepping stones to reaching  their  goals.

According to the ACT’s study, “Career Planning: Students need help starting early and staying focused,” students start thinking about career possibilities as early as 8th grade, and students gain their career interests as a result of experience. Cities and schools who join forces for workforce planning, can provide students the opportunity to meet professionals, network, and ask questions so that they can  learn more about fields and paths of study. Exposing students to careers at a young age can make them intrinsically driven to complete high school, instead of externally driven by parents or teachers. If students are encouraged to learn about, develop and lead with their passions, their high school education becomes a stepping stone for a tangible goal. When the student owns the pathway to their future, they also own the responsibility of whether they reach their goal or not. How does anyone reach a goal if they never set it? How can an elementary, middle, or high school student be driven to graduate if we don’t show them the end of high school is just the beginning, and the rewarding context in long-term outcomes for challenges and sacrifices they may experience today?

Sources:

Career Planning: Students Need Help Starting Early and Staying Focused - act.org

Subject inspired by: Aurora school initiative looks at helping students’ career dreams come true

AURORA — Hinkley High senior Edwin Hernandez-Corral grew up dreaming of being an electrician.

Read the full article at: denverpost.com

Science teacher Robert Baxter was awarded $25,000 for excellence in the classroom in Buffalo, New York. As a black male, he says he was driven to succeed because no one expected him to be smart. After watching too many of his friends struggle with math and science, two of Baxter’s favorite subjects in school, he was determined to prove anyone can excel and anyone can learn. At Westminster, 98% of the students are minorities, and most come from poverty. Recently, 9 out of 10 eighth-graders who took Baxter’s science class had high enough grades to get high school biology credit.

Baxter says the key to student success is: “Personal relationships. For some of them, I might be the closest they have to a black male figure. I’m their school dad.” Baxter was honored for contributions, such as, calling students at home to come back to school and stay with him until they master the lesson and encouraging his students to fight for the top two spots in the class with $100 cash incentive.

Article: Science Teacher Honored for Excellence

Tuesday was no ordinary day at Westminster Community Charter School — the state education commissioner was there, along with a slew of other official types in suits, front and center at a well-orchestrated assembly in the gym.

Read the full article at: buffalonews.com

In his column yesterday, Thomas Friedman raised the issue of America’s competitiveness now and in the future.  By Newsweek’s latest account, the U.S. ranks number 11.  When Friedman drills into the reasons for this lack of competitiveness, he cites the opinion of Washington Post economist Robert Samuelson:

“The larger cause of failure is almost unthinkable: shrunken student motivation.  Students, after all, have to do the work. If they aren’t motivated, even capable teachers can fail.  Motivation comes from many sources: curiosity and ambition; parental expectations; the desire to get into a “good” college, inspiring or intimidating teachers; peer pressure.  Motivation is weak because more students don’t like school, don’t do the work and don’t do well.”

Most American students are simply bored in school and, therefore, don’t push themselves to learn and excel outside of schools.  This creates a workforce of graduates who need to be told what to do and when, who lack motivation to see opportunities and who shrink in the face of difficult problems instead of persisting knowing that they will, ultimately, figure it out by themselves or within a team.    The work ethic of the Greatest Generation, Friedman says, is the ethic of Chinese and American students currently, not the ethic of many U.S. students.   That can change, if we can be real about why this problem exists and identify actions to turn this around.

If we can work with students as early as fifth and sixth grades to learn about their interests and their abilities (their gift and talents) and teach them how to manage their emotional selves by themselves and with others, then they will become students who can focus, challenge themselves and participate in school and out.  This is the age at which American students lose ground against all of their foreign counterparts in the other developed countries.   Simultaneously, we need to work with teachers to keep the methods of class room instruction varied and to test often and in different ways—through oral reviews, short quizzes, fill in the blanks and short essay as well as the over-relied on multiple choice mode of testing.   Finally, we need to work with parents to create a culture of learning in the home where the expectations are high—for school work and future schooling, including college—and parents actually turn off the television and the internet to read and model learning for their children themselves.

If these things begin to happen early and often for our middle school students, we will have more engaged high school students, fewer high school drop outs and many more students able, ready and motivated to attend college.   This, in turn, will ultimately produce a stronger workforce of college graduates who are tough enough to take on the challenges they face personally, in their careers and in the communities in which we live.  Until middle school students learn to love challenge, learning and making a difference, you can expect an economy with a workforce which is not as competitive as those in the other developed nations.  It’s time to make a difference with this group of students right now.

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Article: We’re No. 1(1)!

I want to share a couple of articles I recently came across that, I believe, speak to the core of what ails America today but is too little discussed. The first was in Newsweek under the ironic headline “We’re No. 11!” The piece, by Michael Hirsh, went on to say: “Has the United States lost its oomph as a superpower? Even President Obama isn’t immune from the gloom. ‘Americans won’t settle for No. 2!’ Obama shouted at one political rally in early August. How about No. 11? That’s where the U.S.A. ranks in Newsweek’s list of the 100 best countries in the world, not even in the top 10.”

Read the full article at: nytimes.com

Carol’s Summary:

Healthy Lifestyle Choices is a program dedicated to empowering children in grades kindergarten to eighth grade, through teaching lifelong skills in the areas of nutrition, safety, fitness, conflict resolution and violence prevention and substance abuse prevention. The program is currently in 40 states and is part of a nationwide initiative to improve youth health.

The HLC program realizes the power they can have in fighting the epidemic of childhood obesity, but the program aims to look at the bigger picture. HLC hopes healthy changes in children’s lives will not only give them a chance to turn their lives around before they reach adolescence, but also help HLC answer the question: “Do healthier students perform better academically and have less behavior problems at school?”

Article: Students take healthy lifestyle pledge

Students at Krotz Springs Elementary School, like fourth-grader Jaidyn Robinson, lined up Tuesday to take a healthy lifestyle pledge.

Read the entire article at: www.dailyworld.com

Carol’s Summary:
The method by which to identify gifted students at a New York City high school is now being challenged, as the school admits students based on the results of a single test, which is written by a teacher at the school. This test ultimately determines a student’s eligibility to attend, and has  sparked a debate about what qualifies a student as gifted, particularly because this test has caused a decline in black and Hispanic student enrollment at the school.

Critics say that the test gives certain students an unfair advantage, whereas many others who come from less fortunate backgrounds may not be as well-prepared to take such a test. The cost of prep materials and tutoring gives wealthy students a good chance at being accepted, while students who come from less fortunate families may not be able to pay for the preparation.

Therefore, they may not be as well-prepared to take such a test. They say that the admissions tests should utilize several kinds of evaluations, including portfolios of students’ past work, essays, and interviews.

There are currently 3 million students nationwide who are identified as gifted, and it is believed that there are many more who have not yet been noticed or who have undergone one-sided tests such as the one previously mentioned. It is necessary to employ various strategies to identify gifted students, so that they may receive the education they deserve.

To hold back a student who is gifted may make the student likelier to grow bored with school and possibly even drop out, because their abilities are not being recognized. At LifeBound, we believe it is incredibly important to tailor teaching to individual students, their abilities and their needs. In our curriculum that accompanies each of our books, we have included activities for both gifted and at-risk students, so that no child’s needs are left unattended to. Visit www.lifebound.com or e-mail contact@lifebound.com for more information about our books and curriculum.

Article:
Identifying Gifted Students
By Walt Gardner

The latest chapter in the gifted student saga was on display at Hunter College High School in New York City when a graduating senior delivered a commencement address that called into question the basis for admission to the storied school (“Diversity Debate Convulses Elite High School,” Aug. 5). The school uses a single, teacher-written test that has not changed for decades. Although the test is defended by Hunter College, which oversees the high school, as “very valuable in terms of preserving the kind of specialness and uniqueness that the school has,” it has resulted in a decline in the percentage of black and Hispanic students enrolled.

To read the full article: www.edweek.org

Carol’s Summary:

The Mount Olive school district in New Jersey has recently eliminated the D grade from their schools, in order to encourage students to achieve more. Now that students can only earn A’s, B’s, C’s and F’s, it may cause students to see how important it is to get better grades, rather than to put forth minimal effort and earn a barely-passing D in their classes.

Students in the district have openly expressed their disdain for the new policy, saying that it puts more pressure on students and will cause more students to fail. The new policy will allow increased opportunities for make-up work on failed or missed assignments, which will provide students with a better chance to improve their grades before report cards are sent home.

The elimination of the D grade in Mount Olive schools has brought attention to this new policy, but a similar strategy was used in the 90’s in a college classroom in Kansas. The policy is new in the Mount Olive district for this upcoming school year, and administrators hope that it will be effective for improving student work ethic and achievement.

Many students need an extra push to understand that they are truly in control of earning their grades. The work they put forth academically as well as in all aspects of life will appear in the results of their work. Students, especially at high school age, must learn how to take personal responsibility for their study habits and school work.

Our book, Study Skills for High School Students, provides students with tips for improving memory, being more involved in their class work, how to be an independent learner, and how not to procrastinate on assignments. Visit www.lifebound.com or e-mail contact@lifebound.com for more about LifeBound’s books and materials.

Article:
Little as They Try, Students Can’t Get a D Here
Michael Appleton for The New York Times

MOUNT OLIVE, N.J. — Who wants to pay for “D”-quality plumbing? Fly the skies with a “D”-rated pilot? Settle for a “D” restaurant?

Exactly.

The way the Mount Olive school district sees it, its students should not be getting by with D’s on their report cards, either. This fall, there will no longer be any D’s, only A’s, B’s, C’s and F’s.

To read the full article: www.nytimes.com

Carol’s Summary:

A report by the Education Testing Service shows that the achievement gap between black and white students, and efforts to narrow the gap have been stagnant for 20 years. The Educational Testing Service has examined the achievement gap and efforts to close it since 1910.

Some experts have developed a theory that standardized testing alone cannot account for the results of the study, and that social and environmental factors must also be taken into account. In order to close the achievement gap any further, it may be necessary to break the cycle of poverty first. However, the cycle of poverty is not only a result of the achievement gap, but also one of its main causes.

In order to further narrow the achievement gap, it will be necessary to provide equal opportunities for academic growth. Textbooks in poverty-stricken areas would need to be of the same quantity and quality as books for children in middle-class areas. Standardized testing results will have to take into account more than the scores alone but also the advantages and disadvantages, and individual needs of the schools and students.

Teachers who work in schools in impoverished areas will also need to be trained in such a way that they can identify and connect better with their students and the issues that students face both in and out of the classroom. LifeBound visits with teachers from schools in both middle-class areas and areas where people are disadvantaged, and we coach them with our books and curriculum so they can collaborate and work with all students, regardless of their background. To learn more, visit www.lifebound.com or e-mail contact@lifebound.com

 Article:

Report: When/why progress in closing achievement gap stalled

Progress seen over several decades in narrowing the educational achievement gap between black and white students has remained stalled for 20 years, according to data analyzed in a new report.

Called “The Black-White Achievement Gap: When Progress Stopped,” the report by the Educational Testing Service examines periods of progress and stagnation since 1910 in closing the achievement gap.

To read the full article: www.washingtonpost.com

Carol’s Summary:
Twenty-seven states have adopted a nationwide standardized curriculum that was proposed around two months ago by the Department of Education, partially due to the Race to the Top competition, which will award billions of dollars in funding to states with plans to implement education reform.

Massachusetts, New York, and Colorado are among the states that will adopt the new set of curriculum. The standards contain a detailed description of what students at each grade level will be expected to learn and comprehend, and what academic skills they should have at each level. However, the process of implementing the new national standards is estimated to take years to complete.

Education reform and the implementation of national standards is predicted to save states money in the long run, as states will no longer have to make their own individual curriculum standards. Some educators are also worried that the cost of re-training teachers may be more trouble than it’s worth initially. When LifeBound has coaching sessions, we do so with the goal of showing teachers how to communicate and connect with students effectively and in a way that allows for long-term success. Training teachers is a highly effective way of ensuring future success with students.

As society continues to change, the education system must catch up and be restructured as well. The way that children learned fifty years ago is much different from how they learn now, and it will take possibly years of trial and error to fully restructure the education system as it has been proposed. What’s most important is that education fosters the goals and needs of all children, and of the whole child, not just academically speaking.

Article:
Many States Adopt National Standards for Their Schools
By TAMAR LEWIN
Published: July 21, 2010

Less than two months after the nation’s governors and state school chiefs released their final recommendations for national education standards, 27 states have adopted them and about a dozen more are expected to do so in the next two weeks.

To read the full article: www.nytimes.com

Carol’s Summary:
Over $1 trillion is spent on education every year, by the K-12 school system as well as colleges and universities. Schools are constantly looking for new ways to teach students, whether it is with the use of new technologies, using new books, and changing curriculum.

Most recently, the U.S. Department of Education has created a $650 million education innovation fund; this provides many entrepreneurs in the education industry with new opportunities to share their ideas and products with schools nationwide.

However, it is often a costly and time-consuming process for schools to adopt new strategies and products for educating their students. The funding can connect the entrepreneurs to education researchers, which would provide schools with a smoother transition to implement new curriculum and technologies.

Recently, education reform has been a “hot topic”, with the Race to the Top competition entering its final stages, and the debate over whether our nation’s schools should adopt one standardized curriculum. It has become evident that we are beginning to witness major changes in our education system, particularly with funding from Race to the Top and the education innovation fund.

Being well-acquainted with new books, technologies and curriculum enables schools to provide their students with the tools they need to succeed. At LifeBound, we aim to provide teachers and students with books and curriculum that they can apply to the classroom as well as to life outside of the classroom, in order to ensure that students are well-rounded. Critical and Creative Thinking for Teenagers is a book that helps to inspire teens to think outside of the box, and to be open to all sorts of possibilities. To be innovative is to foster success for the future.

Article:
Educational innovation gets boost under new programs
July 30, 2010

A movement is under way to make it easier for entrepreneurs to navigate the lucrative and sometimes-tricky education market and introduce new technologies and products into classrooms.

An educator at the University of Pennsylvania wants to create one of the nation’s only business incubators dedicated to education entrepreneurs. The U.S. Department of Education (ED) is also getting into the act with a $650 million fund to boost education innovation.

To read the full article: www.ecampusnews.com