I sometimes wonder if I come off as a too-harsh critic of Northshore Schools. I spend most of my days thinking about how to improve educational outcomes in our state and district, and I realize NSD is doing very well compared to the rest of the state, which is, as a whole, DISMAL.
This article points out how well NSD is doing, despite the terrible budget climate, with lots of quotes from Superintendent Francois:
http://education-executive.com/index.php/school-districts/1129-northshore-school-district
In 2010, the district announced new Goals and Performance Measures. We have made great strides at replacing curriculum and revamping the Honors (now Challenge) Program in junior and senior high school. Starting next year, almost all Challenge courses will be self-select: the student, with guidance from parents and lots of data from the district, chooses whether to enroll in more rigorous courses.
In my last blog, I mentioned how important it is for students to take Algebra 1 by 8th grade, as this allows them to take enough math in high school to meet rigorous college admissions requirements. One of the new Goals is to increase the percentage of kids finishing Alg 1 by 8th grade. Here is an update from last year on that goal:
District-wide, in this school year, only about 30% of students will complete Alg 1 by the end of 8th grade (which is up from 25% last year). This is better, but not good enough, which is one of the reasons the district has wisely opened Challenge up further.
So only 30% of students (and less than 15% of Hispanic and black students) are on a math track that will get them fully prepared for college. Compare that to Bellevue, Lake Washington and Issaquah SDs, in which 8th grade Alg 1 is the typical track –greater than 90% of their students meet this goal.
I want to throw this out to you for your thoughts. Federal Way SD AUTOMATICALLY enrolls students who pass the MSP/HSPE into advanced classes. Parents can opt their kids out, but few do. Results show that even kids who weren’t “A” students are both passing the rigorous classes and demonstrating deeper learning. Should we do this here? That would put 77% of all students into 8th grade Alg 1, and more than 90% of HS kids into AP English classes.
Do you think we ought to raise the bar even higher in Northshore?
OK, if I read this right, in 2010 the NSSD committed itself to improving the number of students passing Algebra 1 in 8th grade. The school board study, dated Aug. 2011 was looking at one year of effort under this new effort. And, as you pointed out, a year that involved continued budget cuts for the district. In that one year, the number of students completing the course improved by about 20% over the previous year, based on about 25% completion before the program began and about 30% completion in the first year. It would appear that the number of sections increased from 14 to 17 this year, or about 21%. Those sound like laudable achievements to me. Having taught honor social studies at NJH for many years, I have first hand experience with the district's old selection matrix. During one year, to provide additional slots for students who qualified but could not get into the over-crowded single section, NJH opened up another section of 9th honors social studies and filled out many of the otherwise empty slots with students who had come close to qualifying or who simply wanted in. My experience that year was quite different than in the years before and after and lead me to be more than just a little bit skeptical of an honors admission matrix of "self selection". Will need to obtain more information on that issue.
The article you quote and cite refers to NSSD as a "flagship organization". In my travels around the state and in continuing education classes, I have certainly found that to be true. NSSD has a well deserved reputation for superior performance, as noted recently by the many Woodinville Patch articles about student achievement. I find the Federal Way SD system of automatic enrollment interesting. While that does increase the numbers of students in AP or other "challenge" classes, you don't provide any insight into how successful those students have been. Will be looking forward to you postings about that information before I draw any conclusions about the "automatic enrollment" policy. I'm not going to comment on raising the bar in NSSD even higher, because the syntax of your question implies in math classes. I'll ask around among my math teacher colleagues, however, and report back any trend I see developing.
One of the interesting statements in the district's presentation to the school board that I referenced was that they "shattered perception regarding who could and couldn't be successfulin Algebra in 8th grade". I confirmed that this "shattered perception" was of the teachers. Year 1 results showed students were successful in Challenge 7th and 8th grade math, even if they weren't the highest achieving students in math prior to that. That is one reason NSD is encouraging even more students to try Challenge.
In their first year, they raised the % of 11th and 12th graders taking AP/IB courses from 41 to 67%, and the % of minority students taking them from 35 to 61%. In the first of grading, 94% of the kids got a C or better in all their classes. This semester, of the 15,000 grades in advanced classes, only 3% were below a C.
My thoughts are we should not constrain our students to achieve less than their full potential by not offering enough challenging courses to them, or by not being honest with them about their chances of successfully competing for admissions into universities choosing from a pool of students whose states have higher grad requirements than WA does. Our grad requirements and minimum college admissions requirements are very low compared to other parts of the country.