Recently Released High School Resources

Looking for new high school-related resources?  Here are some highlights that other organizations have recently released:

Meeting the Challenge: The Role of School Leaders in Turning Around the Lowest-Performing High Schools
This Alliance for Excellent Education policy brief examines the limitations of previous high school improvement efforts, and highlights the central role principals and teachers play in increasing student learning and performance by creating learning environments that address the needs of diverse learners. It also discusses ways in which evidence-based school improvement strategies can help improve student learning, and provides policy recommendations for changing and improving the conditions that influence high school transformation.

Projection of Education Statistics to 2019
This National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) publication provides projections for key education statistics to the year 2019 for data on enrollment, graduates, teachers, and expenditures in elementary and secondary schools. For instance, the number of public high school graduates increased 27 percent between 1994–95 and 2006–07 and is projected to increase an additional 2 percent between 2006–07 and 2019–20. In contrast, the number of private high school graduates is projected to decrease by 4 percent between 2006-07 and 2019-20. Overall, the total number of high school graduates increased 27 percent between 1994–95 and 2006–07 and is projected to increase an additional 1 percent between 2006–07 and 2019–20, a period of 13 years.

The MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: Preparing Students for College and Careers
MetLife’s yearly survey of middle and high school teachers, students, parents of public school students, and business executives from Fortune 1000 companies examines the priority that all students graduate from high school prepared for college and careers, what being college- and career-ready entails, and the implications of this goal for teaching. The findings are being released in two reports.

• Part 1, “Clearing the Path,” shows broad agreement among parents, teachers, and business executives on the importance of college and career readiness for high school graduates. But opinions about what exactly college and career readiness means, how high a priority it should be, and what reforms are needed vary.

• Part 2 of the report, “Teaching Diverse Learners,” examines the different needs of students in schools, as well as how teachers address them and student perspectives on how well their needs are met. It found, among other things, that diverse learners differ on college aspirations, and that teacher attention to students makes a difference, but there is not enough being done to differentiate instruction.  

Note: This blog post was originally authored under the auspices of the National High School Center at the American Institutes for Research (AIR). The National High School Center’s blog, High School Matters, which ran until March 2013, provided an objective perspective on the latest research, issues, and events that affected high school improvement. The CCRS Center plans to continue relevant work originally developed under the National High School Center grant. National High School Center blog posts that pertain to CCRS Center issues are included on this website as a resource to our stakeholders.