Online Learning: A Solution to Three Looming Crises in Education

Released on Februrary 16, this brief tells how using online technology in today's secondary school classrooms can strengthen the teacher workforce, improve student outcomes, and allow states to do more despite flat education budgets.

Download The Online Learning Imperative.

President Obama Announces Commencement Challenge

On February 18, President Obama announced the Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge open to all public high schools in the U.S. The winning high school will have President Obama deliver the commencement address to its Class of 2010. Application deadline is March 15.

Click here to learn more.

Raising the Grade

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Bob Wise Discusses ESEA Blueprint on PBS NewsHour

Image of Gov. Wise on PBS NewsHour 03.17.10On March 15, the Obama administration released its blueprint to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, currently known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). In a March 13 video address to the nation previewing the blueprint, President Obama said the plan sets an ambitious goal that all students should graduate from high school prepared for college and a career—no matter who they are or where they come from. Obama acknowledged that achieving the goal will be difficult, but is essential for the country and its children.

On March 17, Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, appeared on PBS NewsHour to discuss the blueprint. He was joined by Diane Ravitch, a research professor of education at New York University and a historian of education.

In a statement released earlier in the week, Wise said the blueprint places an important focus on the lowest-performing schools, including the lowest-performing high schools. "Half of the nation's dropouts come from 2,000 high schools," Wise said. "We know where these schools are, and we know how to fix them. The president's proposal sets us on a path for doing so."

Watch the NewsHour segment, read Gov. Wise's complete statement, or download the blueprint.

Lowering High School Dropout Rate Significantly Increases Job Creation, Home Ownership, Spending and Investment Income, and Car Sales, Says New Alliance Study

Image of Economic Benefits City Card Booklet Cover Jan 2010As a result of a new game-changing study it released on January 12, the Alliance for Excellent Education said there was demonstrated evidence that lowering the high school dropout rate will have important positive implications for the economic vitality of the forty-five largest metropolitan areas in the United States.

The study, “The Economic Benefits from Halving the Dropout Rate: A Boom to Businesses in the Nation’s Largest Metropolitan Areas” measures on a city-by-city basis the growth in jobs, home ownership, levels of spending and investment, and car sales that will result from cutting the high school dropout rate in half.

“The report underscores the notion that the best economic stimulus package is a high school diploma,” he said. “If the U.S. is to improve its competitiveness in the global economy, it must have an education system that meets the fast-growing demand for high-level skills,” concluded Wise.

Find the results for your city or read the press release.

  • Experts Divided over Reform Blueprint
    District Administration
    April 1, 2010

    On March 15 President Obama presented to Congress his “Blueprint for Reform,” which seeks to reform No Child Left Behind through four main areas of improvement. Education professionals’ response to the Blueprint ranges extensively—many disagree with the plan and largely top-down approach to reformation, while recognizing the need for change. Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, says the Blueprint is “a vast improvement over the flawed No Child Left Behind program, which it would now replace.”

  • Ideas for Improving the MPS Graduation Rate
    WUWM (Milwaukee Public Radio)
    March 19, 2010

    There’s going to be a summit today in Milwaukee, at Manpower Incorporated, about improving the graduation rate in the city’s public schools. It’s about 70 percent...At noon, the gathering will hear from Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia. Wise says he's quantified the value of just one MPS class cutting its drop-out rate in half. 

  • Obama Administration Looks to Overhaul No Child Left Behind
    PBS NewsHour
    March 17, 2010

    When the federal law known as No Child Left Behind was signed by President George W. Bush eight years ago, it was heralded by both Republicans and Democrats...This week, President Obama and his secretary of education, Arne Duncan, rolled out their plan to reauthorize and rethink the law....And we sample two among many reactions to the president's plan now, with Bob Wise, president of the policy group Alliance for Excellent Education -- he served as the governor of West Virginia from 2001 to 2005 -- and Diane Ravitch, an education historian, official in the Education Department of the first Bush administration, and author most recently of "The Death and Life of the Great American School System."

New Report Warns of Limited Impact of Race to the Top, Common Standards, Asserts Congress Must Reauthorize ESEA

Alliance and Commission LogosWhile the federal government and the states have implemented some promising education reform efforts in 2010, these efforts will have limited long-term impact and risk undermining accountability if they continue to be pursued without updating and improving the bedrock of federal education policy-the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, the current version of which is known as the No Child Left Behind Act, or NCLB). Only an ESEA reauthorization can address the aspects of NCLB that time, experience, and research have shown need to be significantly improved or updated.

This report from the Alliance for Excellent Education and the Aspen Institute's Commission on No Child Left Behind, Don't Leave Accountability Behind: A Call for ESEA Reauthorization, describes four distinct reasons ESEA reauthorization is necessary to support long-term reform and ensure strong accountability for student outcomes and improvement.

Read the press release or download the report.

Find A Dropout Factory In Your State

Click on Image for Larger VersionA May 18 editorial in the New York Times calls attention to the approximately 2,000 high schools that produce more than half of the nation's dropouts and close to three-quarters of its minority dropouts.

By focusing on these "dropout factories," as they have been dubbed, the nation stands a good chance of keeping in school millions of students who would otherwise drop out, the editorial reads.

"The dropout problem is fixable. To do that, federal state and local governments must work together to remake the 'dropout factories.' That means putting public money into prevention programs that have been shown to keep children in school.

While not a graduation rate, a school’s “promoting power” is a good indicator of how well schools are educating their students. See how high schools across the country perform by going to the Promoting Power database. High schools with promoting power less than 60 percent are considered dropout factories.

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Thoughts on Education By Bob Wise

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Elements of a Successful High School

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Learn about the Ten Key Elements that every high school should have in place to ensure that all of its students are successful.

 

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