Chapter 5 "Case Studies of Schools that Succeed"

Chapter 5 “Case Studies of Schools that Succeed” studies 38 high schools and provides case studies which contain descriptions of “key practices” that the schools use in order to help more students achieve college readiness. Conley presents "profiles of high schools that are demanding more of their students and achieving results that improve college readiness" (133). The schools in his case studies include University Park Campus School and Fenway High School in Massachusetts, Cherry Creek High School in Colorado, Minnesota New Country School in Minnesota, Manhattan Hunter Science High School in New York City, Garland High School in Texas, Polytech High School in Delaware, and Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Chicago. Even though school demographics differ widely across the nation, as Conley admits, these schools offer important lessons and experiences that many high schools can adapt and would be willing to practice with local conditions. The chapter focuses on case descriptions of what the best high schools are doing, and gives guidelines for teachers and administrators to adapt their programs in a similar direction in order to improve “content knowledge”. Conley goes over what he calls “the school culture” where “no one is allowed to fail and everyone is a learner”, in this sections he focuses on schools that fall under the “University Park” category and states that this culture pays special attention to “student excellence, passion for learning, persistence until success, and support for others”. This culture is communicated to both students and their parents from the get go. University Park culture is an encouraging environment for all students, many of whom lack self-confidence. In this type of environment though, students feel significant and are included in decisions, such as who is hired and developing types of school policies. Throughout the rest of the chapter Conley focuses his attention on magnet schools (Fenway High School, Boston & Massachusetts) stating that from the beginning college is an expectation in these schools. When Conley talks about charter schools (Minnesota New Country School, Henderson & Minnesota) he states in regards to these schools “project-based learning helps students become ready for live after high school”. Project based learning is basically the idea that students show an interest in learning if they are learning about something that they find interest in. Overall I think this chapter mentions many techniques that both high school and college courses could adopt.

(Continuation) Chapter 4: Key Principles of College and Career Readiness

"Principle 5: Create assignments and grading policies that more closely approximate college expectations each successive year of high school" Basically, Conley is suggesting that students' work progressively increase in academic value and demand over the years - from 9th through 12th (not so much, quantity). A "deliberately sequenced learning progression" would alleviate students' impact of the first year of college and all its heavy load.

"Principle 6: Make the senior year meaningful and appropriately challenging" Conely suggests the obvious: students (and parents) who think that taking a break during the senior year is helpful are wrong. It is detrimental to the student's perception of the academic world, and it will literally get them behind, perhaps so behind that some students may end up in remedial courses - Conely writes (125). Conley suggests students be kept at bay with rigorous standards or more practical options like requiring them to have such things as internships or "field-based experiences" (126).

"Principle 7: Build partnerships with and connections to postsecondary programs and institutions" Conely writes that college staff and high school staff can work together to find common grounds with what one is doing and expecting of students and vice versa. "Bridge programs" help students through this, in which colleges bring students in to their summer programs, college course sampling, mentoring, and the like.

Chapter 4: Key Principles of College and Career Readiness

This chapter covers the 7 principles of college/career readiness that originate from EPIC, which is the Educational Policy Improvement Center. They looked at 38 well-prepared high schools across the nation. These 38 schools are doing many good and "right" things in preparing students for post-secondary life. I will cover the first four in this post.

"Principle 1: Create and maintain a college-going culture in the school" Much of this is established with the positive tone, beliefs, and mentality of the higher powers in charge of these schools. The schools listed tend to focus on ingraining students with the concept that they will be going into college, but faculty and counselors are constantly in check of their students' progress toward this common goal.

"Principle 2: Create a core academic program aligned with and leading to college readiness by the end of twelfth grade" These schools align coursework along all the high school grade levels, sometimes starting in the eighth grade. Common assessments are used, and outside areas of interest or expertise are infused with curriculum. The College Board also plays a key role when these high schools use the CB in their courses to prepare students for such exams as ACT, SAT, and PSAT.

"Principle 3: Teach key self-management skills and academic behaviors and expect students to use them" The over-passed skill of self-management is extremely useful for students to know. Some high schools actively teach this to their students, like in such programs as AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination), in which students within the "academic middle" receive continuous support and guidance outside traditional tutoring and teachers' help from their own course work and assignments.

"Principle 4: Make college and careers real by helping students manage the complexity of preparing for and applying to post-secondary education" It is an "alien concept to most high school freshmen and even to the majority of juniors" when thinking of the college transition (118). Quite simply, principle 4 requires students to check off certain things off their to-do list within their four years. In the high schools that were explained, many students must apply to college as part of the curriculum. Such schools involve a lot of parental support. "Tiered activities" help students transition into college quite smoothly by requiring them such things as having them take college admissions exams, visiting colleges, taking pre-requisite courses throughout high school (like in college), and making career links with coursework. A huge benefit from this is that students know early on what's at stake.

Self-Management Skills and "College Knowledge"

This cleverly named chapter is filled with very useful knowledge for the high school educator/administrator to consider for making his/her school a place where students will be aptly prepared for their future in college. There are many, many useful tips and lots of ideas and advice (some rooted in good old obvious common sense) for the high school student/educator/administrator to follow or use where college readiness is concerned.
Briefly, let us discuss a few of these elements of self-management skills and "college knowledge."
There is a lot of talk about time management when it comes to succeeding in college. One must be able to show maturity by having such skills. College students must learn how to balance all of their obligations, opportunities and distractions.
Study skills, study groups, knowing how to prepare for tests and setting goals; all of these skills are very useful in college. These are all skills taught in classes like UNIV, to give freshman an advantage at the University level.
On pg 81, "Persistence with Difficult Tasks" this section is about the difficulty of college assignments and ambiguity in contrast to the work that high school students are used to. This section briefly mentions how writing well requires persistence and discusses revising and how writing is important in many subject areas in college.
Knowing one strengths and weaknesses is crucial in the University setting. For a lot of college Freshman, that first C is a shocker. This section discusses how even someone who is the best student in high school can be a mediocre student in a college setting. They may be "academic stars" but find out that an instructor in the college level could care less about your background but only focuses on quality of your work. "The shattered self image phenomen" is what a 4.0 student may have when he does poorly in his first semester. The only thing I couldn't stand was all this talk about first generation college students and the correlation to being members of minority groups. Really?
"College Knowledge" is as simple as making all students in high school aware of their opportunities to attend post-secondary institutions.
College students must be able to adjust to the college culture. Knowing that college has it's own culture is very useful for college students and proves that by having "cultural captital" that is the knowledge and experience etc to succeed in the post-secondary world of education includes all of aforementioned, time management skills and studying, and esp communicating with professors.
The rest of the chapter discusses how high schools can support "post-secondary participation" through counselors following the same group of students through out their careers in h.s. promoting college readiness.
High schools should definitely better prepare their students by realizing that the transition is what makes or breaks the students. Knowing a few of these basic skills can definitely give the entering college student an advantage.

Ways to Develop Key Cognitive Strategies and Key Content Knowledge (Chapter 2)

Chapter two focuses on the significance of defining the “big ideas” (54) of college readiness and the organization of these “big ideas” with regards to aligning secondary curriculum to post-secondary curriculum.

Conley states that the education that is being taught in post-secondary institutions reflects a “design-up” rather than a “design-down” model. This means that instead of looking at what students need to know in college to succeed and then designing the high school and middle school curriculum around this; high schools look at the middle school curriculum and what they have accomplished in order to determine what should be taught next rather than by what is required to achieve success in college and other higher levels of education.

Conley goes over several different types of solutions to remedy the educational gap between secondary and post-secondary institutions. These programs pay particular attention to senior year instruction, ensuring the closest proximity between secondary and post-secondary education. Conley states that these solutions are not easy to implement and require “rethinking relationships and assumptions about the content of courses and how the senior year of high school and the freshman year of college are connected” (56). This being said, the first solution Conley offers “aligning syllabi” would require major communication between high schools and post-secondary institutions, with special attention to first-year courses. This solution would ultimately be the easiest in the sense that once the high school syllabi has been established both institutions would not require direct interaction between faculty. This model does however have its challenges. One major challenge that is highlighted is asking high school teachers to commit to developing this syllabus and sticking to it.

The second solution Conley offers is the creation of “college-ready seminars”. These seminars Conley mentions are “specially designed courses that seek to challenge students in ways that begin to approximate what students will face in college” (59). The course design offers some connection for students between high school courses and college/post-secondary courses and course expectations, ultimately easing the transition to any post-secondary education institution. This course differs from a high school course in the sense that it is paced faster than a usual high school class where students are expected to read more. This course will also have fewer writing assignments; these assignments however will be more substantial in nature and will require that students be more accountable for their performance. This aspect of the course might come of a shock to some students who are accustomed to “generic feedback” on the majority of assignments submitted to their high school teachers.

College-ready assignments are what Conley describes as being another type of solutions that could help remedy the educational gap between secondary and post-secondary institutions. Although many high schools have identified these types of assignments (research papers & senior projects), they are not tied specifically to college readiness standards or the assessment standards used in college. These types of assignments however do help mimic what students will be exposed to in college and the grading methods students will face in college. Upon completion of the writing assignment or senior project, it will be subjected to teacher and peer review and critiquing which ultimately helps prepare students for the “give and take” of the college learning environment.

The final solution Conley goes over is what he calls “paired courses” (courses that are based on a high school and college or post-secondary partnership). Conley states that “the purpose the partnership is to develop guidelines that apply to exit-level high school courses and entry-level college courses” (64) which directly addresses the gap between high school and college curriculum.