North Carolina’s Revolutionary High School Reform Model

Gov. Easley writes about North Carolina's Progress in Education on "Ideas Primary"

Although North Carolina was slow out of the gate in providing high school education after the turn of the 20th century, we are determined to take the lead on transforming high school education in the 21st century. We hope that reformers across the nation take special note of our high school reform initiative which CBS News has hailed as “revolutionary.”

Our goal is simple. Every North Carolinian — no matter their background — must be able to graduate from high school ready for college and the world of work. Failure in high school prevents many capable students from landing jobs that empower them to become contributing members of our communities and reach their full potential.

We are especially proud of our Learn and Earn Initiative because it enables high school students to gain significant college credit without having to pay tuition costs. It began by aiming at students from families where no one had ever attended college. But success and interest has been so high that Learn and Earn is now open to all students.

The Learn and Earn Initiative is establishing new institutional blends of high school and early colleges on seventy-five community college and university campuses across the state. And through full expansion of our university on-line capability, all high school students across the state will be able to join the Learn and Earn program and have the chance to take its classes. All courses will provide instruction on-line from college professors and from in-class teachers together.

Learn and Earn is especially revolutionary because it allows students to begin their college education and gain high-level career skills without the burden of any tuition charges. Learn and Earn graduates gain two years of college credit or earn a 2-year associates degree a year after they would have graduated from traditional high school. And many other students who take Learn and Earn classes will be able to gain at least a year’s worth of college credit.

Furthermore, our budget (now working its way through the legislature) takes a big step toward making college affordable for all students in North Carolina. Our EARN scholarship initiative is designed to work in tandem with current federal assistance so that all college students from families with incomes up to around $42,000 will not have to accumulate any debt for two years during college. Students are required to contribute to the financial equation by working at least eight-ten hours a week during the school year or during summers and thereby earning money to help pay costs.

Thus, those students who have already earned two years of college credit without tuition charges through the Learn and Earn program will have an additional two years of scholarship assistance that will guarantee they graduate from college debt-free.

Learn and Earn promises to change the face of our delivery system for higher education. While providing a path for all low and moderate-income students to graduate debt-free from college, it will also help to relieve the growing financial pressure on our universities to be perpetually expanding facilities for the growing waves of four-year students on their campuses. Currently just over 200,000, our public university population is on track to grow around 50% to 300,000 over the next decade — and we are working hard to ensure that number goes higher with even more college-going high school graduates. By blending high school and college education as well as providing free on-line access, Learn and Earn should be of significant assistance in preventing bricks-and-mortar needs from swallowing university budgets.

We also recognize that educational success for all our students depends on ensuring that each stage of the educational ladder does its part to equip students with the knowledge and skills they need for the future. So we begin at the beginning. Initiated in 2002, North Carolina’s More at Four pre-k initiative is one of two in the nation to meet all of the ten quality standards developed by the National Institute for Early Education Research. That’s important because, as Nobel-prize economist James Heckman, Isabell Sawhill and others have established, quality pre-kindergarten focusing on at-risk children is an essential foundation for raising high school graduation rates as well as developing a superior and prosperous workforce. We are also taking such steps as reducing class sizes in the grades K-3, adding literacy coaches in our middle schools, and professionalizing teacher pay as well as working conditions.

Very few public high schools dotted the North Carolina landscape at the beginning of the 20th century and for a number of years thereafter. We did not add a 12th grade to our public school system until the 1940s. And even into the 1960s, one fourth of North Carolina’s adults had less than a sixth grade education.

But today we are proud to be at the forefront of the national effort to transform high school education so that all students are prepared for college and the 21st century world of work. We believe that Washington should take notice and that the lessons of our success in North Carolina can benefit students elsewhere around the country.

Link: IdeasPrimary.com