'Alliance' offers valuable resources

The Alliance for Excellent Education is a Washington, DC–based national policy and advocacy organization dedicated to ensuring that all students, particularly those who are traditionally underserved, graduate from high school ready for success in college, work, and citizenship. The Alliance focuses on America’s six million most at-risk secondary school students—those in the lowest achievement quartile—who are most likely to leave school without a diploma or to graduate unprepared for a productive future. (at the Alliance for Excellent Education)

To learn more about the Alliance for Excellent Education, click the above hyperlinked text. 

Report on CCSS available from the Alliance for Excellent Education

While forty-six states and the District of Columbia have adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), approximately two-thirds of Americans say they have never heard of them, according to results released on August 21 from the PDK/Gallup Poll.

To better inform the public about the standards while also addressing the many misimpressions surrounding them, the Alliance released a new report, Common Core State Standards 101, that examines how the CCSS initiative came about, what role the federal government did-and did not-play in their adoption, and how to ensure that the standards deliver on their promise to fundamentally improve the quality of teaching and learning in the United States. (from the Alliance for Excellent Education)

To read more, click on the above hyperlinked text. From there, you'll find a link to the report.

Resources for change

The good news is that we know a great deal about how to educate low-performing adolescents to high standards, and many high schools across the country are doing so. Unfortunately, there are too few of these successful schools nationwide. This shortage is exacerbated by a general lack of attention to the problems in our high schools by the public and policymakers-particularly at the federal level. (from the Alliance for Excellent Education) 

The Alliance for Excellent Education provides myriad resources for those thinking about and wanting to enact school reform. To begin learning about those resources, click here. 

Another look at excellence

Every year, more than 1 million students—that’s 7,000 every school day—do not graduate from high school on time. Nationwide, only 69 percent of students earn their high school diplomas. Among minority students, only 56 percent of Hispanic, 54 percent of African American, and 51 percent of American Indian and Alaska Native students in the U.S. graduate with a regular diploma, compared to 77 percent of white students and 81 percent of Asian Americans.

The reason for the low national graduation rate and the gaps in the graduation rates between minority students and white students are numerous. In this section of the website, you can access more information about how this crisis came to exist. (from the About page of the Alliance for Excellent Education)

The Alliance for Excellent Education has been referenced at this blog before. But back-to-school time is great for looking at resources again. And, the Alliance for Excellent Education website is frequently updated with new reports and resources. For example, the Alliance has regular webinars, and if you can't make the webinar, you can always look at the archived videos.

A new blog to read

The Alliance for Excellent Education (the group that brought you the Writing Next, the Reading Next and the Writing to Read reports----all in the "Useful Links" section here) has launched a blog called High School Soup.

The blog has the standard posts as well as an interesting looking list of blogs to read. Explore a bit. If you find something especially interesting, do share.