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BEATING THE ODDS: How Thirteen NYC Schools Bring Low-Performing Ninth-Graders to Timely Graduation and College Enrollment

 cover By Carol Ascher and Cindy Maguire

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A report on a qualitative study of thirteen NYC high schools that are successfully preparing low-performing ninth-graders for timely high school graduation and enrollment in college. The study identified four key strategies used by these schools and offers recommendations for systemic support to maintain and scale up their success. (2007)



Description
While urban school districts around the country struggle to raise often abysmally low high school graduation rates, some high schools succeed beyond expectations in bringing students with low academic skills and high needs to graduation in four years, followed by enrollment in college.

RELATED TOOL
THE COLLEGE PATHWAYS TOOL SERIES
is based on the findings of Beating the Odds. The tools include rubrics, surveys, focus group protocols, and examples of best practices to help high schools and their partners examine how well they are preparing students, especially low-income students, for graduation and college.

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This report describes a qualitative study, conducted in 2006 by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, of a small group of New York City high schools that were “beating the odds” by producing higher than predicted graduation and college-going rates for ninth-graders who entered with far below-average eighth-grade reading and math scores.

Institute staff identified four key strategies that helped these students beat the odds: academic rigor, networks of timely supports, college expectations and access, and effective use of data. The report concludes with recommendations for maintaining and scaling up the success of these schools through better distribution of resources, greater school control over enrollment, a stronger system of support and accountability, and a district office of postsecondary education.


Background
The study was inspired by students in the Urban Youth Collaborative, a citywide high school organizing group that works to improve college-going rates in their schools and communities. The thirteen schools were identified from a 2001 study based on NYC Department of Education data showing that they were succeeding with students whose peers often do poorly in high school. The group included two long-established technical-vocational schools, nine small high schools created between 1993 and 1998, and two high schools created in the reconstitution of large, failing high schools.


Funder
Time Warner Foundation


Contact Person
Anne T. Henderson
Senior Consultant, Annenberg Institute for School Reform
annethenderson1@yahoo.com envelope



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