Kurt Roswell’s Post

Articles on how career technical education unites job training and academics with insights from Coachella Valley Unified School District, Bellflower USD, Lynwood USD, Paramount USD and Oroville Union HSD; school closure guidance and best practices for local educational agencies with Cupertino Union SD and Baldwin Park USD; and ways school systems like San Juan Unified School District, Desert Sands Unified School District and San Diego County Office of Education are striving to help newcomer students succeed academically and personally are included in the latest issue of California Schools. Glendale Unified School District’s Super Tutors program, the benefits of expanded learning opportunities, findings from a recent study on the associations between school safety and student outcomes, tips on establishing governance agreements and legal trends are among other topics explored. The issue features interviews with 2023 Board Member of the Year Mary Helen Ybarra of Corona-Norco Unified School District and 2024 CSBA President Albert Gonzalez of Santa Clara Unified School District as well as a CEO’s note on challenges related to unfunded mandates. Read the magazine now:

Reaching system-wide targets at a macro level requires institutional and programmatic innovation at the micro level. In this blog post, I share a few key findings from our new case study report highlighting #StudentSuccess programs with high potential for impact: https://lnkd.in/efUXpqsm

Question: What do these three phrases have in common? California or bust There's gold in them there hills California Reconnect Answer: They are all movements that transformed California. You might not be as familiar with California Reconnect as you are with the others. It's time to change that. Read about this initiative to bring thousands of California's back to college to help them complete their degree.

"Learning outcomes were lowest for students with disabilities. Among this group, only 8 percent met or exceeded expectations in ELA, and only 6 percent in math." We have seen these same dismal numbers since I entered the D.C. education space TWENTY YEARS AGO. Why are we okay with this?! At this point, I'm disgusted, disappointed, and frankly, angry. When I first entered school leadership in D.C., I was a leader at a school where 50% of the students had IEPs. We partnered with OSSE on a schoolwide RTI and PBIS initiative that focused on state-level coaching, high-quality curriculum, research-based reading intervention for every kid, schedule changes, training in intervention for every staff member, and robust progress monitoring. We had significantly improved outcomes for our students with 80% of them meeting "ambitious goals." This is the kind of effort that is going to be needed to transform this data that has been stagnant for, at least, the last 20 years. Who is going to step up and lead the charge to do something about this?

Beyond college acceptances, future success can be measured by a journey of confidence, community, and personal growth. Read about The John Crosland School's unique approach to success in this week's blog. 🎓✨ #BeyondCollege #Confidence #Community https://lnkd.in/eegATCxS

The good work of parents at a boarding school can not be underestimated, especially as we begin to graduate another group of students. Read more in Head of School Brian Thomas' blog The Journey: The Parent and School Partnership https://hubs.ly/Q02v_WRG0

What are some steps that we can collectively take to bolster college completion? For #CollegeCompletionDay, CCA Vice President Charles Ansell and Third Way Director of Education Michelle Dimino talk about three key steps we can take to support student success and postsecondary achievement nationwide: https://lnkd.in/eiEJ-ffM #CCADoesTheWork

I didn't mean for "simple" to do so much work here. But indeed, boosting college completion is simple, but not easy. It's simple because it means taking state attainment goals and equity statements as the well-founded, gubernatorially-backed, avowed commitments that they are, and working backwards from there - i.e., taking completion goals seriously. If the goals don't make sense, then reset them until they match your labor economimc projections. Then, three things. 1) Do the right things - in jargon that means implement known, evidence-based, commonsense reform efforts that still haven't been scaled (e.g., ALL students should have semester-by-semester plans and predictable schedules, NO students should have to pay for high school equivalency courses that don't count to graduation but use financial aid, ALL students should choose a major in their first-year, based on information about careers and advice around perosnal aspiriations, ALL students should have access to basic needs supports...). 2) Track doing the right things - some states, systems and colleges clearly show this is possible, through their data infrastructure and their performance management around key metrics. We live in an age of generative AI - can we finally cover the basics, like who is transferring between colleges and how many credits are they bringing? This is replication of what works, not rocket science. 3) It means funding the doing and the tracking, because you can't just efficiency your way to tripled grad rates nor magically eliminate a two-tiered higher education system for those with resources and those without. We have to fund to stated commitments. That's a political fight for all of us. Because if higher ed only experiences incremental growth in succes rates, we will not grapple with our big problems, we will exacerbate wealth gaps, we will continue to drop internationally in postsecondary attainment, and we will keep perpetuating the inequality and distrust in public systems that kills democracies.

A Sunshine Coast student who topped the state in her Year 12 exams has put her achievement down to “support from my parents, teachers and friends, along with my love of learning and hard work”. Click the link below to read the full story. #sunshinecoastnews #scn #freelocalnews 

interesting read