Vision: Students feel supported in their high school, try to do their best in their courses, and all have the intention to pursue a plan for future college or career
Mission: Creating high school environments, administrator leadership, and teacher effectiveness to prepare students for a future college or career
As many as one-in-four 9th-graders will drop out of high school or not graduate on time with their class. 40%-50% of those enrolled continuously will not keep up with their high school’s academic expectations. These facts forecast a difficult future for young people and they show how under-achievement in high school weakens America’s workforce. Educational research is showing new strategies to address successfully these problems – more than are being adopted in high schools. Yet, schools are often eager to adopt new ideas if these can be tied together with what they know is working locally. CHI-Research and Evaluation has extensive experiencing in assisting with finding innovative solutions to problems faced with educating high school students to today’s standards, integrating these with what is working well in a school or district, and helping install methods that will demonstrate district costs and student benefits.
CHI offers research and evaluation strategies designed specifically for application to these topics:
- High School Student Academic Achievement
- Education Administrator Leadership
- Team Leadership Development for Secondary Teachers
- Creating School and Classroom Environments that Encourage High School Students’ Commitment to a Plan for College or Career
Research & Evaluation Approaches:
High School Student Academic Achievement
Problem: Today, about 40-50% of high school students graduate as less than proficient in one or more key academic subjects. Weak academic preparation becomes a barrier to college success or a good job. High schools have had very limited success with their own efforts to raise student high school achievement.
Challenge: Find innovative solutions to removing barriers to student achievement and augment effective high school programs that encourage students’ intentional planning for their future.
Promise: Research-evaluation is making important strides with improving students’ coursework and standardized tests results using existing school resources. Progress is also being made with measuring students’ intention with plans for their future.
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Education Administrator Leadership
Problem: Not all school administrators are oriented to second-order innovation, yet without school reforms, many of the problems in existing secondary school will persist.
Challenge: Create self-assessment, feedback, and coaching that strengthens administrator capacity to design and launch breakthrough approaches to solving challenges to student progress.
Promise: Research and program evaluation have designed leadership self-assessment that shows an administrator how they compare with others in education and provide them with examples for their own leadership development.
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Team Leadership Development for Secondary Teachers
Problem: When teachers work in isolation from one another, they lose the benefits of shared knowledge and professional support. However, few teachers are trained in leading or participating in teams, consequently, this valuable, low-cost option for school improvement is often unrealized.
Challenge: The value to student achievement of many types of team-like connections among teachers is unknown. Needed is team leadership and process that improve student outcomes.
Promise: Research-evaluation has uncovered team leadership and operational guidelines for teacher teams that will improve student achievement.
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Creating School and Classroom Environments that Encourage High School Students’ Commitment to a Plan for College or Career
Problem: While many value a college/career plan, most students are unsure of which future goal is best for them. Many enter college not quite prepared and then drop out. Today, all high schools are looking for solutions to improving students’ future intentions and their commitment to a plan in the years following graduation.
Challenge: Discover how teacher-student relationships and the high school environment can change and attract the attention of students not committed to a post-graduation future.
Promise: Research and program evaluation are creating low-cost, feasible methods that will determine if school activities to promote intentional college/career planning are effective.
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