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Equity in High School Learning
Every high school student in the U.S. public school system should have the opportunity for a high-quality and challenging academic experience. There have been great strides in recent years to recognize promising practices that work for all types of learners.
The National High School Center provides access to vetted resources and tools to improve educational outcomes for all students on the high school level. A special focus of the National High School Center is special needs students and English Language Learners.
Resources on Equity in High School Learning
The Funding Gap
This brief looks at the funding patterns of 49 of 50 states (Hawaii is excluded because it operates as a single district), comparing the amount of money spent per student across districts. Data collected between 1999 and 2005, revealed that only 10 states increased funding equity between low and high-poverty districts, while three states not only decreased the funding gap, but also began spending more on high-poverty districts. The brief also notes that in most states with a large population of ELL students, districts with greater numbers of ELL students receive less funding than those with fewer ELL students.
Gaining Traction, Gaining Ground: How Some High Schools Accelerate Learning for Struggling Students
The Education Trust, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, reports findings from their analysis of achievement data and school practices at seven public high schools. Four “high-impact” schools were compared to three other “average-impact” high schools. In addition to the many similarities between the two groups of schools, researchers found some significant (though sometimes subtle) differences. These key findings were organized into five “spheres”: 1) Culture, 2) Academic Core, 3) Support, 4) Teachers, and 5) Time and other resources. This resource will be of particular interest to schools working to improve the learning on behalf of below grade-level students.
High Schools for Equity: Policy Supports for Student Learning in Communities of Color
This report by the School Redesign Network at Stanford University presents a case study of four schools in California, which have unique programs, graduate a greater percentage of their students, and send a greater percentage of their students on to college than similar schools. The report investigates what makes these schools work, and offers policy prescriptions for states to improve public high schools.
The Last Have Become First: Rural and Small Town America Lead the Way on Desegregation
This research brief, released by the Human Rights Project at UCLA, addresses the current state of segregation within America’s public school system, disaggregating school demographics by race/ethnicity and urbanicity. The research finds that the lowest level of segregation is found in the nation’s small towns and rural areas, while urban areas are home to the most intensely segregated schools and school districts.
A Plan for Success: Communities of Color Define Policy Priorities for High School Reform
This report, authored by the Campaign for High School Equity, a group of nine national organizations representing communities of color, offers a framework of policy priorities to improve the underperforming high schools serving students of color. The report outlines a menu of priorities for high school improvement meant to address the needs of those at-risk students attending the nation’s lowest-performing high schools.
Quality Counts: National Highlights 2008
This report by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center evaluates the success of the50 states and DC to improve their citizens' lives through education. Using six indicators to assess the states, the report offers a grade on each indicator for each state, as well as an overall grade for each state and the nation (C+) as a whole.
