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Portland's High School System Portland’s High School System: Update on High School System Design Implementation Next Steps to Accelerate Progress December 12, 2012 PORTLAND PUBLIC SCHOOLS Carole Smith Office of the Superintendent 501 North Dixon Street • Portland, OR 97227 Superintendent (503) 916-3200 • Fax: (503) 916-3110 [email protected] December 12, 2012 To the Portland School Board: This report provides an update on the implementation of Portland Public Schools’ High School System Design (HSSD), a comprehensive reform of Portland’s high school system that was approved by the Portland School Board beginning in the fall of 2010, following an extensive two year public input process. HSSD changes were formally launched at the start the 2011-12 school year and will take full effect by the end of the 2014-15 school year. (High schools had already begun implementing a core program as early as 2010-11, and making other changes even earlier.) The high school reforms we instituted in 2010 were challenging, controversial and necessary steps. For the first time in nearly 30 years we closed a high school campus. We changed high school boundaries, modified transfer policies and overhauled programs at every high school. We made these difficult choices for one reason: our high school system was failing to serve too many students. Intolerable inequities across our high school system were a major cause of unacceptably poor results: in 2008-09, PPS had a 53 percent on-time graduation rate and a 30 percent achievement gap in graduation rates (between white and Hispanic students). The status quo was unacceptable. Great things were happening in pockets across our high schools, but we needed to provide greater equity and produce better results consistently across our entire system. Progress in our High School System Two years later, I am encouraged to report that HSSD is on track to meet the major goals and most measures we established in 2010. • The 4-year graduation rate has increased 9 percentage points since 2008-09. At this rate, PPS high schools are projected to exceed HSSD’s 2014-15 target to improve the on-time graduation rate by 10 percentage points. • The achievement (or educational opportunity) gap is narrowing. Graduation rates for students of all races and ethnicities have increased and the largest gap in graduation rates has narrowed from 30 percentage points to 19 percentage points between white and Hispanic students. (Our current largest gap is now 23 points between white and Native American students.) • Our most under-enrolled schools are attracting more students. • All comprehensive high schools are on track in offering the core program. • We are seeing gains in the percentage of students who are college ready. • Portland high schools remain the schools of choice in our community. A growing percentage of students who live in our school district are attending our high schools. High School System Design — Implementation Report 2012-13 Resilience in the face of challenges As the attached report notes, this progress is a credit to the work of our high school principals, teachers, partners and community. In recent years, we have managed to produce significantly better results despite: • Reduced state funding for education. In recent biennia, K-12 education in Oregon has received a diminishing portion of the state budget (45 percent in 2003-05 compared to 39 percent in 2011-13), which represents a loss of more than $30 million per year in state funding for PPS (equivalent to 330 teaching positions). • The final years of a temporary, city-wide demographic drop in school-age children that resulted in a declining number of high school students who live in Portland (these numbers will begin to rebound in 2015-16). I want to acknowledge these challenges. We know that despite the system-level gains we are seeing, there are personal frustrations in our high schools: Students who want more courses, teachers who have higher student loads and principals who are trying to meet the needs of all students, at a time when there are fewer and fewer resources to do so. As a result of funding challenges, the framework of more engaging and equitable programs that has been established in our high schools through HSSD is not as robust as we aspire for it to be. However, despite constrained resources, we have been able to preserve course offerings and maintain class sizes, in part because of the tough choices we made in the HSSD process, as well as the support of the Portland community. Accelerating progress Our gains are encouraging, but not sufficient. Our on-time graduation rate is still not nearly where it needs to be. We need to accelerate the gains we are seeing across the board for students in our high school system. HSSD represents one phase of a comprehensive and on-going effort to improve student achievement in Portland Public Schools, not only at high schools, but at lower grades as well. That work continues. Since the HSSD framework was approved by the School Board, school staff has continued to make changes to transform low-performing schools and prevent students from dropping out. We have also continued to ask hard questions about our system. In 2007, PPS and All Hands Raised released a cohort graduation rate study – which for the first time revealed (what was at that time) a 54 percent on-time graduation rate in Portland. In that spirit, new research by ECONorthwest offers deeper insights into the performance of Portland’s high school system. It is also the first study that offers a truly comparative statewide perspective on our graduation rate. This new data tells us about ways that Portland’s entire high school system – from community comprehensive and focus schools to charters and alternative high schools – can produce better results. 4 High School System Design — Implementation Report 2012-13 Next steps HSSD’s structural changes have improved equitable access to programs in Portland’s high schools. Given the progress we are making toward HSSD’s 2014-15 goals, I am not recommending further structural changes to our high schools. However, Portland’s high school system can build on this foundation of improved equity by making additional research-based, adaptive changes in educational practice to accelerate graduation rate gains, close the achievement gap and ensure that Portland Public Schools is on track to meet the state’s 40-40-20 goal: to have all Oregon students complete high school and 80 percent go on to post-secondary education, by 2025. I am convening a new High School Action Team (that will include stakeholders from across our high school system) to recommend additional adaptive and technical changes in our high school system. Despite our challenges, the future is bright for our high schools. We are on pace to accomplish High School System Design’s major goals to improve our graduation rate, narrow the achievement gap and provide greater equity in our high schools. We are nearing the end of a demographic dip in our high school population. Over the next 8 years Portland’s high schools will grow by 1,000 students. And, earlier this month, Portland voters approved a school construction bond with over 66 percent approval, which prioritized upgrading high schools. Portland’s future as a thriving, creative, globally competitive and civically-engaged community with a high quality of life depends on the success of all of our high schools in educating every student well. Thank you to all the educators, family members, volunteers, community partners and city and county agencies whose commitment and hard work are helping to achieve better results for Portland’s students. Carole Smith Superintendent 5 High School System Design — Implementation Report 2012-13 Page left intentionally blank 6 High School System Design — Implementation Report 2012-13 Portland’s High School System: Update on High School System Design Implementation Next Steps to Accelerate Progress December 12, 2012 7 High School System Design — Implementation Report 2012-13 Table of Contents Executive Summary ............................................................................................................... 10 Summary of findings and next steps .......................................................................................... 10 Challenges and mitigation strategies ......................................................................................... 11 Building on HSSD: continuing school reforms ............................................................................ 12 Research ..................................................................................................................................... 12 Accelerating our progress: opportunities for adaptive change and next steps ......................... 13 Portland’s High School System: Update on High School System Design Implementation .......... 15 Part I: High School System Design implementation: update and evaluation ........................... 16 PPS high school system overview ............................................................................................... 16 HSSD Report Card: Progress on HSSD project-specific and student outcome measures ........... 21 High School System Design Report Card .................................................................................... 21 Core program implementation .................................................................................................. 28 Enrollment stability and parity: supporting core program and an engaging portfolio
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