Event Archives

New Hampshire High School Redesign Forum: Moving from High Schools to Learning Communities

On September 16, 2008, nearly 300 educators from around New Hampshire met in Bedford to explore how the state’s secondary schools could transform themselves now that New Hampshire’s dropout age has increased from 16 to 18.

Co-sponsored by REL-NEI and the New Hampshire State Board of Education, “Moving from High Schools to Learning Communities: New Hampshire’s Vision for Redesign” included addresses by state education leaders, a keynote address by Stanford University’s Linda Darling-Hammond—a national expert on high school redesign—and breakout sessions on key strategies for reforming high schools.

“The high schools we currently work in were designed in the early 1900s, and at that time, about 5 percent of the jobs were knowledge work jobs,” Darling-Hammond said via videoconference. “By 2000, 70 percent of jobs are knowledge work jobs. … At the high school level, we have an organizational form that puts a constraint on how much more achievement we can produce and how equitable the achievement can be.”

In early 2007, the New Hampshire state legislature passed a law raising the age of compulsory school attendance from 16 to 18, effective July 1, 2009. At the same time, the law provides for local flexibility in awarding school credit to students who demonstrate mastery of state education standards in various settings, not just a series of high school courses. Students can earn high school credit for out-of-school experiences, such as volunteer commitments or employment that allow them to demonstrate competency in a required content or skill area.

Developing these so-called “alternative learning plans” is new terrain for high school principals, teachers, and counselors. To help educators understand the research informing the state policy changes and to offer them examples from high schools already pioneering this work, the State Board of Education teamed with REL-NEI to organize the forum, which was modeled after REL-NEI’s regional Policy Challenges Conference on High-Risk Student Populations, held in Providence, RI, in March 2008.

Watch a video of Linda Darling-Hammond’s keynote address. (72 min.)

Note: Quicktime is required for optimal viewing. Install this free software.

Read an article in The Hippo Press (Manchester, NH):

• “Rethinking School: Educators Take a Real-World Approach” (September 25, 2008)