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SOURCE: News & Observer
11.10.07
Gates grant to help schools
By: Jane Stancill, Staff Writer
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is granting $2.5 million to develop four North Carolina high schools into models of student achievement. UNC system President Erskine Bowles announced the initiative Friday. It will be a joint program of UNC and the Gates-funded New Schools Project, with $1.7 million going to UNC.
The New Schools Project has worked with local school systems, the UNC system and community colleges to create 86 innovative high schools across North Carolina that are rethinking instruction and student support.
Four of the schools will be selected as Learning Lab sites for the new program. Two will be traditional high schools, and two will be Learn and Earn early college high schools. The Learn and Earn schools are housed at community colleges or universities and allow students to graduate with as much as two years of college credit.
Each of the four Learning Lab schools will be paired with a UNC campus and its education programs, which will help develop the schools.
The goal is to create four highly effective, high-profile schools that will push other schools to become more innovative.
UNC campuses also will gain insight into how best to train future teachers and school leaders. Within two years, the four Learning Lab schools will be prepared to host visiting teachers and principals for residencies in which they will observe and explore the schools' instructional practices.
"I think this is exciting," Bowles said. "I'm a great believer in pilot projects. And if this works, we can really change the public schools in North Carolina."
Former N.C. Supreme Court Justice Burley Mitchell, chairman of the N.C. New Schools Project, said the schools already are achieving successes, including lower dropout rates.
"This is a fantastic opportunity for us to get all of North Carolina focused on our schools, which we know is needed," he said.
