American Graduate – Live from Greensboro

Wednesday, April 18 2012 by Frank Stasio

In an age that demands more skill and higher levels of education from its workers, some students still choose to drop out. What can be done to help them? Guilford County Schools in North Carolina has tackled that question and made a lot of headway encouraging students to stay in school. Host Frank Stasio talks about Guilford’s impressive graduation rates and the state of public education with Terry Worrell, a regional superintendent for Guilford County Schools; Jeff Tiberii , the Greensboro Bureau Chief for North Carolina Public Radio WUNC; Margaret Arbuckle, executive director of the Guilford Education Alliance; Carl Serrette, a parent of two children in Guilford County Schools, student mentor and PTA president at Jamestown Elementary School; and Jerome Mack, a senior at High Point Central High in Guilford County.

This story is part of the American Graduate Project series.

Early/Middle Colleges Boost Guilford Graduation Rate

Wednesday, April 11 2012 by Jeff Tiberii

Loretta Rowland-Kitley is the principal of the Early/Middle College at G.T.C.C. (Photo: Jeff Tiberii)

Eric Hodge: North Carolina had a high school graduation rate that ranked 25th in the nation last year. The state statistics are showing improvement, but still about 27 out of every 100 students do not receive their diploma on time. Of all the large and urban school districts in the state, Guilford County has the best graduation rate. Part of the reason is a growing number of the district's early and middle colleges. Students at those schools are now earning degrees at a near perfect pace. Jeff Tiberii reports as part of our American Graduate series.

Jeff Tiberii: An eclectic mix of students navigates through a hallway. There are sleepy eyes and nose rings, pink hair and energetic voices. They wear collared shirts and oversized hoodies, skinny jeans and long flowing dresses. One girl leans against a rail eating a sandwich; nearby a group of three waits for the elevator, thumbing away on their phones. This is Guilford Technical Community College. You wouldn't know it at first glance, but this hallway is also home to a high school, and a few success stories.

Amber Kellam: If I had stayed in public school I wouldn't be where I am today.

Alec Matulia: I was very strongly considering leaving school."

Jacke McKinney: I just didn't enjoy school. Here I really enjoy coming to school.

Amber Kellam, Alec Matulia and Jackie McKinney are products of the 11-year-old Early/Middle College at G.T.C.C. The program is one of eight in Guilford County where students are on college campuses. In addition to a high school curriculum many offer a fifth-year where students can enroll in college courses and earn credit, free of charge. Class sizes are about 15 which staff members say is the biggest key to fostering a supportive, successful environment. Most students are here because of behavioral or emotional challenges, learning disabilities and many have been victims of bullying. The majority are at-risk of dropping out. Susan Kimbrough teaches a study skills class. She has her students fill-out a questionnaire in the fall.

Susan Kimbrough: The last question I always ask is: "What can I do to help you be more successful?" And I can tell you that out of a class of 15, I would have 10 that would say "don't give up on me". To have a child believe that nobody is going to stick with you to see you successful, is heartbreaking.

Kimbrough was one of the original six staff members of this school. She describes a family-like atmosphere where teachers text and call students regularly to check-in on homework. Students once disinterested in the classroom now commonly show up an hour early for extra help. Overall the approach appears to be working. This middle college had a class of 52 seniors last year. All of them graduated. Many earned associates degrees during high school and 48 moved on to four-year schools.

Maurice Green: This concept of seeing tomorrow today can be very impactful for students.

Maurice "Mo" Green is the Superintendent in Guilford County. The system has more early/middle colleges than any other school district in the state. Throughout Guilford there are more than 22-thousand high school students. Last year the entire system had a graduation rate of better than 83-percent. The graduation figure for all of the early and middle colleges last year was 99-percent. Despite the impressive numbers there are some questions. While graduation rates are rising standardized test scores aren't. System wide results are flat or showing a slight decline. Again, Green.

Green: You have more students take the examination, which is a good thing. But those additional students who are taking it may be pulling the overall score down.

Green points out that along with test scores, demand is an issue. Last year 500 students who applied didn't get in due to a lack of space. The other major question is what can translate, and how, from the early and middle college model to larger high schools. Educators admit they don't have an answer to that yet. For those who do get in, the results are almost always good. Amber Kellam is now 20, years removed from constant trouble and fighting at her traditional high school.

Kellam: Uh, this is my G-T-C-C middle college high school ring. What does that ring symbolize, remind you of when you look down at it? It's my accomplishment of what I've done. This is the high school that I'm very proud that I came from. This ring tells me every day how my life changed because of this school.

Kellam is graduating with her associate's degree in Criminal Justice next month. She wants to become a police officer in Greensboro. This fall another early/middle college will open in Guilford County with the goal of giving other students a realistic chance at graduating from high school and moving on.

This story is part of the American Graduate Project series.

Earning A Degree, And A New Life

Monday, April 09 2012 by Dave DeWitt

Roy Dawson (Photo UNC-Chapel Hill)

Eric Hodge: Dropping out of high school is usually a lifelong ticket to a low-paying job, or worse. As more and more businesses require employees to have at least a high-school degree, those who do not are getting left behind. In response, public schools, community colleges, and universities are creating new ways for drop-outs to re-enter the education system. As part of our American Graduate series, Dave DeWitt tells the story of a student who found one of these new roads to success.

Dave DeWitt: School always came easy to Roy Dawson.

Roy Dawson: I can’t really remember ever studying for a test or anything like that, you know.

Roy recalls his early academic life while sitting in a back booth at a strip mall Mexican restaurant in Burlington, a few miles from where he grew up.

All the way through his first two years in high school, Roy was smart enough to get by with ease. But life itself was a little bit harder. Around the time he began his junior year at Eastern Alamance High School, his mom, Delores, started losing the feeling in her arms and legs. Soon, she was bed-ridden. So Roy did the only thing he could, he dropped out of high school to get a job at Boston Sandwich Shop and take care of her.

But he was smart enough to know that dropping out was a bad long-term strategy. So the day after he left high school, he enrolled at Alamance Community College’s Adult High School degree program.

Roy Dawson: There you can clock in and out so that you can work and go to school around your schedule. I think you can go from 7:30 in the morning until 9 at night. So you can work through the day and go to school at night.

When he wasn’t working or going to school, he was home, taking care of his mom, sometimes sleeping at the foot of her bed.

Delores Dawson: Oh, I would not have made it without him. No. I was diagnosed with neuropathy. Was in the bed. Couldn’t get out of bed. Couldn’t even feed myself. I couldn’t even lift my hands, my arms.

Roy got his high school degree in 1999 – the same year he would have if he’d stayed at Eastern Alamance. And with his mom still sick, he bounced around in a series of jobs.

Roy Dawson: …fast food, delivering meat on a meat truck, roofing, was assistant manager in a lube shop, worked in factories in Honda power equipment, maintenance at a hotel, cooking in a hotel, waiting tables, dishwasher, a lot of various jobs that didn’t really have a future in them.During those 8 years, his mom slowly got better. When she went on disability, he went back to Alamance Community College – this time with an eye on an associate’s degree in computer science. One of his first assignments came in an English class - write a personal essay. The teacher made him read it aloud.

Roy Dawson: And like the class loved it. So then, when I left the classroom the professor from the class comes running down the hall and asks me if I was interested in English.

Maria Baskin: Yeah, I said to him I thought he was college material.

Maria Baskin was Roy’s English teacher.

Baskin: You know usually we get excited about great minds. But this one was sort of great everything. And it was lovely to be around him and to listen to him and just watch him bloom and evolve right in front of your eyes. Because he just ate it all up.

Baskin suggested that Roy enroll in a program called C-STEP. At the time, it was a fairly-new effort to identify talented community college students and groom them for admission to UNC Chapel Hill. Even after two stellar academic years at Alamance Community College, waiting for acceptance to UNC was rough.

Delores Dawson: We were waiting for that for so long. I was losing my hair. And so was he.

Roy got in, joining about 100 other students in the program. The early results for C-STEP are encouraging, and they were for Roy, as well. But then he got what, for him, was a demoralizing grade – a B-minus in modern political thought.

Roy Dawson: It was terrible. It was devastating. It was really rough. It really hurt my pride a lot. I put even more effort into the next semester and it picked up and I never got a B minus again.

Roy flourished at Carolina. He met his future wife, and applied to law school. After another anxious waiting period, he learned that he was, in fact, good enough again – this time for UNC’s Law School.

Roy Dawson: Once I got to A.C.C., I saw that I could do well and really saw that a college education and doing well in college is the ticket to being successful and being able to provide for your family the way you’d like to.

And Roy’s success is not his alone.

Delores Dawson: Proud, elated, words just can’t describe it. He’s really the only one of my three kids that’s really gone this far and the only one in the family that went to college and become, you know, a success story.

Roy Dawson’s success story isn’t over yet. The prospect of taking out 120-thousand dollars worth of student loans is enough to give anyone pause, especially if you’re not too far removed from delivering meat on a truck. But Roy says he’s confident his future is bright.

Probably not a good idea to bet against him.

This story is part of the American Graduate Project series.

Background Information about the high school graduation rates in NC

Fifty years ago, few in education cared about graduation rates. Many students dropped out and were able to get well-paying jobs in the furniture or textile industries. But now, those jobs are gone forever, and graduating from high school has become a bare minimum requirement in the knowledge-based economy. 

Like many states, North Carolina was slow to adapt. Until several yeas ago, the state's graduation rate ranked near the bottom nationally. But lately, those numbers have improved. According to the annual Diplomas Count report from Education Week magazine, last year was the first time North Carolina's graduation rate was better than then national average. Educators and policy makers point to several efforts, from Truancy Courts in Halifax County to a Performance Learning Center in Durham that lets at-risk students learn online and on their own schedule, as reasons for the improvement.

More still needs to be done, especially in rural and urban areas, and for African-American males and Latino students, because the rates are still unacceptable: Just 50% of African-American students graduate from high school in four years; only one-third of Latino students earn diplomas. That is the equivalent of 131 students quitting every school day. And the Alliance for Excellent Education reports that, for just one year of dropouts from the class of 2009, North Carolina will fail to benefit from $12 billion in lost lifetime earnings from students who failed to graduate.