Governor Announces Multi-state Effort to Prepare Students

for Success in the 21st Century

 

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Governor Douglas announced the formation of the New England Secondary School Consortium, a groundbreaking regional partnership encompassing four states: Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The Consortium is funded by a $1 million grant from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation (including a partnership grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation).

 

“This important collaboration will bring resources and expertise to Vermont in order to provide the best possible education for our high school students,” said Governor Douglas.  “By working together, our small states can make a big difference for our future citizens. Recognizing that collaboration and regionalization will be the engines of educational transformation over the coming decades, the Consortium intends to become a multi-state initiative that can serve as a national model.”

 

Coordinated by the Great Schools Partnership at the Mitchell Institute of Portland, Maine, the Consortium will bring together their departments of education, districts, and high schools with independent school-support organizations and educational leaders from across New England in a far-reaching regional alliance. The group will share resources, talents, and expertise while exploring cost-saving efficiencies in pursuit of a common mission: ensure that by 2016 every public high school student in the four states will receive an education that will prepare them for college, career, and civic responsibility in the interconnected global community of the 21st century.

 

“All four of the states have made great strides on their own in recent years, but together we can reach every student in every school,” said Bill Talbott, Vermont’s Acting Commissioner of Education. “For more than a year, we have been laying the groundwork for this important partnership. We know that we share the same goals and that we can work together effectively. This important grant will help us advance our transformation work from vision to implementation.”

 

Recognizing that the traditional ways of educating students are no longer aligned with today’s civic and professional expectations, and that the time has come to rethink the traditional American high school experience on a regional scale, the Consortium will support the development of high-performing, internationally competitive schools and new learning experiences that will better mirror the lives and learning needs of today’s students. These transformed schools will no longer be limited by building design, geography, or educational convention, but will be flexible, borderless, multidimensional community learning centers that blend secondary and postsecondary education—students will conduct research in their communities, acquire real-world skills through challenging internships, take online and on-campus college courses, use powerful new technologies to access the world, and engage in other innovative learning opportunities both inside and outside the classroom.

 

During the initial eighteen-month phase of this multi-year effort, participating states will conduct a comprehensive review of the rules, regulations, and laws governing education. The resulting policy map will inform development of new state and local policies that will stimulate educational innovation, encourage implementation of new models of teaching and learning, require personalized support for each student, and clarify performance expectations for both educators and students.

 

The Consortium will also undertake a wide-ranging examination of state learning standards, teaching strategies, assessment practices, professional development programs, and student outcomes in relation to the highest-performing international educational systems.

 

A steering council consisting of representatives from governors’ offices and key legislative, education, and business leaders will be established to guide and build support for the Consortium’s work. For more information visit http://www.newenglandssc.org.

 

 

This article was adapted from a Department of Education press release.