President George W. Bush announced his intent to nominate Susan Sclafani as Assistant Secretary for the Office of Vocational and Adult Education and concurrently designated her as Acting Assistant Secretary on September 3, 2003. Susan is not a newcomer to the U.S. Department of Education. Until September 3rd, she had been serving as Counselor to the Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, and she will continue in that role.

OVAE is fortunate to have Susan as its Acting Assistant Secretary as she not only brings added dimension to the role through her capacity as a trusted senior policy advisor to the Secretary, but also because she has years of practical experience as a former teacher and administrator.

In Houston, TX, where she served as Chief of Staff to then Superintendent Rod Paige, she supervised the Career and Technology Education (CATE) program. A variety of opportunities for students were provided under the program, including tech prep and other joint programs with the Houston Community College. Students engaged in the Houston CATE program had higher grade point averages and attendance rates, and were more likely to graduate than similarly situated students who were not in the program. During her tenure, many high schools in the Houston Independent School District participated in the High Schools That Work Network to improve student performance.

In her new role as Acting Assistant Secretary of the Office of Vocational and Adult Education, Susan recommends and implements the administration’s policies and priorities to ensure that all Americans have the knowledge and technical skills necessary to succeed in post secondary education and in the work force.

Susan has already demonstrated her commitment to "Leaving No Child Behind" in her role as Counselor to the Secretary. She looks forward to bringing that same dedication to her new role as Acting Assistant Secretary of OVAE, to guarantee that every student - regardless of age, background, or aspiration – has access to a quality education.

An increasingly precious California resource abounds at the Bravo Medical Magnet High School in East Los Angeles: eager, hard-working young people who have the drive and academic foundation required to become the doctors, nurses, lab technicians, and other health care professionals the state will need to care for its growing population.

Like many states, California is grappling with a shortage of workers in many health occupations. The problem threatens to become more difficult over the next decade as more health care professionals retire and an aging population boosts the demand for health care. Some analysts have concluded that heading off this crisis will require far more than stepping up efforts to interest more youth in health careers. To meet the state’s current and projected health workforce needs, they say, California must improve the quality of its public education system and provide many more students with the rigorous academic preparation needed to enter and complete pre-med, nursing, and other health career programs in postsecondary education. In a 2001 report on the state’s nursing shortage, analysts at the University of California Center for the Health Professions put it bluntly: "The state of California’s public education system is a social and economic problem, but it has the potential to become a public health problem as well if we continue to be unable to produce sufficient numbers of well-educated graduates of the K–12 system to enter professional training."

Helping all young Californians achieve at a high level is a formidable challenge, but there are thoughtful and creative educators throughout the state who can help point the way. The administrators and teachers at Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet are a great place to start. For more than a decade, the school has been defying the odds, providing thousands of predominantly minority and low-income students with the solid academic and technical foundation they need to pursue careers in health care.

Bravo began modestly in 1981 as a health sciences magnet program that was launched in partnership with the University of Southern California’s (USC) Keck School of Medicine at a nearby high school. Parents and students responded enthusiastically to the program’s high expectations and rigorous standards. Initially serving fewer than 100 students, the program grew quickly over the next several years until, by the end of the decade, it finally outgrew its original home. In 1990, Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School opened its doors on a new campus adjacent to the Keck School of Medicine.

Today, Bravo serves over 1,700 students, 86 percent of whom are from low-income families. The student body is diverse: 57 percent of students are Hispanic, 19 percent are white, 12 percent are Asian, 9 percent are Filipino, and 3 percent are African-Americans. Thirteen percent of Bravo’s students are English Language Learners. All of Bravo’s students are expected to master a demanding curriculum that is rich in math and science courses and health-themed electives. Eleven different Advanced Placement (AP) courses are offered to juniors and seniors, including U.S. history, biology, chemistry, calculus, statistics, and physics. For the large percentage of its students who take AP exams, Bravo has been consistently ranked among Newsweek’s "top high schools."

Faculty from the Keck School and other USC institutions, including the USC Allied Health Sciences Campus and the Norris Cancer Research Center, are partners in the education of Bravo students, collaborating with Bravo teachers on lesson plans and lab assignments and providing lab facilities for some projects. The USC University Hospital provides a wide range of job shadowing and work-based learning opportunities for students. The USC School of Pharmacy’s Science, Technology, and Research (STAR) program provides opportunities for students in every grade to conduct experimental research. USC graduate student mentors work with teams of Bravo students to design and carry out research projects that may last as long as a year. Students present the results of their work to USC faculty at an annual science fair. STAR also gives advanced students opportunities to work as lab assistants for USC scientists.

Though Bravo’s curriculum may suggest otherwise, the high school is anything but an elite institution. Students are selected by lottery, without regard for their prior academic achievement, and the school takes special pride in its success in helping students with lower level skills excel. Rosa Maria Hernandez, one of Bravo’s founders and its principal for 14 years, explains that “the measure of the success of Bravo is not how many bright, 4.0 GPA students we attract, but how many successful students we graduate. If we’re doing that, then we’re meeting our challenge. It’s not about the brightest and the best and the freshman class with the top scores, but raising the scores as the students move through Bravo, helping make the dream possible for any student who comes here.” Teachers and counselors carefully monitor how each student fares in Bravo’s demanding, high expectations environment. Tutoring and other academic support is provided to students who need extra help.

Bravo students are meeting the high expectations that Bravo’s teachers and staff have set for them. During the 2002-03 school year:

• Bravo students passed the state’s high school examinations in English/language arts (ELA) and mathematics at significantly higher rates than their peers statewide. The school’s economically disadvantaged students actually outperformed non-disadvantaged California students on the two exams.



• Bravo’s economically disadvantaged students performed about as well or slightly better than non-disadvantaged students statewide on the California Standards Tests, which are administered to students following their completion of specific academic courses. Bravo’s economically disadvantaged students outperformed non-disadvantaged students statewide on the U.S. history and biology exams, and performed about as well as non-disadvantaged students on the chemistry exam.



• Nearly all Bravo seniors took the SAT or ACT exams. One-third of Bravo’s students earned an average SAT I score of 1,000 or higher, in contrast to 19 percent of students statewide, and 22 percent earned an ACT score of 21 or higher, in contrast to 5 percent of students statewide.



• About 87 percent of Bravo graduates went on to enroll in a 4- or 2-year institution of higher education.

Not surprisingly, at the end of the 2002-03 school year, Bravo ranked among the top 20 percent of California high schools on the state’s Academic Performance Index, and among the top 10 percent of high schools whose students have similar demographic characteristics.

Long-time Bravo leader Hernandez recently left the school to accept a new position with the Los Angeles Unified School District, giving her an opportunity to help many more schools rise to the level of excellence at Bravo. Her former students have high expectations of their own for what she will achieve. An anonymous Bravo student recently left Hernandez this message on the website Ratemyteachers.com:

Thanks for everything, especially creating Bravo :) Best wishes in the LAUSD and I hope you become superintendent!

References

• Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School
  http://bravoweb.lausd.k12.ca.us/



• USC STAR Program
  http://www.usc.edu/hsc/



• Dower C, McRee T, Briggance B, O'Neil E. Diversifying the Nursing Workforce: A California Imperative. San Francisco, CA: California Workforce Initiative at the UCSF Center for the Health Professions. February 2001. Available at http://www.futurehealth.ucsf.edu/

Secretary Rod Paige, Acting Deputy Secretary Gene Hickok, and Acting Assistant Secretary Susan Sclafani were among many leaders who spoke at The U.S. Department of Education's High School Leadership Summit held on October 8, 2003 in Washington, DC. The Summit attracted over 700 policy makers, education leaders, and educators from across the country to learn and share about setting high expectations and accountability for results, creating options and engaging students, fostering world-quality teaching and school leadership, and making smooth transitions into postsecondary education, training, and careers.

Secretary Paige has made high school reform a high priority. In his remarks at the Summit, he said, "High schools of all sizes and shapes need improvement. No one should be complacent. School leaders must set challenging expectations for all students, and engage them with learning." At the Summit, Secretary Paige also announced a new leadership initiative for improving high schools called Preparing America's Future. In regard to the new initiative, Secretary Paige said, "Today begins a national dialogue on the state of our high schools, and what we need to do to improve them. The first step was bringing you together - the leaders in reforming our nation's high schools. We will work closely with parents, teachers, principals, education policymakers, elected leaders, and foundations to create this nation's next generation of high schools."

In the time since the Summit, the Department has begun planning for the Secretary's High School Initiative and has followed up on the Summit by working to post the Summit's Issue Papers, speaker presentations, and transcripts online. The Summit's web cast is currently online, and most resources will be available soon, at www.ed.gov/highschool.

A new study, MixedMessages: What State High School Tests Communicate about Student Readiness for College, reports that the content of state tests seldom aligns with the knowledge and skills that universities expect from entering students. Released by the Standards for Success project, researchers analyzed the relationship of 66 tests in 20 states to the Knowledge and Skills for University Success (KSUS) standards developed for the ongoing project. Kentucky, Missouri, and Oregon had the most alignment.

The data section includes test names, evaluation of alignment with the KSUS, the grade when it is administered, the type and number of items in the test, and the year it was released.

Recommendations for state policymakers include the following: more data relating student scores and subsequent performance in college; the addition of optional items for college-bound students; assessment of more complex cognitive skills; and collaboration with postsecondary institutions when revising state tests.

You hear it all the time. How should academic achievement be measured? How should work skills or readiness for the workplace be measured? How do or should schools and school districts use assessment information to improve student performance? The Office of Vocational and Adult Education has a long history of working with states and other grantees to assist in addressing these and other important issues. The passage of the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act (Perkins III) in 1998 imposed more stringent assessment issues and a more specific set of data collection requirements. Under Perkins III, OVAE currently collects data on 14 performance indicators and sub-indicators, and produces an annual report to Congress. With the enactment of the No Child Left Behind legislation in early 2002 and with the impending consideration and enactment of new legislation to replace Perkins III, OVAE has been working with states to determine how a new generation of assessment issues and the data and data collection issues associated with these assessment issues can be addressed most effectively. Many readers already know of these activities.

In addition to the Office of Vocational and Adult Education’s current outreach activities, we have been conducting bi-weekly "Next Steps" working group conference calls with data experts on career-technical education at the state level involving both secondary and postsecondary experts. Through this mechanism, OVAE has gathered a great deal of useful information about state perspectives and issues regarding accountability and data collection. In late 2002, OVAE decided it needed to take additional measures to consult with the states. From this arose what has come to be called the Performance Measurement Initiative (PMI) that OVAE has undertaken with the Academy for Educational Development (AED) as its principal contractor. The objective of PMI is to enhance the ability of states, districts, postsecondary institutions, and secondary schools to gather and report data on students’ academic performance, skill attainment, and ability to smoothly transfer to postsecondary education or employment. More recently, due to the fact that legislation to replace Perkins III is not immediately on the horizon, the PMI’s current explorations have shifted to identifying and exploring the viability of various approaches to implementing an exemplary new performance accountability system focusing on Career Technical Education. Arizona, Florida, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, and Pennsylvania were chosen through a competitive process to represent the state, district, and local points of view in this exploration.

Work on the PMI is well underway. Early on, AED assembled a team of expert advisors – the Accountability and Assessment Working Group (AAWG) – to advise OVAE and AED on the most important issues to be addressed in the PMI. The AED then began extensive consultation with the six states chosen to participate in the initiative. Following these introductory conversations with states, the first State Forum was convened September 30th through October 1st 2003. Several representatives from each state –representing the state, district, and local perspectives, and both secondary and postsecondary education – met with AED staff, selected experts, and OVAE staff to begin a thorough discussion of the pertinent issues and problems. A number of open, frank, and constructive discussions took place where all the major issues, concerns, and problems were put on the table. The next planning session between OVAE and AED is scheduled for later this month. At that time, OVAE and AED will take stock of what we have learned to date, and a decision will be made about how best to proceed. The target will be how best to obtain quality data on and address four key indicators: academic performance, technical skills achievement, transition between secondary and postsecondary education, and postsecondary completion. The focus will be on the content, the quality, and the cost of various data collection and measurement approaches for each indicator. These efforts will supplement the on-going efforts of OVAE to fulfill its responsibilities regarding data collection, assessment, and reporting under Perkins III and its successor. The goal is to move states toward better measures and performance accountability systems that will conform to the requirements and needs of the successor to Perkins III.

The recent second annual Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) report explores student connections in the learning process, and focuses on strategies that promote high levels of student learning and retention. Based on institutional data, national data, and student surveys at 93 colleges, the key findings section examines five benchmarks of effective educational practice: active and collaborative learning, student effort, academic challenge, student-faculty interaction, and support for learners. Students gave relatively high marks to faculty interaction and collaborative learning, and indicated the most dissatisfaction with student services such as career counseling, job placement, financial-aid advising, and credit-transfer assistance. The CCSSE website also includes college profiles and a searchable database, allowing educators to identify strong practices at similar institutions.

U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige announced in September the award of Community Technology grants totaling over $32 million. The purpose of these grants is to create or expand existing community technology centers (CTC) to provide access to information technology and training for thousands of low-income residents in economically distressed urban and rural communities throughout the country. There are a total of 78 awardees, 57 in the non-novice category and 21 in the novice category. Twenty-five percent of the funding has been appropriated to novice grantees.

The most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data points out that, despite some progress in secondary student achievement over the past few decades, many of our secondary school students are still not achieving the academic skills and knowledge required for graduation, postsecondary education, and careers.

In keeping with the No Child Left Behind Act which stipulates that all students attain proficiency in challenging State academic achievement standards, this program will emphasize increased academic achievement for low-achieving secondary school students in the core academic subjects of reading, language arts, and mathematics.

All grantees have partnerships with local schools and community-based organizations, which jointly will provide academic and social services to students and residents of disadvantaged communities, and high-poverty, low-performing schools. Community Technology Centers will serve as educational community resource centers for parents and other community members who want to take advantage of training, career development, enrichment, or other instructional services offered by the centers.

For more information on this grant program, visit the website at: http://www.ed.gov/programs/comtechcenters/index.html

On December 11, Acting Assistant Secretary Susan Sclafani and Deputy Assistant Secretary Hans Meeder will be participating in the Association for Career Technical Education's annual conference in Orlando, Florida. Susan will be addressing the plenary session of several thousand career technical educators and administrators. In her remarks, she will discuss the need for a 21st century American workforce that possesses strong academic and technical skills and the important role of career technical education in helping to prepare our youth and to assist adults in successfully navigating career transitions. Later that day, Hans will make a presentation that focuses on the key challenges and policy objectives that educators and policymakers need to address as they seek to continue enhancing the quality of career technical education programs.

The 2003 Workplace Learning Conference, of which the Office of Vocational and Adult Education is a major sponsor, will be taking place December 7th through the 10th in Chicago, Illinois. Acting Assistant Secretary Susan Sclafani will provide plenary remarks for the conferees on the afternoon of the 9th. Her participation reflects the Bush Administration’s commitment to expanding workplace education in America. In addition to Susan’s remarks, OVAE is presenting a special strand of conference workshops entitled Preparing America’s Future: Basic Skills for the Workplace. The strand will contain special features, including legislative updates, and will showcase programs that support the principles in The Blueprint for Preparing America’s Future.

The strand will address a broad spectrum of issues and resources in work-based education. For example, expanding access and choice in adult education is the focus of Pima County Community College’s Workplace Education Program (PACE). Representatives from PACE will share successful techniques in marketing adult education programs on a fee-for-service basis, networking with key local business leaders to sell services, developing contextual and participatory curricula, and conducting other high value-added program activities.

A Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System (CASAS) presentation outlining how Connecticut adult education programs are collaborating with employers supports the goal of performance accountability. The session covers identifying workplace basic skills using standardized tools, providing customized and targeted instruction, and measuring basic skills required in a variety of industrial applications. The CASAS presentation will demonstrate new standardized, workplace-based reading and math assessments—as well as performance-based measures for writing and speaking.

Also this year, OVAE has commissioned a review of the "state-of-the states" in workplace education. The findings on strategies for improving the delivery of work-based adult education will be discussed during the concurrent breakout sessions in the OVAE strand. One such finding is this: key states are building out workplace education programs in ways that support Blueprint principles. States actively are directing their funds to workplace education projects meeting unique needs of participating employers. Nearly half of the states responding to OVAE’s inquiries used 100% state adult education funds—or combined them with only limited investments of federal adult education funds—to support workforce learning. The secrets of their success can benefit other states in expanding access to quality adult education services.

If you would like more information about the conference, please go to the Workplace Learning Conference 2003 website: http://www.workplace-learning.net/