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Resource

Great American High School: Reforming the Nation’s Remaining Low-Performing High Schools

October 04, 2018

Great American High School Campaign report coverThrough much of the last century, high schools served as a driver of individual mobility and community progress. Today, however, in too many school districts and communities, high schools are no longer fulfilling that promise. There remain about 1,300 traditional high schools in need of serious improvement and redesign. With an average graduation rate of 49 percent, these low-graduation-rate high schools are concentrated in 18 states from the inner city to the heartland and sit at the fault lines of race, class, and inequity in America.

At the same time, clear rays of hope exist. Over the last two decades, the number of low-performing high schools has been cut in half, as high school graduation rates have reached an all-time high. While graduation at the remaining low-performing high schools still is just a 50-50 proposition, these schools make up a small percentage of high schools throughout the country, totaling just 10 percent of all traditional high schools enrolling 300 or more students.

From this progress, a clear vision emerges on how high schools can be reformed to once again serve as engines of economic and community development. This is why the Great American High School report, authored by Civic Enterprises and the Everyone Graduates Center at the Johns Hopkins University, was released in partnership with America’s Promise Alliance and the Alliance for Excellent Education, as part of the GradNation campaign working to increase the national on-time graduation rate to 90 percent.   

The report identifies the progress made and remaining challenges in enabling all students to graduate from high school ready for college or career; documents the scale, scope, and location of the remaining low-performing high schools; shows the challenges these schools face; details what we know about effective and evidence-based high school reform; and lays out a path forward for high school redesign in the communities and school districts that need further support.


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About the Authors

Civic
Civic

Civic Enterprises is a public policy and strategy firm that helps corporations, nonprofits, foundations, universities, and governments develop and spearhead innovative public policies to strengthen our communities and country. Created to enlist the private, public, and nonprofit sectors to help address our nation’s toughest problems, Civic Enterprises fashions new initiatives and strategies that achieve measurable results in the fields of education, civic engagement, economic mobility, and many other domestic policy issues. http://civicllc.net/.

Everyone Graduates Center
Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University

The Everyone Graduates Center is part of the Center for Social Organization of Schools at the School of Education at Johns Hopkins University. The mission of the Everyone Graduates Center is to develop and disseminate the know-how required to enable all students to graduate from high school prepared for college, career, and civic life. Through a systematic and comprehensive approach, EGC combines analysis of the causes, location, and consequences of the nation’s dropout crisis with the development of tools and models designed to keep all students on the path to high school graduation, and capacity building efforts to enable states, communities, school districts, and schools to provide all their students with the supports they need to succeed. The Everyone Graduate Center seeks to identify the barriers that stand in the way of all students graduating from high school prepared for adult success, to develop strategic solutions to overcome the barriers, and to build local capacity to implement and sustain them.

Grad Rate Data Using Data Special Populations Low-Income Hispanic/Latino Rural
The 5 Promises

The 5 Promises represent conditions children need to achieve adult success. The collective work of the Alliance involves keeping these promises to America’s youth. This article relates to the promises highlighted below:

Caring Adults Caring Adults Safe Places Safe Places A Healthy Start A Healthy Start Effective Education Effective Education Opportunities to Help Others Opportunities to Help Others

Other Resources

January 28, 2020
Creating Cultures of Care: Supporting the Whole Child through Trauma-Informed Practice
April 24, 2019
Achieving a 90 Percent Graduation Rate Webinar: Making Effective Work-Based Learning Real for All Students
April 08, 2019
Building Systems of Integrated Student Support
March 29, 2019
The District Resource Center supports systemic SEL implementation
March 12, 2019
From A Nation At Risk: To A Nation At Hope
January 31, 2019
Using Policy to Create Healthy Schools: Resources to Support Policymakers and Advocates
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