Who runs NGLs?
In an NGL, who has final say over what is taught in the classroom?
How will NGLs change the way schools are run?
How much influence do businesses have over schools in an NGL?
How well do NGLs maintain academic standards?
How do NGLs improve education?
Who runs NGLs?
Next Generation Learning Communities are regional alliances of education, business, and civic leaders united in the cause of improving education and strengthening the local workforce. These coalitions can be organized in various ways but must include a broad partnership of all significant players in the community—K–12 and postsecondary educators, leaders from business and industry, and government officials—to effectively produce change. Participants must share a dedication to educational excellence and a conviction that relevant and rigorous education organized on a career academy model can best motivate and prepare students for success.
In an NGL, who has final say over what is taught in the classroom?
School administrators and teachers run the schools in NGLs, and teachers are responsible for what goes on in the classroom. While skills and knowledge taught in NGL classrooms are fundamentally the same, they are taught in the context of students’ future careers and success.
How will NGLs change the way schools are run?
NGLs set up career academies in schools based on sectors of the economy that have been identified as priorities for local workforce development. Curricula in the context of these prioritized career clusters is integrated into academic instruction and rigorous career and technical education (CTE) instruction in the career academies.
How much influence do businesses have over schools in an NGL?
Business support and input into decisions on curricula, equipment, and building are part of the collaborative, community-wide organization of NGLs, with the shared commitment on the part of all partners in the NGL to academic independence, academic excellence and student success.
How well do NGLs maintain academic standards?
NGLs improve academic results across the board. Ninety percent of students in the 34 career academies in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, area graduate from high school and 60 percent go on to college. A study of career academies in the San Francisco Bay area in 2000 found that students enrolled in career academies had higher grade point averages than non-career academy students in the same schools, as well as lower drop-out rates, higher test scores, and higher numbers of students continuing on to postsecondary instruction.
The Sacramento, California, NGL, in which all students attend career academies, boosted graduation rates and numbers of students taking the SAT, and lowered drop-outs, expulsions, and suspensions, in the four years since the NGL was established.
How do NGLs improve education?
NGLs improve education by motivating students to succeed. NGLs connect what students learn with their ability to realize their personal career ambitions. NGLs give the individual student a clear reason to come to school and pursue an education.
NGLs improve the educational atmosphere and the daily lives of educators by motivating students and pulling education into exciting new interactions with learning in the world of work and at the postsecondary level. Teachers, administrators, and students all benefit from a refocused and revitalized approach to education.