4-state school plan seeks innovations

AUGUSTA, Maine—Four New England states, including Rhode Island, are forming a partnership that hopes to boost graduation and decrease dropout rates, while putting more emphasis on learning experiences outside the traditional classroom.

With a $1 million grant, the New England Secondary School Consortium will scrutinize current practices and hear details of innovations taken by schools in the participating states: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Rhode Island.

Besides boosting the graduation rate to 90 percent and decreasing the dropout rate to less than 1 percent, the consortium has set goals to bolster enrollment of students in two- or four-year colleges to 80 percent.

In addition, it seeks to reduce the need for college remedial courses to 5 percent and ensure that more students who enter college graduate.

“As a state and a region, one of the greatest challenges before us is improving student performance, particularly in secondary grades,“ Rhode Island Gov. Don Carcieri said in a written statement Monday.

The consortium envisions high schools in which students conduct research in their communities, acquire skills through internships and take online and on-campus college courses

The $1 million grant for the consortium comes from the from Nellie Mae Education Foundation, the largest philanthropy in New England focused exclusively on education. It includes a $500,000 partnership grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.