“…we still had only 74% of our freshmen going to tenth grade. … At the end of the first year, 96% of our students went from ninth grade to tenth. … You look for that panacea where every kid gets everything every day, this actually works.”
Assistant Principal Grace King High School Metairie, LA “We wanted to do something about the school’s academic culture starting with the freshman class. [In our second year,] we had a 38% drop [in freshmen with 3 or more Fs], and GPAs went up 15%.”
Principal Indio High School Indio, CA “The world is changing…and that’s why we started a Freshman Transition program [using Career Choices]. … We have seen a significant increase in the number of students taking AP courses, and I think there’s more focus academically across our campus.”
Principal Carpinteria High School Carpinteria, CA
English Teacher Muncie Southside High School Muncie, IN "Overall, I feel the usage of these materials helped my students to see the relevance of English to their lives and...caused them to be more conscious of the quality of their assignments and the importance of doing well in school."
Applied Communications/Creative Writing Teacher Horn Lake High School Horn Lake, MS |
“We’ve had a history of depressed graduation rates. … We’ve been implementing the Career Choices program since 2007, and we’ve seen some very remarkable results. Our 2009 graduation rate hovered around 53%. The first cohort that was exposed to the Career Choices program had a graduation rate of 63%. The second cohort that was exposed to the Career Choices program, which graduated 2011-2012 school year, had an 83% graduation rate.”
Lead Teacher Poughkeepsie High School Poughkeepsie, NY “I don’t have a dropout problem, I have an achievement problem. … [After implementing this Freshman Transition program], we took our failure rate from approximately 50% for our freshman class to 35%.”
Principal Rahway High School Rahway, NJ “Most of the time when students, even good students, complete high school they still don’t have a clear picture or focus about what they want to be or what their major should be. But students who come to college knowing what they want to be and having researched that are going to finish—and that’s huge. That’s why [Santa Barbara City College has made] the investment in the ninth grade course.”
Dean, Educational Programs Santa Barbara City College Santa Barbara, CA "[T]he Possibilities text allowed them to experience an advanced selection of literature. Students at our level do not get challenged by the material; your program allowed us to challenge them."
English Teacher Carl Sandburg High School Orland Park, IL |