Background

Policymakers across the U.S. are increasingly looking for ways to raise student achievement from kindergarten through high school, and improve college access and success. To do this, states are trying to create integrated systems of education in which all levels of education – pre-kindergarten through college – coordinate, communicate and educate as one system instead of several. These efforts have been named most commonly K-16, P-16 and P-20.

According to an Education Commission of the States’ report, ABCs of Investing in Student Performance (1996), children who attend a quality preschool program experience higher rates of graduation and enrollment in postsecondary institutions. Yet there is little coordinated effort to link preschool instruction to elementary school instruction. At the elementary and middle school levels, the U.S. Department of Education’s Mathematics Equals Opportunity (1997) reported that “students who take rigorous mathematics and science courses are much more likely to go to college than those who do not.” Despite this information, college-preparation programs often begin as late as 9th grade.

Regardless of the type of system a state chooses, the goal is the same: to link and coordinate each education level into a seamless system guided by the principle that success in college begins in pre-kindergarten.

Efforts to establish a P-16 Council in Wyoming were tentative until the University of Wyoming’s associate vice president for academic affairs, Rollin Abernethy, joined with Charlie Ware, head of the Wyoming Contractors Association, and Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction Joe Simpson in 2006 to form and serve as executive officers for a nonprofit, non-governmental council. The council then made an application for a two-year, $300,000 federal State Scholars Initiative grant issued through the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, or WICHE, to support the council’s efforts.

According to the State Scholars Initiative web site, SSI “is a national program that motivates students to complete a rigorous course of study in high school, with the goal of better preparing them for success in postsecondary education or training, as well as in their future careers.”

One condition of successful receipt of the grant is that the money be used to partner with businesses. Regardless of grant requirements, the private sector is viewed as integral to the discussion of ways to improve education, and at least three business people have been appointed to an expanded version of the council.

In December 2006, the P-16 Council was awarded the grant, allowing for hiring of a full-time executive director and an assistant. While SSI’s goal is to improve the rigor of high school coursework, it is only one of many goals and priorities the council will pursue.

Here is a preliminary list:

Priority Items of the P-16 Council

1. Encourage high school students to take more rigorous courses as a way to better prepare students for college. While the Hathaway Success Curriculum would seem to fill that role, the P-16 Council prefers to ratchet up coursework even further (an effort known as “Hathaway Plus”). For example, the council would prefer a higher-level math course in the senior year (as opposed to any math course the student chooses under Hathaway) and 3 1/2 years of social studies (up from three). Students who take the Hathaway Plus curriculum could be eligible for federal scholarships and grants above and beyond Hathaway scholarship money.
2. Full implementation of the Wyoming Transcripts Center, which will track students and their coursework from grade school through college. This data system is key to fulfilling the reporting requirements in the Hathaway legislation and will help provide better information for policymakers. For example, it will point out which schools, school districts or classes may have shortcomings. Likewise, it will highlight very successful schools that can be held up as models for lower-performing institutions. It will also give us a better handle on such things as dual enrollment, in which students are concurrently enrolled in a high school and a college course, and getting credit at both levels.
3. Common course taxonomy --- ensuring that each school district is teaching the same material in classes that have the same names. This will fall in line with WDE’s next effort to revise K-12 standards, a process that must, by law, be done every five years.

Other goals include:

• Developing a package of coherent policies at the state, district and school levels that focus on standards-based improvement of student performance.
• Enhancing transition of students from each level of education to the next.
• Communication to and engagement of the public.
• Encouraging more collaboration between higher education and K-12.
• Providing recommendations to the Governor, the Legislature and other top education policymakers.

Five school districts and five businesses in those districts have committed to the State Scholars Initiative effort as partners: Big Horn County School District 3 (Greybull), Fremont County School District 25 (Riverton), Laramie County School District 2 (Burns and Pine Bluffs), Natrona County School District 1 (Casper), and Niobrara County School District 1 (Lusk).