Three New Hampshire secondary schools—Great Bay eLearning Charter School, Nashua High Schools North, and Virtual Learning Academy Charter School—have been invited to represent their state at a regional conference on effective strategies for improving teaching and learning in the 21st century. The conference, High School Redesign in Action (newenglandssc.org/conference), will take place on April 9, 2010, and is sponsored by the New England Secondary School Consortium in collaboration with the departments of education for New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The New England Secondary School Consortium is a regional educational partnership committed to fostering forward-thinking innovations in the design and delivery of public secondary education across the region.

High School Redesign in Action will bring together teams of high school educators in Nashua, New Hampshire, to exchange effective school-improvement programs and practices with their colleagues from across New England. The Consortium’s goal is to ensure that every public high school student in the five partner states receives an education that will prepare them for success in the colleges, careers, and communities of the 21st century, and each participating school was selected by Consortium leaders as models of proven educational innovation. All the selected schools have made significant progress raising student achievement, graduation rates, or college-enrollment numbers, among other indicators of educational accomplishment. More than 80 educators from across New Hampshire will be attending the conference.

“We are excited and proud of the schools that were invited to showcase their work at this conference,” said Virginia Barry, New Hampshire Commissioner of Education. "In the 21st century, the one-size- fits-all approach to education is simply not going to work, and these schools represent some of the innovative approaches our public schools are taking to educate today's youth. It’s heartening and inspiring to know that our state has such devoted school leaders and teachers committed to making sure our students leave high school prepared for success in adult life.”

The Virtual Learning Academy Charter School is an entirely online school based in Exeter, New Hampshire that provides an innovative approach to teaching and learning in the 21st century through personalized, online courses and programs. During its first two years of operation, the school has grown from 700 to more than 7,000 course enrollments, making next-generation learning opportunities available to diversity of students and schools throughout New Hampshire and even New England.

Founded six years ago, the Great Bay eLearning Charter School is committed to supporting the learning and success of an eclectic mix of students with diverse learning styles and backgrounds. The

school’s strong, student-centered culture values the uniqueness of every individual and empowers students to take an active role in shaping their education and future.

Nashua High Schools North and South have developed innovative assessments for measuring student learning and academic progress in reading and math in 8th, 9th, and 10th grades. The data collected from these tests have helped school leaders identify struggling students and make appropriate adjustments to lessons, teaching, and professional development. Over the past two years, the results of this program have been dramatic, including significant increases in reading and writing scores, with rising scores in mathematics as well.

“We are truly honored to be able to share the impressive work these remarkable high schools are doing,” said David Ruff, executive director of the Great Schools Partnership, the New England Secondary School Consortium’s lead coordinating organization. “As a regional partnership, the Consortium is bringing together educators from across the region to achieve the common goals that our principals and teachers all individually work toward every day. This conference is evidence that New England has a wealth of talented educators, and that we can come together across state lines to exchange the effective strategies we truly know will work for our students.”

The Consortium is funded by the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, the largest philanthropy in New England focused exclusively on education, and coordinated by Great Schools Partnership, a nonprofit educational-support organization in Portland, Maine. The Nellie Mae Education Foundation has committed $1 million to support the initial eighteen months of the Consortium’s work, which includes a $500,000 partnership grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.