The Magic of the Absence Addiction Approach

The Magic of the Absence Addiction Approach: A proven response to student engagement and retention

The Absence Addiction Approach is a proven response to meeting the needs for secondary student engagement. With the proper commitment of all in the school setting, all students can be linked to the pathways of their life journey. The teaching of readin and writing and rithmatic is conducted in a school context that can be enriched by adding school cultural adjustments that enhance the success factor of the students and the staff.

It is my deep belief that the biggest factor in the assisted completion of the high school curriculum or course of study is the affective relationship of the student intra-personally and extra -personally. My next deeply held belief is that every secondary school in the United States has the potential to assist the graduation of every student who enters its doors. Any high school staff or concerned parent group or central office staff that wants more “kids” to graduate has all of the ingredients for attaining that outcome already. Each school setting must create the culture essential to the student outcomes it professes for all of its children.

“The Absence Addiction Approach (AAA) is a proven response to meeting the needs for secondary student engagement. “ This statement is repeated to bridge to the creation of an award winning conceptualization for the purpose of empowering students to take control of their success factor in the school setting. Using this process for student re-engagement, the measurable retention rate for students at risk of discontinuing from the high school setting rose to one of the highest reported in the state of Colorado. This retention growth was verified by the Colorado Department of Education and Denver Post reporter Bernie Morrison.

The content for the change in the curricular instruction for targeted students is driven by de-briefing students about their school behavior patterns in ways that permitted them to objectify rather than personalize past successes or failures in the school setting.
Next, brief lessons in the repetition of behavioral patterns are given as information. This imparting of information about personal choice assists the eagle’s view or balcony approach. This is energizing because it frees the energy being sapped by the student remaining equal to her least effective school performance. Next of course is the goal-setting. It is impossible for students to set meaningful goals with inhibiting barriers intruding on the success tract. Inherent in this educational approach is that both the staff and student can change to create new academic outcomes.
The third significant step in the AAA is the establishment of means to support the students and staff in managing change. In one case, this may mean some type of weekly or daily re-enforcement for change in the academic achievement gulf for targeted students. It may also mean some type of initially frequent re-enforcement for appropriate staff members. It is important that the majority of the staff involved is certificated elders in the instructional village also known as a school.
The fourth step is frequent assessment of the attainment of staff and student change goals. And in between practice, practice, practice.

The process above assisted in my selection for the National Educational Leadership Award given by the Milken Foundation and the Colorado Governor’s Award as Outstanding Individual

Why Small High Schools Movement Alone Will Not Improve Student Achievement

David H. Hoff writes in Ed Week that high schools funded for "smaller learning communities" cannot definitively say that ,to paraphrase, student achievement is improving in the funded small high school setting
The report, released by the US Department of Education, finds "no significant trends
in achievement on state tests or college entrance exams"
In my mind, growth in student achievement and assessment is driven by instructional competence and quality. Engaged students learn best. Heightened assessment performance is driven by leveraging the quality of instruction and maximum student focus on the learning task at hand.
In closing, one on one instruction fails if the quality of instructional competence and student engagement is low. So no, a smaller high school is not guarantee of greater student achievement.

The Robin Hood Effect of NCLB?

Sam Dillon, writer for the New York Times, writes the following in Wednesday's New York Times, June 18, 2008
" A new study argues that the nation's focus on helping students who are furtherest behind may have provided a Robin Hood Effect, yielding steady academic gain for low achieving students in recent years at the expense of top students"
What? One wonders why the research dots are connected so that the above conclusion might be reached?
On one level, lets take the high schools. Top students tend to have highly qualified teachers. These teachers meet the standards in some cases for teaching advanced placement classes. Such teachers, because of their qualifications, may not maintain a teaching schedule that includes academically underachieving students.
On another level, lets look at lesson planning. Are we saying that classroom teachers do no planning for any students but the low achieving? Thus, the improvement in scores for that demographic? Really? My reality is such that the high achieving student requires the most extensive planning to address the depth of curriculum content that their intellect and cumulative knowledge requires.
Hmmmmmm-more to come on this topic