Academic Studio Full-Day School Receives Letter Grade “A” From The State Department of Education
The New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) received historic news from the State Department of Education. As the prestigious arts high school begins its celebration of its 40th anniversary year, NOCCA received the classification of “A” for its innovative Academic Studio full-day academic program. NOCCA is one of 187 schools across the state to receive this distinction. NOCCA is one of three high schools in Orleans Parish to receive an “A” grade and the only open-enrollment high school.
“Building on decades of success in arts instruction, NOCCA leads open enrollment schools in academic achievement,” stated Chief Academic Officer Brian Dassler on the results. “The Department of Education’s ‘A’ grade confirms what we already learned from our students and faculty: NOCCA’s learning-by-doing instructional model is a successful approach to school reform in New Orleans.”
Also, President|CEO Kyle Wedberg stated, “Our work has just begun. This is just a sign that we are on the right path in the right direction, but we want more for these students and expect more of ourselves than just a moment in time grade could ever show.”
About NOCCA’s Academic Studio Full-Day School
The Academic Studio is NOCCA’s full-day, diploma-granting high school preparing students admitted by arts audition, but without regard to current or past academic achievement, for successful careers as leaders in the arts. The instructional model, in contrast to the “sit and get and give it back” approach of traditional high schools, is inspired by the arts and emphasizes collaboration, project-based learning, inquiry and critical thinking. NOCCA accepts students to its full-day school Academic Studio, by a blind arts audition.
In addition to the credits students earn in their respective arts disciplines, students in the Academic Studio take two double-block academic courses per year: Integrated Humanities I-IV and Integrated Sciences I-IV. Students also earn two credits of a language of their choice and other required electives including health and physical education – as required for high school graduation and TOPS eligibility.
The nature of the courses combine the study of English and history and math and science so that students are actually earning credits in the respective subjects but doing so in an integrated, team-taught environment. Academic Studio students are required to take and pass all of the same End-of-Course exams required of other public high school students in Louisiana. In only its second year, for example, the Academic Studio ranked among the state of Louisiana’s top open enrollment high schools.
In the Academic Studio
- Students read literature, examine visual culture, study the arts, look at primary documents, and read social and political theory that is situated historically or thematically within a field of study at any given time, so that students’ encounters with the arts, governments, economies, religions, social life, and cultural production are contextualized.
- Faculty foster an expectation that students develop certain habits of mind that privilege questioning, critical and creative thinking, analysis, and attention to evidence that are imperative for being artists and intellectuals who are actively and critically engaged in the world around them.
- Classes are taught through a variety of pedagogical techniques, all of which are characterized by active, hands-on projects and activities in which students learn by doing and by thinking out loud, formulating their own ideas about topics they research and engaging in dialogue about those ideas with their peers and their instructors.
The approach to teaching, learning and student support in the Academic Studio has proven incredibly successful.
- 99% of students passed End-of-Course tests in 2012-13 school year, 80%+ at the highest two levels.
- 85%+ of students scored at a college ready level on the PLAN test at the end of only two years.
- Students experienced double digit growth from the beginning of the year to the end of the year in every grade and in every subject on the EXPLORE and PLAN test.
Building on this early strength and promising path, the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, its arts departments and its Academic Studio, are excited to partner with colleges, conservatories and universities across the country in assuring our graduates – the next leaders of the world’s cultural and creative economies – have the training they need and the education they deserve.