Research On The Capacity Building Of American Public High School

As the important transition phase of American education systems, the public high school has been endowed the mission of helping every student be competent for the post-secondary education and work world. As an important education reform strategy, capacity building has been the focus of the American researchers and practitioners since the late 1970s. Especially as the appearance of new accountability in education, the capacity building on the school level was intensified unprecedentedly. On the current road of education reform characterized by quality first, capacity building is the extremely important for the high school continuous improvement. This study selects the American public high school as the subjects, and discusses the origin, development and status of the capacity building in high school, in which, the elements and strategies of high school capacity building are the key points. The purpose of this study is to find the rules of the capacity building in American public high school, so that to inspire us in our high school capacity building.The origin of the American public high school comes from two aspects. On one side, the public high school with many problems is encountered with the great challenge in the context of globalization. On the other side, during the capacity building development, school-level capacity building has been emphasized since the appearance of the new accountability.Dynamic is the nature of the capacity building concept, which is expanding with the development of reforms. Capacity building began to gain popularity during late 1970's or early 1980's, which is almost the same time with the first wave of reforms in the history of America. On that account, the writer discusses the developing process and feature of the high school capacity building in the context of the three waves. During these three waves, the theory and practices of high school capacity building are increasingly improving, which is characterized by the richer content, the clear goals associated closely with instruction, and the more participants composed of schools, districts, states and federation.Public high school has been closely focused by all the citizens in America. The trends and the priorities of high school reform are clearer with the appearance of a series of reports of high school reform. In this context, this study analyses the capacity components, which are curriculum, data, teacher, principal and organization. And this study also discusses the strategies of high school capacity building, including a challenging academic curriculum, increasing the relevance of curriculum, building the data-base, creating conditions to support the use of data, improving the quality of teachers and principals through professional development, and raising the capacity of the organization, which is formed by developing the internal accountability, building professional learning community and streamlining the governance from high school to post-secondary education.Finally, on the base of experiences of the American high school capacity building, the writer provides three aspects of advices according to the reform context and the problems within our high school. First, we should establish the solid foundation of physical resources, including developing a set of practical and technological curriculums, increasing the amount of fund through broadening funding channels, providing modern technology and strengthening the data building. Second, we should develop the human resources at the most, including emphasizing professional development of teachers and principals through insitutionalized professional development, focusing practical teaching and collaboration, establishing a wide support nets, and training the professionals besides the professionals of teachers and administers in school. Last, developing the high school internal accountability and a variety of flexible professional learning community would be good to strengthen the cohesion of organization.