A high school principal in Halifax County is taking an unusual approach in an effort to get more of his students to go to college.

Marvin Bradley, who is in his first year at Northwest Halifax High School, has renamed the 11 buildings on the Littleton campus after state colleges – East Carolina University, North Carolina State University, North Carolina Wesleyan College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to name a few.

It’s part of a bigger effort to change the culture of the school, which has had a graduation rate of less than 75 percent for several years.

Last year, 73.8 percent of seniors graduated up from 57.8 percent two years earlier. Of every student who graduates, about two-thirds go on to a college or university.

Over the next two years, Bradley says, his goal is to see 80 percent of seniors graduating and going on to college.

“I think what our students need, more than anything else, is the guidance and the leadership,” said Bradley, who comes from Chicago Public Schools, where he specialized in turning schools around.

Halifax County Schools – one of three school systems in the county – is in the midst of a three-year, intensive program aimed at boosting student performance.

A Superior Court judge ordered the state to intervene in 2009, calling the district’s test scores “academic genocide.”

Nearly half of the state’s 13 lowest-performing schools have been in Halifax County, according to the state’s 2011 ABCs of Education report, and state numbers last year showed six of the district’s 11 schools didn’t improve student performance as expected – including Northwest.

That’s where Bradley comes in with his mission to change the school’s culture.

A makeover is also in store to give students more confidence about their school. He plans to repave the school’s parking lot and sidewalks.

He’s also placed a mission statement in the front of the school to get students to take their studies more seriously. The mission: “to offer a diverse education curriculum that will assist students on their path to individual, community and global success.”

And he’s engaging more with students.

“I believe the students need the opportunity, and they can make a difference,” he said. “Once we change the individual, we can change minds. Once we change minds, we can change our creation and where we are.”

Parents and students alike are excited.

“I think he’s doing a great job,” mother Sherri Patterson said.

Student body president Carissa Manley says she’s noticed a change in students’ attitudes and hopes Bradley’s efforts will help get more students like her to college and to achieve her dreams.

“Halifax has instilled in me to push for that, push forever forward.” she said.

And Bradley says he’ll keep pushing forward to meet his goal.

Everyone struggles with some amount of anxiety when taking a test like the GMAT, but some people struggle more than others. Stress can also affect your preparation before you ever get to the test center – if you’re too stressed out when studying, that will hurt your ability to make and recall memories. So what can we do to reduce studying and test-taking stress?

Know what’s coming

If you haven’t already, read the first blog post in this series:In It To Win It. The nutshell: you’re not trying to get everything right. Nobody gets everything right, including me and other 99^th percentile testers!

If you have the right attitude going into the test, that will help significantly. I like to pretend that I’m playing tennis. Nobody expects to win every single point in a tennis match – that’d be silly. But I do expect to win more points than my opponent, and I don’t stress out when I lose some points.

You will of course need to know what’s coming in terms of the formulas and rules and so on. But also know that you’re not going to know everything and that’s okay.

Manage your time well

When people try to get everything right, they often mess up the timing. Discovering that you’re behind on time just compounds your stress and makes everything worse, so we have to know how to manage time well all the way through the test. We also need to know what to do if we find ourselves in trouble on the timing.

Read this time management article and start incorporating its recommendations into your study right away.

DUCHESNE Bob Hoopes has been a teacher at Duchesne Elementary School for the past 32 years.

“I even did my student teaching here,” Hoopes said Monday with an ebullient smile.

But this school year is different than any in the past.

In addition to teaching his fifth-graders, Hoopes now teaches a special 30-minute math class each day for a combined class of fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders. The students are placed in the class based on their standardized testing scores from the 2010-11 school year.

The new program groups students together based on their mathematic proficiency to provide focused instruction that helps them improve their skills, said Duchesne Elementary Principal Jason Young.

“You have the kids that you’re going too slow for them, and they’ve got it and they’re bored. They’re ready to move on,” Young said. “You’ve got other students that can’t catch up. You have this wide range, and it’s frustrating to everyone.”

Young and his faculty based their math program on a similar one being used in the Sevier School District. Both the Duchesne and Sevier school districts are among 10 districts and 13 charter schools in the state that use Northwest Evaluation Association testing as part of a pilot program, according to the Utah State Office of Education.

NWEA scores provide educators with a wealth of specific data on areas of strength and weakness in various subcategories of language arts, reading and math. That information allows teachers to pinpoint their instruction to help kids succeed, Young said.

“Some students, they struggle with a certain area, so they just say, ‘Oh, I’m not good at math,’ and that’s it,” he said. “We’re hoping with this (program) we can catch those gaps and give them some confidence.”

Students at Duchesne Elementary still get one hour of math instruction each day, on top of the new, specialized math class. The program is in its first year, so empirical data hasn’t been gathered about its impact on learning. But anecdotal evidence shows it’s working.

“The feedback I’ve had from parents, from students themselves and from our teachers are that our students are doing better in math,” Young said. “They’re understanding and they’re able to progress at a quicker pace in the regular math class because of the extra help.”

Hoopes said his students’ frustrations with math have faded this year.

“I’m having more fun right now than I’ve ever had in my whole career,” Hoopes said. “It’s kind of hard to think about retirement.”

The new math program has parents excited as well, the veteran teacher said.

“Any time you take a kid by the hand, you take their parents right by the heart,” Hoopes said. “That’s a good thing, and parents are really supportive.”

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Clemson coach Brad Brownell got plenty of congratulations from Tigers fans content with the strong effort they saw in a 73-66 loss to No. 8 Duke.

Brownell’s not buying that for a minute.

“We lost and we’re here to win games,” a disappointed Brownell said Sunday night.

Clemson (9-8, 1-2 Atlantic Coast Conference) did lots of things right against the Blue Devils.

The Tigers started fast, played tight defense to hold Duke’s Austin Rivers and Seth Curry to half their combined scoring average and made several big shots down the stretch to cut the Blue Devils’ 13-point second half lead to 68-64 in the final minute. In the end, Andre Dawkins took over with 24 points off five 3-pointers as Duke (15-2, 3-0) to beat Clemson for the 26th time in 28 meetings.

“We’re not having a great year at all, so everybody can say we had a good effort or that it was a good try,” Brownell said. “You can’t let that fool you.”

Clemson didn’t help itself at the foul line, either, making just half its 20 chances. Milton Jennings, who led the Tigers with 16 points, was 1 of 4 on free throws.

“How many times do you shoot more free throws than Duke?” Brownell said. The Blue Devils were 15 of 18 from the line.

In the end, it was simply too much of Dawkins, Duke’s 6-foot-4 junior.

“Andre is capable of that if we do a good job getting him open,” Duke forward Mason Plumlee said. “He created stuff for himself as well. He met the challenge today and played just unbelievable.”

Dawkins made three foul shots down the stretch after Clemson cut the lead to four points on two 3-pointers by Andre Young, helping the Blue Devils beat Clemson for the 26th time in the last 28 meetings.

If Dawkins “has a bad night, we’re going to win the game,” Tigers coach Brad Brownell said.

Milton Jennings had 16 points for the Tigers and Devin Booker added 12 points and 13 rebounds.

Duke looked as if it had put the game out of reach when it opened the second half on a 14-7 run. Quinn Cook had a jumper and a 3-pointer and Seth Curry added a bucket. Miles Plumlee put back his brother Mason’s miss for two more points. By the time Dawkins made his third 3-pointer of the game, the Blue Devils were ahead 46-33.

The Blue Devils were still in front by 10 points on Rivers’ layup less with less than seven minutes to go when Clemson put on a final charge. Andre Young hit a 3-pointer and K.J. McDaniel a basket to cut the lead to 65-61.

After Dawkins answered with his final three, Young came back with another long-range shot to bring the Tigers within four one last time. That’s when Dawkins extended the margin with his foul shots and Clemson could not respond.

Mason Plumlee scored 12 points and Cook had 10 for the Blue Devils. Miles Plumlee had a game-high 14 rebounds.

Clemson drew a large crowd to Littlejohn Coliseum, partly because of last week’s 20-point win over Florida State in the ACC opener and partly because of the football team’s visiting recruits.

Duke gutted out a 61-58 win over No. 16 Virginia on Thursday night and was prepared for a similar struggle at Littlejohn Coliseum. The Blue Devils came in having won 10 of their past 11 games at Littlejohn Coliseum.

Krzyzewski was so upset after Tanner Smith’s unchallenged drive to the hoop, he called timeout less than two minutes in and replaced his five starters. Clemson’s lead eventually reached 16-7 on Devin Coleman’s foul shot with 11:46 to go in the half.

That’s when Duke began to find its offense. Ryan Kelly scored five points in a two minute span to draw the Blue Devils to 18-14. Mason Plumlee’s three-point play with 5:29 left gave Duke its first lead of the game, 21-20. Seth Curry followed with a high-arcing 3-pointer over Clemson’s 7-foot-2 center Catalin Baciu. Andre Dawkins closed the half with eight straight points and Duke took a 32-28 lead into the break.

The Tigers lost a second straight ACC game after opening league play with a 79-59 win over Florida State last week.

Which Ed Next articles were most popular in 2011? What follows is a countdown of our top 20 articles, measured by page views.

Several of the articles take readers inside classrooms to see how some much-vaunted policies and innovations (e.g. differentiated instruction, blended learning) are working in practice. Several other top articles look at how the performance of U.S. students compares to that of students in other countries. Quite a few relate to teacher effectiveness and compensation. Only two of the top twenty articles focus on technology and learning.

Which Ed Next authors penned the most articles in our top 20 list? Eric Hanushek leads the pack with 4, followed closely by Ludger Woessman with 3 articles. Paul Peterson, Mike Petrilli, June Kronholz, and Michael Podgursky all wrote 2 articles in the top 20.

While most of the articles on our list were published in 2011, some are oldies that generated new interest this year (including two articles from our archives about teacher pensions and other benefits).

Here are the top 20 articles for 2011:

20. Gender Gap: Are boys being shortchanged in K-12 schooling?” by Richard Whitmire and Susan McGee Bailey In this forum, two experts consider whether, after years of concern that girls were being shortchanged in male-dominated schools, boys are now the ones in peril.

19. “Merit Pay International: Countries with performance pay for teachers score higher on PISA tests,” by Ludger Woessman This study finds that student achievement is significantly higher in countries that make use of teacher performance pay than in countries that do not use it.

18. “The Turnaround Fallacy: Stop trying to fix failing schools. Close them and start fresh,” by Andy Smarick This article reviews the evidence on school turnaround efforts and concludes that they are not the solution for the nation’s failing schools.

17. “Academic Value of Non-Academics: The case for keeping extracurriculars,” by June Kronholz This article looks at links between student involvement in afterschool activities and academic achievement.

16. “An Effective Teacher in Every Classroom: A lofty goal, but how to do it?” by Kati Haycock and Eric Hanushek In this forum, two experts debate the best ways to identify effective teachers and to increase the number of effective teachers in high-poverty schools and communities.

15. “Teacher Retirement Benefits: Even in economically tough times, costs are higher than ever,” by Robert Costrell and Michael Podgursky This study documents the growing gap between high employer pension costs for public school teachers and lower employer pension costs for private sector managers and professionals.

14. “,” by Paul Peterson, Ludger Woessman, Eric Hanushek, and Carlos Xabel Lastra-Anadon This study found that U.S. students rank 32nd among industrialized nations in proficiency in math and 17th in reading.

13. “Fringe Benefits: There is more to teacher compensation than a teacher’s salary,” by Michael Podgursky This article examines the ways in which simple comparisons between teacher salaries and salaries of other kinds of workers can be misleading.

12. “Challenging the Gifted: Nuclear chemistry and Sartre draw the best and brightest to Reno,” by June Kronholz This feature story takes readers inside the Davidson Academy, a public school in Nevada for highly-gifted students.

11. “Sage on the Stage: Is lecturing really all that bad?” by Guido Schwerdt and Amelie Wupperman This study finds that students score higher on standardized tests in math and science when their teachers spend more class time on lecture-style presentations and less time on group problem-solving activities.

10. “When the Best is Mediocre: Developed countries far outperform our most affluent suburbs,” by Jay Greene and Josh McGee The first-ever comparison of math performance in virtually every school district in the United States finds that even the most elite suburban school districts produce results that are mediocre when compared to those of international peers.

9. “The Flipped Classroom: Online instruction at home frees class time for learning,” by Bill Tucker This article traces the development of “flipped instruction,” in which students view video-taped lessons or access online material at home and then use class time to work through problems and engage in collaborative learning with their teachers.

8. “Valuing Teachers: How much is a good teacher worth?” by Eric Hanushek This analysis considers the economic impact of replacing ineffective teachers with effective ones, and estimates the gains to U.S. gross domestic product that would result from boosting academic performance.

7. “Time for School? When the snow falls, test scores also drop,” by Dave Marcotte and Benjamin Hansen This article examines the evidence that expanding instructional time is as effective as other commonly discussed educational interventions intended to boost learning

6. “Creating a Corps of Change Agents: What explains the success of Teach for America?” by Monica Higgins, Wendy Robison, Jennie Weiner, and Frederick Hess This study examined the work histories of people leading entrepreneurial organizations in education and found that Teach for America alumni were heavily overrepresented.

5. “Teaching Math to the Talented: Which countries—and states—are producing high-achieving students?” by Eric Hanushek, Paul Peterson, and Ludger Woessman This study compares the percentage of U.S. students with advanced skills in math to percentages of similarly high achievers in other countries, and finds that 30 of the 56 other countries participating in PISA have more students scoring at an advanced level.

4. “All Together Now: Educating high and low achievers in the same classroom,” by Mike Petrilli This feature shows how one school is making differentiated instruction workchallenging every child while avoiding segregating classrooms.

3. “All A-Twitter about Education: Improving our schools in 140 characters or less,” by Mike Petrilli This article looked at the role Twitter was playing in education policy debates and ranked the top 25 education policy/media tweeters and the top 25 educator tweeters based on their Klout scores.

2. “Future Schools: Blending face-to-face and online learning,” by Jonathan Schorr and Deborah McGriff This feature, an early article on blended learning, profiled several charter schools using the hybrid approach.

1. “Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness: Can classroom observations identify practices that raise achievement?” by Tom Kane, Amy Wooten, John Tyler, and Eric Taylor This study of Cincinnati’s teacher evaluation system finds that the teachers who receive high ratings from trained evaluators who observe them are also more effective at promoting gains in student test scores.

Congratulations to all of our authors, and stay tuned next Friday well post the top 20 blog entries from 2011.