THINKING BIG

Growing minds
High schools offer college credits to challenge underperformers

By Tom Vander Ark | August 14, 2005

Nearly everyone can remember students who took college or Advanced Placement courses in high school. They were usually high achievers, privileged, ahead of the pack, and focused on the future. They signed up for calculus and Shakespeare and talked about college. A few even graduated from high school early so they could get there sooner.

In an innovative twist, a promising new breed of high school is using a similar approach with students on the other end of the spectrum. ''Early college high schools" serve students who historically have been shuttled to low-level courses and warehoused in dead-end tracks. By fusing high school and higher education, early college high schools challenge underperforming students -- many of whom are low-income and minority -- with a rigorous, engaging curriculum and give them the opportunity to earn up to two years of college credit while still in high school.

Since 2001, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Ford Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation have invested more than $124 million in the Early College High School Initiative. Thirteen partner organizations are developing schools to fit the model and more than 50 early college high schools are already open in 25 states in communities from Miami to Denver to Berkeley. By 2012, the network will serve 68,000 students, and combined with additional state efforts, there will be more than 200 early college high schools. Boston-based Jobs for the Future coordinates the initiative and helps ensure the local partners have the support needed to create high quality schools.

The early college approach turns the decades-old design of the American high school on its head. The thinking when high schools assumed their modern form in the first half of the 1900s was that some students were not capable of advanced learning, and most students had no need for it. The 21st century has proven both points wrong. Like many pioneering school models taking hold around the country -- including Tech Boston Academy, which emphasizes personalization, autonomy and partnerships, and the Knowledge is Power Program college-preparatory model, which is being replicated in high schools in Texas, New York, California, and Washington, D.C. -- early college high schools are premised on two complementary principles: Students respond better to challenge than remediation, and they do best when challenging courses are coupled with increased support.

Today, all young people need some form of postsecondary education -- whether a four-year college, community college, technical school, or formal apprenticeship -- if they are to take part in our democracy and succeed in our increasingly global economy. College graduates earn significantly more than high school graduates; they are more likely to vote and less likely to be unemployed, in prison, or on public assistance. Yet nearly one-third of our nation's high school students do not graduate, and the majority of young people leave high school unprepared for college.

It is not surprising, then, that nearly one-third of all college freshmen never make it to their second year. The numbers are particularly alarming for minority students. A federal study found 34 percent of whites earned a bachelor's degree eight years after their scheduled high school graduation, but just 17 percent of African-Americans, 15 percent of Hispanics, and 10 percent of Native Americans did.

Raising high school graduation rates and preparing all students for success in college is a complex undertaking. It will take powerful leadership, coherent state-level policies, district-level commitment, and strong high school models, such as the early college high school, to ensure our high school system is a building block for higher education. It will also take creative thinking and greater responsibility on the part of all of us, including our colleges and universities, to reverse the staggering dropout rates of low-income and minority students.

Early college high schools are one of several high-performing high school models educators and administrators are putting forth that share key traits known as the 3R's: they engage all students with a rigorous curriculum, offer courses relevant to their lives, and foster strong relationships between students and adults. Districts across the country are creating a variety of such high schools as part of their efforts to raise graduation and college-readiness rates.

The high school graduation rate in Massachusetts is 71 percent, according to a study by the Urban Institute, and is even lower in Boston. In response, the district has developed a portfolio of small, challenging high schools under the Boston Plan for Excellence -- known as pilot schools -- which have many features in common with early college high schools. Themed academies, internships, and partnerships with businesses and universities enhance academic curricula and help students connect with the world beyond the classroom. Discussions are underway to add an early college high school to the mix.

Programs that allow students to earn college credits while in high school, often called ''dual enrollment programs," have existed for decades. Early college high schools have adapted this model in two significant ways: by targeting students for whom the transition between high school and college has been most problematic, and by allowing students to earn a high school diploma and an associate's degree in five years. The oldest early college high schools have been around only a few years, but early indicators are promising: The average attendance rate is 90 percent, and more than two-thirds of ninth-graders who took college classes passed with a C or better.

Whether they are located on a college campus or near one, early college schools eliminate the wasted time that often marks the final years of high school. Instead of counting hours until graduation, students can count the credits they are earning toward a college degree. While admission procedures vary between programs, the schools ease the financial burden of college by allowing students to graduate from high school with an associate's degree or two years of credit toward a bachelor's degree. Exposure to college campuses also helps students see themselves, often for the first time, as college material.

In New York City, the formula is working. Middle College High School, located on the LaGuardia Community College campus in Queens, serves about 470 mostly African-American and Hispanic students. Many are learning English, and even more cannot afford to buy lunch. A majority enter ninth grade below grade level in reading and math. Still, approximately 80 percent graduate from high school and three of four graduates go on to attend college.

We're not ready to suggest that every high school student should graduate with an associate's degree, but we can assert that all students deserve access to rigorous curriculum capable of preparing them for postsecondary learning, work, and citizenship. Expanding the network of early college high schools would help insure this opportunity.

Tom Vander Ark is executive director of education at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.