District Administration - October 2011 - (Page 76)

Jo Galvan Early College High Schools lina, the state with the highest number of such schools, says Tony Habit, president of the North Carolina New Schools Project, a public-private partnership that works to develop innovative high schools in the state. Last year, 46 of North Carolina’s schools reported no dropouts, and a growing number of the schools reported graduation rates above 95 percent, he adds. A recent study of ninth-graders from North Carolina’s Early College High Schools conducted by SERVE Center at the University of North CarolinaGreensboro suggests that early college schools are closing gaps between minority and white students. According to “Expanding the Start of the College Pipeline: NinthGrade Findings from an Experimental Study of the Impact of the Early College High School Model,” the early results from the study show that this model is making substantial progress toward creating an environment where all students graduate from high school prepared for college and work. The schools that have adopted this model are also creating environments that result in better attendance and fewer suspensions. Overcoming Barriers The ECHS movement that began with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation 10 years ago has grown from a handful of schools to at least 230 schools 76 October 2011 New Mexico’s first early college high school opened this past August. Las Cruces (N.M.) Public Schools Superintendent Stan Rounds (far left) gets an 11th-hour tour from builders of the Arrowhead Park Early College High School as it prepares to open for 240 students. The eightacre campus is located at New Mexico State University. now, serving more than 50,000 students in 28 states, reports Joel Vargas, vice president of High School through College, a national Jobs for the Future program. The Gates Foundation began supporting small schools, a sort of precursor to per grade size. Most graduate after four years with both a high school diploma and college credits—often with an associate degree—that they can transfer to a fouryear higher education institution. Some early college schools serve mul- “If you have half your kids dropping out, that’s not the answer they want.” —Tracey Bryan, president and CEO, The Bridge of Southern New Mexico early college schools, on a broad-ranging, intensive national basis in the late 1990s. Among its early grants, it awarded $12 million to the Chicago Public Schools in September 2001 to support converting five large high schools into autonomous small schools, each with no more than 400 students. In 2009, in his first annual letter about his work at the foundation, Bill Gates stated that the foundation had spent approximately $2 billion in the previous 10 years supporting a small schools initiative nationally. While small schools generally serve all their students, the ECHS movement advances the small schools initiative by focusing on providing opportunities specifically for at-risk students. In most cases, they apply and are selected by lottery for slots that often are limited by the number of applicants and the limited 100-student tiple districts, but the total number of districts nationally with students in an early college school is unknown. Early college high schools can also be referred to as “middle colleges” in some districts, says Cecilia Cunningham, executive director of the Middle College National Consortium in Long Island City, N.Y., an organization with 35 member schools. The middle college concept developed about 35 years ago, Cunningham says, and with the influx of Gates Foundation money, the schools became better known as ECHS. As districts established more of them, the name ‘ECHS’ stuck. Vargas says middle colleges were not designed originally with a college credit goal for students. Students may have taken college courses, but this was not by design, he explains. Many districts operate dual-enrollment programs, with students enrolled in District Administration

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - October 2011

District Administration - October 2011
Contents
From the Editor
Letters
News Update
Transportation Update
District Profile
Administrator Profile
Building a Blended Learning Program
How Are Science Fairs Fairing?
A New Age for Algebra
Early College High Schools
Changing of the Guard in Florida
CIO News
How Much Computing Power Do You Need?
An Unconventional Approach to 1:1
New Books
Problem/ Solution
Research Center
Product Focus
New Products
Professional Opinion
Going Mobile
Online Edge

District Administration - October 2011