Beacons of hope: SECME Inc. partners with minority-serving institutions to create alternative high schools to increase high school, college completion rates - Top 100: 2001-2002

Black Issues in Higher Education, June 5, 2003 by Phaedra Brotherton

In 2000, only 18 percent of all African American and 10 percent of Hispanics completed a four-year degree by age 29, compared with 34 percent of Whites (total populations), according to the U.S. Department of Education.

The reason, experts say, is because disadvantaged students are not getting the advanced level coursework they need during their high school years to adequately prepare for college.

Many high school reform advocates also believe that disadvantaged and low-income students aren't being challenged enough academically during the last years of high school.

"Until recently, this educational terrain (advanced courses) had belonged almost exclusively to a privileged group of young people--those whose families could afford high-quality private high schools and those in well-funded public school districts that offered options to their highest achieving students," says Cannon Cunningham, vice president for technology and communications at Jobs for the Future, a Boston-based education reform and workforce development organization.

To better prepare African American and Hispanic high school students for the rigor of college academics, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in partnership with Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation and W. K. Kellogg Foundation, has committed $50 million to create 70 "early college high schools." The Early College High School Initiative is a reform effort to get more disadvantaged students to complete high school, pursue a college education and complete a college degree.

Studies have shown that small schools that combine college with high school studies help ease the transition from high school to college. In this case, these small schools will allow high school students to complete two years of college study and graduate with not only a high-school diploma, but also an associate's degree or two years of college credit.

"There have been studies that demonstrate demically rigorous curriculum they do better--and these are not necessarily the superstars, but the average kids," says Marie Groark, spokeswoman for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Tom Vander Ark, executive director of education for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, says that the last years of high school are some of the "most important developmentally and often squandered academically. At these early college high schools, students will receive the personalized learning and the accelerated learning they need to ensure a smoother transition to college or the workplace," Vander Ark says.

Enter SECME Inc., an alliance of historically Black colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, school districts, and professional societies focused on preparing students for majors in science, mathematics, engineering and technology. SECME was selected as one of eight Gates-designated organizations to receive funds to re-grant the money to create early college high schools throughout the country.

"We're excited about Early College--not just its promise for the educational success and motivation of our young people," says Dr. Yvonne Freeman, executive director of SECME, but about "the power and potential of these schools to forever transform public education ... to literally revolutionize and reform the learning landscape and its outcome. We hope to address the challenge of the declining Black male presence in higher education as well."

Early college high school is a relatively new concept, based on the success of the nearly 30-year-old "middle college high school" model, in which disadvantaged students take college courses and attend high schools located on community college campuses. Studies show that middle college high schools have high graduation rates because the students are motivated and challenged by the advanced studies and early exposure to college.

Early college high schools go further by allowing students to complete two years of college or an associate's degree during the four years of high school. The Gates Early College Initiative is based on the acclaimed Bard High School Early College established in 2001 between the New York Board of Education and New York Public Schools, Groark says. Because each early college high school will be unique in structure and there are few established models to study, the initiative is considered innovative and groundbreaking.

SECME Inc. and the other grant recipients were selected based on the academic needs of the communities they represent and their ability to implement an early college program, Groark says.

Armed with a $4.8 million grant from the Gates Foundation, SECME will focus on the Southeast region of the United States and develop the high schools in partnership with local school districts and the following member universities over a three-year period: North Carolina Central University, Durham; Howard University, Washington, D.C.; Jackson State University, Mississippi; Morehouse College, Atlanta; Spelman College, Atlanta; Florida International University, Miami; Miami-Dade Community College; Tennessee State University, Nashville; University of North Florida, Jacksonville.