Michael
Millman was never a typical
high school student.
He
administered the computer network
at his high school in the Ottawa suburb
of Gloucester and led the team that installed a satellite Internet
system.
This work
exposed him to Carleton
University, which supported the project
through its partnership with the high school. Millman actually had a
university
e-mail account when he was still in high school. And when it came time
to
pick a university, he chose Carleton, where he is now studying computer
systems
engineering.
He says that
his past exposure to the
university was one of the main reasons
he chose it. It also prepared him for life on campus.
"I felt much,
much more prepared for
university life after having a couple
of years of exposure," says Millman. "I don't know if my experience is
the same as many other students, but by the time you finish, the high
school
environment has worn itself out. And it is nice to see where you are
going
and be able to have some excitement instead of just the fear of the
unknown."
As far as
Millman was concerned, he
was in university already. "There didn't
seem to be a wall to cross over for me," he says.
Indeed, the
walls that separate high
schools from places of higher learning
are starting to crumble under a chorus of parents and business leaders
pleading
for better-prepared students.
This push to
lower the barriers
between secondary and post-secondary schools
is reflected in the growing use of the term kindergarten (K) to 16
instead
of K to 12 by educators. The concept of "convergence" has also found
its way
into the education lexicon.
Calls for
closer ties between the two
systems are part of a larger effort
to reform education in North America. This effort has been underway
since
the early 1980s, when experts first rang the alarm bells about the
state and
future of education. The emergence of a digital, information-based
economy
has only amplified them.
Encouraging
closer ties between
secondary and post-secondary schools has
been among the most popular ideas, according to a 1998 report on high
school-college
collaborations by the U.S. Department of Education.
Louis Fox is
the vice-provost of
educational partnerships at the University
of Washington. He says the number of educational partnerships between
the
university and public schools is growing.
David Dibbon
is an associate
professor of education at Memorial University
in Newfoundland. He is also a former high school principal. He studies
partnerships
among various groups. He sees educational partnerships as the way of
the future.
"This is just the crest of the wave right now, I believe," he says.
The potential
advantages of such
partnerships are considerable. Students
gain exposure to life on campus and access to a vast source of
expertise.
And depending on the extent of the partnership, they also get a chance
to
take an active role in scientific research.
Seattle-area
high school students
have taken part in a number of research
projects at the University of Washington. One group did some DNA
research.
Another group worked on a bioengineering project. Another helped
develop software.
"It worked fabulously and it really opened up a lot of horizons," says
Fox.
Post-secondary
schools, meanwhile,
get a chance to share their research
and do some original research at the same time. Schools of education
often
use secondary schools as teacher training labs. And partnerships give
post-secondary
schools a great window of opportunity to show themselves off to
students.
"There is
also the sense that those
students are ultimately our students,"
says Fox.
High schools
and universities started
to form ties five decades ago. A
report called General Education in School and College by the Ford
Foundation
in 1952 found much overlap between the final years of high school and
the
first years of college. That left advanced students bored and
unchallenged.
Almost
simultaneously, a college ran
an experiment in advanced placement.
That led to the creation of today's Advanced Placement Program in the
U.S. This program, run by College Board, qualified students to earn
college
credits while they are still in high school.
Dual
enrollment programs also allow
secondary students to take regular
university courses for credit outside of high school.
Technology is
also making it possible
for secondary and post-secondary
schools to forge closer ties. High school students in rural areas of
Washington
state can now take university-level courses at the University of
Washington
through the Internet.
"I think that
education-on-demand is
going to break down the artificial
boundaries that we have," says Helen Raham. She is the executive
director
of the Society for the Advancement of Excellence in Education, which is
a
Canadian organization.
Unfortunately,
interest in this
approach is low -- at least right now.
"A few visionary post-secondary institutions and high school principals
are
thinking [about it] or are trying it. But it is still not very common.
We
are very compartmentalized and territorial in education."
This type of
thinking has limited
educational partnerships between secondary
and post-secondary schools in the past. And past partnerships gave only
a
relatively small number of students access to post-secondary training.
Others,
especially minorities from
urban schools, were left out. But this
is changing as the achievement gap between suburban schools and
inner city schools is growing.
Consider
Project GRAD -- Graduation
Really Achieves Dreams in the U.S.
It gives students a chance to experience college through summer
institutes.
Students may stay on campus for several weeks, during which they will
get
help in core subjects such as English and math as well as professional
subjects
such as law, business and computer science.
Students also
get a chance to go on
academic enrichment trips. And for
many students, those trips are the first time they get a chance to
leave their
inner city neighborhoods. The ultimate goal: to help them graduate from
high
school and be accepted into college.
Tycene
Hicks-Edd is the executive
director of Project GRAD in Newark, New
Jersey, one of the five cities in the U.S. with member schools. She
says the
goal of the summer institutes is to give students a wide variety of
experiences
and let them know what they have to do if they want go to college.
To encourage
students further,
Project GRAD offers scholarships to students
who maintain their grades at a certain level and attend a number of
summer
institutes.
Project GRAD
is currently serving
81,000 students in 119 inner city schools
and there are plans to expand it. But the proliferation of educational
partnerships
between secondary and post-secondary schools is extremely recent,
according
to the Department of Education report. And a number of factors may
complicate
partnerships in the future.
"There are
cultural differences
between a university culture and a high
school culture," says Fox.
Money -- or
lack thereof -- may also
stand in the way. "There are financial
issues that make some of this complicated because we have different
funding
sources," says Fox. "Although there is common work there, there aren't
so many common funding sources."
So high
schools and universities are
turning to outside funding sources.
The Ford and
Lucent Technologies
Foundations are major sponsors of Project
GRAD. And the William H. Gates Foundation is supporting many of the
collaborations
between high schools and the University of Washington. "They
[foundations]
are critical," says Fox.
But their
role also raises questions
about the possibility of undue corporate
influence -- directly or indirectly. But Hicks-Edd says Project GRAD
succeeds
because the private sector plays a role.
"What makes
Project GRAD so powerful
is the synergy of all of its components,"
she says. "It doesn't operate in a vacuum. It combines business,
community,
the school system and higher education."
Hicks-Edd
says her program has never
pushed students to focus on certain
subjects such as math and natural sciences to the exclusion of others
such
as the social sciences. "We want to expose children to all kinds of
careers
so that they can make informed choices," she says.
Robert
Armstrong is principal of
Gloucester High. It has several corporate
partnerships, including one with Nortel Networks. "If you are asking,
'Hey,
how have I been hamstrung by this,' we haven't," he says.
Still, the
money that comes from
large technology companies has some strings
attached. "We hope that we can influence the ability of kids to have a
higher
interest in science and math, so that they go into careers in those
areas,"
says Sue Tomchuk. She is a spokesperson for Nortel Networks. She says
Nortel
also likes to encourage Internet education.
That focus is
certainly
understandable. If high-tech companies want to
survive, they need employees with the right set of skills. And nobody
is forcing
schools to strike deals with the likes of Nortel. Any agreement among
high
schools, post-secondary schools and corporations is entirely voluntary,
says
Fox.
But if there
is a focus on a couple
of disciplines to the exclusion of
others, that would limit the kind of partnerships that could exist,
says Fox.
 |
Net
Sites
|
National
Council for Community and
Education Partnership
Aims to build
broad-based educational
partnerships
http://www.edpartnerships.org/about/
Community-University
Research
Alliance
Supports and
researches educational
partnerships
http://www.cura.uvic.ca/
Project
GRAD
A broad-based
educational partnership
http://www.projectgrad.org/
