CITY SCHOOLS Program offers college credit

The early college-high school program is an effort to increase education levels in the region.
By ROGER G. SMITH
CITY HALL REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Hundreds of city high school students at graduation also would be college juniors under a collaboration announced Monday.
Youngstown State University and the city school system will be one of four partnerships in Ohio in the Early College Network.
Up to 400 students in the program will experience a different high school structure that compresses their education. The result will be a high school diploma and two years of college credit.
Improving graduation rates
Early-college high schools have the potential to improve graduation rates and better prepare students for high skill careers, organizers say.
The program is for students including minorities, those from low-income families and those who would be first in their families to receive a college degree.
YSU Provost Tony Atwater calls the program a bold and innovative approach to increasing education levels in the region.
"It's a significant undertaking," he said. "It's boldly going where few institutions have gone before. YSU is becoming a national laboratory for educational attainment in urban schools."
Atwater pointed to the direct correlation between a college degree and higher earnings over a lifetime. Youngstown lags behind the rest of the state in percentage of residents with college degrees.
70 sites
Youngstown will be one of 70 sites in the nation to have an early college-high school program. The others in Ohio are in Dayton, Columbus and Lorain-Elyria. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is providing funding for such schools, including $2.7 million to set them up in Ohio.
There are multiple advantages to students and the university, said Richard Bretz, the special assistant to Atwater who coordinating the program at YSU.
Students will save two years of college costs by getting credit through public school and be better prepared for university work, he said. For the university, students are more likely to remain at YSU because of the familiarity, he said.
Working out the details
Local organizers aim to have the first students start in Youngstown's program next school year. Working out the curriculum and logistics, however, could push the start to 2004-05.
It's not even clear where the students would attend class. The idea is for a separate place where those in the program would learn together.
Incorporating two full years of college work into the high school years is quite a leap.
Students with the right guidance and structure, however, can handle it, said Kathleen O'Connell Sauline, a city schools official helping organize the new program.
There are far too many students in the city school system who can succeed in college but don't go, she said. One reason is a prevailing mindset of moving from high school to work, she said.
Early involvement with college should change both of those circumstances, Sauline said.
"It's a fantastic opportunity for our kids to use their unrealized potential," she said.
The accelerated educational pace is a concern, Atwater said. But such arrangements have worked elsewhere and can work here, he said.
"I think it's a risk worth taking," he said.
rgsmith@vindy.com