BOSTON GROUP TO LEAD $40 MILLION NATIONAL
EDUCATION INITIATIVE
Jobs for the Future Joins with Gates Foundation
and Others to Accelerate Academic Achievement
Boston, MA, March 19,
2002
Jobs for the Future today announced it will lead an initiative
to dramatically increase high school graduation and college attendance
rates for the most disadvantaged youth. The Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation, in partnership with Carnegie Corporation of
New York, the Ford Foundation, and W. K. Kellogg Foundation, has
committed more than $40 million to create 70 "Early Colleges."
When students finish these small high schools, they will have
a two-year Associate of Arts degree or enough college credits
to enter a four-year, liberal arts program as a sophomore or junior.
Jobs for the Future will receive $5.7 million over the next five
years to serve as the lead coordinator and policy advocate for
the Early College Initiative. Jobs for the Future, a nonprofit
organization that seeks to accelerate the educational and economic
advancement of youth and adults struggling in today's economy,
also announced the appointment of Nancy Hoffman, Senior Lecturer
at Brown University, to direct the initiative.
JFF CEO Hilary Pennington explained why the Early College Initiative
is so important. "Within the big impersonal schools that
most young people now attend," Pennington said, "too
many students wander anonymously along a path of least resistance
and low expectations. As a result, many low-income students and
students of color either drop out of high school or quit in the
first year of college."
Pennington pointed out that half of low-income urban students
drop out of school and less than 10 percent earn college degrees.
"This is not acceptable in today's economy, where a college
degree, not a high school diploma, is a ticket to the middle class,"
said Pennington.
Over the next five years, the Gates Foundation will promote Early
Colleges, an approach with great potential to dramatically improve
young people's chances of not only completing high school but
also graduating from college. Early Colleges are small schools
that span the ninth grade through the second year of college.
This accelerates their progress toward the education and experience
they need to succeed in life and a family-supporting career.
"These new small schools will help bridge the gap between
high school and college, where we lose too many students,"
said Tom Vander Ark, executive director of education for the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation. "The last years of high school
are some of the most important developmentally and often squandered
academically. At these small schools, students will receive the
personalized learning and the accelerated learning they need to
ensure a smoother transition to college or the workplace."
Jobs for the Future will contribute in several ways to this effort
to increase the number and impact of Early Colleges. Jobs for
the Future will examine key questions about what it takes to improve,
launch, and expand Early College models. It will also help inform
educators and the public about the value of this strategy for
helping low-achieving young people succeed.
Most important, Jobs for the Future will bring together and assist
seven organizations that form the core of the initiative's strategy
for fostering the development of 70 Early Colleges by 2007. The
seven organizations are Antioch University Seattle, KnowledgeWorks
Foundation, Middle College High School Consortium, National Council
of La Raza, SECME, Inc., Utah Partnership Foundation, and Woodrow
Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. Each will receive several
million dollars and re-grant the money to create "Early Colleges"
in communities throughout the country.
The Early College Initiative will result in a network of schools
and models with potential to influence education policy on a broad
scale. Early Colleges improve educational outcomes for young people
by:
- Making college more affordable
for disadvantaged students;
- Demonstrating that 14- to 18-year-old
students can and should engage in serious intellectual
work that leads to programs in both high technology and
the liberal arts;
- Reducing the social and economic
costs of dropping out and of remediation;
- Raising the rates of high school
graduation and the completion of two-year and four-year
college degrees;
- Creating shared standards between
high school and college faculty; and,
- Providing a cost-effective strategy
for states to increase the accessibility and capacity
of their higher education systems
As director of Jobs for the Future's work in the Early College
Initiative, Hoffman brings 30 years of experience as a professor,
administrator, and writer in the field of education. According
to Hoffman, "The beauty of Early College is that students
entering these schools know they can graduate with an Associates
degree. In addition, throughout their years in the Early College,
they can keep vital personal connections with peers and faculty,
they don't need to apply to college, and they don't have to switch
systems. Perhaps these new institutions herald a future in which
everyone gets at least an Associates degree."
Hoffman's impressive career spans work in both high schools and
higher education. Before becoming Senior Lecturer at Brown University,
she served as Vice Provost of Undergraduate Studies at Temple
University. She has also held posts as Academic Services Dean
at Harvard Graduate School of Education and program officer at
the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education. In the
early 1970s, she helped found the College of Public and Community
Service at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
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Jobs for the Future seeks to
accelerate the educational and economic advancement of youth and
adults struggling in today's economy. JFF partners with leaders
in education, business, government, and communities around the
nation to: strengthen opportunities for youth to succeed in postsecondary
learning and high-skill careers; increase opportunities for low-income
individuals to move into family-supporting careers; and meet the
growing economic demand for knowledgeable and skilled workers.
For more information about Jobs for the Future, visit the Web
site at www.jff.org.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is dedicated to improving people's lives by sharing advances in
health and learning with the global community. Led by Bill Gates'
father, William H. Gates, Sr., and Patty Stonesifer, the Seattle-based
foundation has an asset base of $24.2 billion.
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