By Dan Nonte, University Relations
SERVE Center at UNCG has received a $2.9 million grant from the United States Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences to conduct a four-year study of North Carolina’s Learn and Earn Early College High Schools.
Supported by Gov. Mike Easley and the North Carolina legislature, Learn and Earn Early College High Schools are designed to increase the number of students graduating from high school and prepared for work and further education.
The schools are located on college campuses and allow high school students to graduate in four or five years with a high school diploma and an associate’s degree or two years of college credit. By 2008, North Carolina will have about 75 Early College High Schools. SERVE officials expect about 50 of those schools to participate in the study.
“North Carolina’s extensive and groundbreaking work in high school redesign has created a unique opportunity to learn more about what works,” said Dr. Julie Edmunds, the study’s project director. “This study will allow us to make clear statements about the impact of the Early College High School model.”
The U.S. Department of Education grant will fund a team led by SERVE and including the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, the North Carolina New Schools Project, Duke University Center for Child and Family Policy, Abt Associates, and faculty from UNCG.
The team will compare the attendance, achievement, behavior, attitudes and dropout rates of two groups of students who are randomly assigned from the pool of applicants to Early College High Schools.
The study capitalizes on the fact that many Learn and Earn Early College High Schools are attracting more applicants than they have openings. Schools participating in the study will use a lottery process to randomly assign students to attend the Early College High School; the remaining students will attend traditional high schools.
According to Dr. Ludy van Broekhuizen, SERVE’s executive director, “This study is extremely important given the national interest in learning more about the myriad of high school redesign efforts and identifying those that truly impact students’ lives.”
