With early college high schools gaining prominence as a solution for helping improve college completion among low-income and socially disadvantaged students, former Gannett journalist Byron McCauley cites the Canton Early College in a Huffington Post Black Voices blog for setting the “goal of having kids earn a minimum of 60 college credit hours during their high school career through course mastery or dual credits.”
“Canton Early College is one of nine such high schools developed by Cincinnati-based school development organization EDWorks…Early college high schools are an elixir to what ails much of higher education: student loan debt, retention, remediation and closing the achievement gap between students of color and their counterparts. Here’s a model that ought to be scaled up more aggressively nationwide.”
One Canton Early College graduate, Terrance Truitt “entered the University of Cincinnati in the fall of 2009 with 99 credit hours, a 2.7 grade-point average and aspirations to become a lawyer. Early college high school had demystified the college experience for him, and gave him the confidence that he could do the work. In fact, the rigorous expectations at Canton Early College made his university experience easier in some cases,” writes McCauley, the spokesman for the Cincinnati-based social enterprise organization KnowledgeWorks.
For McCauley’s entire blog, “A Smart Way to Close Achievement Gaps, Succeed in College”, click here.
