Leveraging potential: in efforts to close the achievement gap, Black college leaders partner with foundations to create innovative, rigorous high schools for minority and disadvantaged students

BALTIMORE

Dr. Stanley Battle, president of Coppin State University, takes comfort in knowing that his "children" are close by. Nearly 120 ninth-graders enrolled in the Coppin Academy, Baltimore's newest public high school, occupy two floors of the university's library. They are just an elevator ride away from Battle's office.

In one room of the academy, Telisa Claiborne guides students in her English class through a discussion of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Down the hall, university students are wrapping up tutoring sessions with a group of freshmen--high school freshmen. Although Battle runs the campus, Coppin Academy is under the command of Principal William L. Howard.

The academy, which draws from a pool of Baltimore ninth-graders, is one of nearly a dozen such innovative school partnerships nationwide. Various studies have suggested that students, particularly African-Americans, may perform better in smaller, more personalized learning communities. In recent years, Black colleges and universities have proven increasingly willing to test that theory, launching early college high schools to educate and nurture minority students. The goal is that those students will continue to progress through high school and choose to attend college after graduation.

For many students, Coppin Academy is a dramatic change in environment from their troubled homes and impoverished neighborhoods. Howard and the instructors at the academy emphasize respect, manners, neatness and scholarship. Howard, a former Catholic school principal and guidance counselor, wants a lot for his students.

"I want them to be good people, well rounded, conscious of their heritage and able to speak to the homeless or to dignitaries with equal respect," he says.

Some Black college leaders and local educators say the new collaborations are fueled by a sense of urgency to close the achievement gap. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in conjunction with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, have provided nearly $10 million in grants over five years to fund the Early College High School Initiative. The concept offers local minority and disadvantaged high school students small classes, rigorous course work, committed teachers and attentive counseling--an academic environment that had previously belonged exclusively to those who could afford it.

"[Coppin Academy] is part of a university-assisted model in which students will have an opportunity to receive some college credit," says Eve M. Hall, executive director of the Gates Redesign Program for the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund, which administers the $4.9 million grant from the Gates Foundation.

TMSF partnered with several HBCUs and their local school districts as part of the initiative. The fund provides merit-based scholarships and programmatic support to HBCU students and the institutions that they attend.

In Louisiana, Southern University and A&M College and the East Baton Rouge Parish School District converted Capitol High School, a large, academically low-performing school, into separate boys and girls schools; the Capitol Pre-College/Early College Academy for Girls and the Capitol Pre-College/Early College Academy for Boys. North Carolina's Winston-Salem State University and Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools created the Winston-Salem Preparatory Middle Grades Academy, which focuses on sixth grade through 10th grade. The academy will begin teaching 11th grade in the 2006-2007 academic year and 12th grade the year after. Texas Southern University and the Houston Independent School District oversee the Texas Southern University Math and Science Academy, housed at Jones High School. The academy is the third small learning community developed at the high school.

"We wanted to work with the schools of education at these institutions because these are places that produce more than 50 percent of the nation's Black teachers," Hall says of the HBCUs. "These institutions were also the ones that showed that they had buy-in, and existing relationships with local school districts, community leaders and civic organizations."

While age and uniforms are probably the most obvious differences between the high school students and their college counterparts, Hall says the academies are simply an extension of the historical role of Black colleges.

"They have always taken African-American students with little resources or academic preparation and molded them into diamonds. This High School Redesign Program is no different," she says.

Still, venturing into the national education reform arena was a leap of faith for some of the colleges.

"As an HBCU, we took a big step being a part of this new initiative, but failure is not an option," says Dr. Gussie Trahan, interim dean of Southern's College of Education and an alumni of Capitol High School.

Hall maintains that these institutions aren't in this alone. "The college works with the school districts to improve achievement ... it is not solely shouldered by the college."