Pasadena ISD pushing early-college plan
When 17-year-old Spencer Libby graduates from high school next spring, he may need two document frames: one for his Pasadena ISD high school diploma and, hopefully, one for an associate degree in science and mathematics from San Jacinto College.
Libby is among about 30 Pasadena ISD students on track to earn associate degrees by spring 2018 — a number that could swell by several hundred by 2021.
Pasadena ISD will be the first Houston-area school district with more than 35,000 students to embed early college programs in each of its high school campuses this fall. The expansion offers hundreds of students the chance to earn associate degrees as they also work toward high school graduation.
The push comes amid a spike in students taking
dual-enrollment courses in Texas, and a national study showing that such students graduate at a higher rate than students in general. The thinking is that introducing economically disadvantaged students to college coursework as early as ninth grade can help jump-start their higher education while saving them money.
Libby said he was a rising eighth-grader when he heard about the early college program at Pasadena High School. He says he knew he was ready to take more rigorous courses and challenge himself.
“I knew at the time (that) if I go into the program and take college courses, it will pay off later on,” Libby said. “Now that I’m going into (my) senior year, not only am I prepared to take these final courses to finish my associate’s — I feel like I’ll be even more successful when I go after my bachelor’s.”
While virtually every district and high school offers some form of college-level coursework through partnerships with local colleges, only a handful of campuses offer students the chance to graduate with both a high school diploma and college associate degree. Programs that allow students to do both simultaneously are known as early college programs or schools.
Most area districts — including the Houston, Clear Creek, Alief, Aldine ISDs — have specific high school campuses that offer early college programs. Others, like Klein ISD, offer specific associate-degree programs for nursing and global business.
Reaching more students
From 2000 to 2015, the number of high school students taking such classes rose from 17,795 to 133,342, according to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
The programs have also become more diverse. Latino students made up the plurality of dual-enrollment students for the first time ever in 2014, accounting for 42 percent of dual-enrollment students statewide, according to a draft study by RAND Education. At the same time, white students have gone from representing about 71 percent of dualcredit course-takers in 2000 to 38 percent in 2015. That reflects a larger state trend of fewer white students enrolling in public schools.
Experts say the early college high school program has become more popular nationally since the first three such schools opened in the U.S. in 2002.
Nationally, about 93 percent of early college students graduate from high school compared with the average rate of 78 percent, according to Jobs for the Future, a Boston-based nonprofit that oversees the national Early College Designs program.
But access to college-level and degree-earning courses remains a major hurdle to many students, according to Adam Lowe, executive director of the National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships.
He said it’s more difficult for districts that have only one early college campus or a handful of them to reach lower-income students, especially when they’re spread far apart.
“There are so many students for whom transportation can be a barrier either financially or in terms of the time commitment,” Lowe said. “When you bring those programs out to a home high school, you can reach more students.”
Bridging maturity gap
Jennifer Boushle, Pasadena ISD’s coordinator of Early College High Schools, said improving access to potential firstgeneration college students and those from low-income families was one of the primary motivations for expanding the program. She said interest in the program has been astounding: More than 630 rising freshman attended a summer program that’s mandatory for all new early college students, with an average class of about 125 representing each of Pasadena’s five high schools.
“Other districts, even giant districts, are only offering the model for 125 students,” Boushle said. “Well in a district our size with a large number of students who could really benefit, especially first-generation college-goers, we’re offering it to 625 rather than 125.”
She often speaks to parents and students who share concerns about whether 14- and 15-yearolds are truly ready to start taking college courses. The first two years, and especially one’s freshman year, are for easing students into the college experience, Boushle assures them. Students only take two college-level courses their first year in the program, one that teaches college-success skills such as note-taking and time management, and one in a subject such as fine arts or music. Students typically don’t start taking their core subjects at the college level until their junior or senior years.
Still, it’s hard to close the maturity gap between high school and college students, Boushle said.
“I would say developmentally they need some help. But that’s the purpose of early college, to ease them into college classes,” Boushle said. “The premise is the support we’re able to provide them — counselors, deans, study groups, tutoring. That’s the piece the early college provides, that’s why our students are successful at a young age through guidance and support.”
A lesson for success
Libby said he and his parents were apprehensive about his taking such difficult classes at a young age. But after working with his teachers and counselors, he says he’s ready to graduate and pursue a master’s degree or doctorate in mathematics at Rice University or at the University of Texas at Austin. He encouraged other students to try the program.
“Even if it is a little intimidating at first, don’t be afraid to join,” Libby said.
“The teachers will prep you for the work, you’ll learn to have time for it. You just have to find the confidence in yourself to take that first step.”