2004 June 28
In the ethnic and linguistic diversity of its people, the Borough of Queens is a microcosm of the America of tomorrow. Over 100 different nationalities, ethnicities, and linguistic groups are represented in Queens, the nation’s most diverse county, according to the US Census. While this glorious mosaic is exciting, rewarding, and invigorating, it represents an educational challenge. For many students, even those educated entirely in Queens high schools, English is a second, third, or even more distant language. On the other hand, they may never have had formal education in their heritage language(s) and may indeed be functionally illiterate in them. This absence of solid grounding in any language is a serious disadvantage, making it hard to do the rigorous writing, reading, and critical thinking essential to success in a liberal arts college and to success in the modern information-based economy in which writing and thinking are much more important than a career-specific set of skills. Such students may experience particular difficulties in making the transition from high school to college, with its emphasis on writing and analysis, and fail to succeed in college. The result is that over half of those who enter college do not graduate. This great loss of talent is one of the major challenges facing contemporary higher education.
Queens College proposes to take up this educational challenge through the establishment of an early college secondary school which will give students the opportunity to do college level work in the supportive, guiding atmosphere of their high school. Building on the success of our language and education programs, the college will develop a curriculum that will enable students to forge connections with higher learning while still in high school, rather than having to discover them post facto in the more pressured college environment. We intend to make heavy use of language and writing practice, in an experiment-based learning environment, to develop writing and critical inquiry abilities throughout high school and early college academic work. By smoothing the transition to college in this way, more students, especially those at-risk (males, racial, ethnic, and cultural minorities), will not merely enter, but succeed in, college, persisting to greater academic achievement and graduation.
An early college high school will build on the college’s extensive existing experience with K-12 education through PS/IS 499, which has operated for over four years and will move into new permanent facilities on the Queens campus in fall 2004; Townsend Harris High School, which has provided a quality science program to selected students in the borough for 20 years; and College Now, a rapidly growing program which has helped thousands of Queens high school students improve their preparation for college work and enabled many of them to earn significant college degree credit. Our strong teacher education programs, in both the Education division, including its literacy and bilingual programs, and in other areas such as TESOL in LCD, also represent key resources.
Based in part on this experience, the college envisions an early college model in which diversity, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural, and internationalism are emphasized. The goal would be to reach a diverse population of students who are not traditionally college-bound, recognizing, and taking advantage of, the reality that the college is located in the borough of Queens, a wonderful laboratory for multicultural education.
The model is not meant to be selective, as the goal is to develop ways to effectively make the transition to college work for students who might otherwise not be successful in college. It is the intent to reach students with a wide range of academic preparation. To provide more time for such students to develop college-level academic skills, it is proposed that the school begin in 6th grade. Rather than a selective early college high school, then, the model is an early college secondary school which educates students from 6th grade to college level. This earlier start allows more time for preparation. It is also the intent that not all students must necessarily earn a full Associate-level college degree. Students would earn a varying number of college credits, reflecting their initial preparation, their interests, and their efforts. The goal is to enable students to make a smooth transition to college, by incorporating college level work into their high school experience, in order to improve their success in college and their persistence, the likelihood that they will proceed to a degree.
A strong emphasis on the liberal arts and sciences is an important feature of the model. Rather than a specific knowledge and skill set, today’s work force needs the critical thinking, writing, and inquiry abilities provided by an inquiry-based liberal arts education in which students will conduct research and field work This builds on the college’s strength in the liberal arts and sciences. The curriculum will strengthen the language and mathematical skills which are the basis for advanced academic work in specific disciplines. Language and mathematics are structured and tiered, with basic skills forming the foundations for more advanced skills. The early college model, as a single setting incorporating both high school and college work, facilitates the development of linkages between these levels and the clear articulation of the steps involved in reaching higher levels.
The primary contribution of Queens College would of course be the expertise and experience of our faculty. We do not anticipate faculty involvement in direct instruction at the early college secondary school. Rather, faculty would provide guidance to professional development of high school teachers, act as consultants, and contribute to curriculum innovation. Such curriculum development is particularly important in infusing the liberal arts and sciences into all aspects of the curriculum, in articulating the path of achievement from high school to college level work, and in developing criteria for eventual college level mastery.
The early college high school will involve all academic divisions of the college to some extent. Most academic departments will need to participate in the working out of a staged curriculum to enable students to progress to college level work during their time at the school. Departments will also assist in developing guidelines and criteria for the evaluation of student college level achievement appropriate to their disciplines.
The Education Division will be particularly involved. Its faculty are familiar with the K-12 requirements. As the proposed school will likely include 6th to 12th grades, our Elementary Education and Secondary Education departments will both make major contributions to the development of the curriculum and the instructional methods. The expectation is that these departments, particularly, will form a collaboration with the faculty of the high school, perhaps on an interdisciplinary, yet academy-like model. The college has had considerable success with such collaboration through our College Now program.
For example, College Now offers a high school course, American Studies: Readings in U.S. History and Government, at John Bowne High School to English Language Learners. The intent of the course is to strengthen students’ academic literacy and English language skills through the content of a U.S. History course which also prepares them for the Regents exam. The course curriculum was developed by Queens College faculty in consultation with the John Bowne Social Studies faculty. High school teachers receive training in the curriculum and are selected, supervised, and supported by Queens College faculty. The high school content and ESL teachers both attend a series of six workshops at which both Queens College and previously trained high school faculty present. That both groups present is important, as it helps to foster a two-way dialog in which college faculty and high school teachers learn from each other. The interaction is valuable to all; they are not just passive listeners, but active, engaged collaborators. In a second phase, high school content and ESL teachers work together weekly on lessons, and meet bi-weekly with Queens College faculty for feedback and discussions. These interactions facilitate synchronicity of content and language instruction, keep instructors informed, and assist in teaching and learning improvement. Finally, high school content and ESL teachers are trained by Queens College and high school faculty on the uses and integration of instructional technology into their classroom instruction.
This kind of involvement will benefit the early college secondary school, providing guidance in curriculum innovation and professional development, and the college, providing opportunities for faculty to learn from actual classroom instruction experience and a laboratory environment for new teaching methods. Candidate teachers in the college’s education programs will use the ECSS as a practicum location and a professional development school.
A further involvement of the college in the proposed school is through the college library. It might be possible to give ECSS students access to the College library, perhaps through some kind of special college ID. This would, however, involve additional costs, as it increases the demand on library services. Providing access to databases would also involve costs, as fees rise with increasing numbers of users. Electronic library access might be helpful, if funding is available to provide sufficient computers at the ECSS for faculty use.
The primary partners of the early college school will be the NYC Department of Education and Queens College. In order to strengthen the school’s relationships with the local communities in Queens, it is important that partnerships be developed with community-based organizations, including the Office of the Borough President and the school regions in the Borough of Queens. There are also many literacy programs in the borough which focus on and have outreach programs for specific immigrant groups. Their contacts should be engaged to recruit students from the language populations of the borough and to enhance the language resources the school can make available.
Other Queens cultural institutions can be important partners. In view of the planned emphasis on science, the Queens Hall of Science, which already conducts major outreach to the schools, can make significant contributions. So can the Queens Museum of Art and historic houses such as the Bowne House and Rufus King. Local institutions with which Queens has working relationships, particularly medical institutions including the Health and Hospitals Corporation, New York Hospital in Queens, and Elmhurst Hospital, can provide volunteer options which are important for future careers.
Within Queens College there are key offices which can provide perspectives, including the Asian American Center and the Louis Armstrong Archives. The various ethnic studies programs of the college can contribute language and cultural perspectives for many of the borough’s peoples.
In addition, of course, all levels of the Division of Education should be actively involved with the school. It might be feasible to structure magnet groups of students, such as a one-year cohort or subset, who would be partnered with specific organizations and organized around a common focus.
The goal of the school is to provide early college academic work to regular high school students, not merely to a selected elite group. Accordingly, preparation should begin before the 9th grade. As discussed earlier, we see a “secondary school” beginning as early as 6th grade, that is, coincident with NYC intermediate schools. This early beginning is not inconsistent with other early college programs, such as City Prep, which starts preparing students for rigorous academic work in 7th and 8th grades. Inclusion of such intermediate grades could push the school population above the nominal 500 or so to above 600. Developmentally and linguistically, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders are different from those in higher grades, and this would need to be taken account in the curriculum. The earlier start is especially important in developing mathematics skills, a highly structured discipline.
The college does not propose to locate the school on the Queens College campus. It is more appropriate to place the school as close as possible to the multiple communities it should serve. These are all relatively close to the college campus, facilitating the important collaborative activities just discussed. The school should be new, not a conversion of an existing school to an early college model, in order to establish an clear identity and provide flexibility. However, it could be a new school placed inside an existing larger school or education complex.
Several alternatives exist for the administrative structure of the school. A charter school arrangement offers advantages in terms of flexibility of the curriculum and teacher hiring and placement. However, such a structure would require the independent development of much of the infrastructure services provided by the New York City Department of Education, such as registration, purchasing, staffing, transportation, etc. On the whole, the college prefers that the ECSS stay within the Department of Education, with appropriate provisions for curricular flexibility. The school is essentially an experiment, and it must be able to use its study of what works, and what does not, to adjust its program and curriculum. Without this flexibility, the college cannot establish a successful early college school. As implementation of the school moves forward it will be necessary to determine precisely how this flexibility should best be achieved, while protecting the responsibility of the Department of Education for high school standards.
Overall accountability will also need to be discussed. The Department of Education is accountable for high school curriculum, but the college would play a role in developing the curriculum and in setting learning goals for college level work. These multiple levels of responsibility may cause confusion, which can be minimized by developing clear understandings. In addition, the early college school will be prominently associated with Queens College and any difficulties would reflect badly on the Department of Education and the college. It will be necessary to establish criteria for success, including clear expectations of the learning outcomes for the school, ways of measuring the outcomes, and pathways for reforms or other steps to correct deficiencies which might be identified.
As discussed earlier, the curriculum should reflect the nature of the borough of Queens as a multicultural, multilingual constellation of communities. It should be multicultural and multilingual, using Queens as a lab within the framework of an urban, cosmopolitan center connecting the local and global. A new form of American Studies could be developed: America as multicultural and multi-voiced, connected to the larger world across national and cultural boundaries, reflecting the future of the nation. The school should stress the interactive: students as learners, particularly since many of them will be multilingual.
The existing work of Queens College with Project GLOBE could work into such a model very easily, as GLOBE involves students in the study of the environment they find themselves in. This could provide a context for learning opportunities around the global environment (e.g., what might the loss of a species of wren in Queens tell about the environment elsewhere? How is Queens affected by global change?) and immigration, thus relating the study of the traditional natural sciences with the social sciences and the arts and humanities. There might be a focus on involving multiethnic communities, incorporating local knowledge, ethnic heritage, and cross-cultural awareness in the curriculum.
The use of a research vocabulary is very appropriate for the school, on several levels. The venture is itself experimental, intended to research ways to achieve college-level learning in high school. In addition, it is a collaborative venture between the college, the Department of Education, and other organizations. As the college and school faculty work together in developing and operating the school, it is expected that they will publish their findings in the scholarly educational literature. Queens College, as a research center, is well positioned to give meaning to the research terminology. A research vocabulary also connects well with the performance-based instruction and outcomes assessment that will help to measure the success of the school and give rigor to the pedagogy. Multilingual students can give focus to college researchers in language acquisition and offer great research opportunities for students.
A further extension of the research vocabulary involves the students themselves. The curriculum will be inquiry-driven; students will conduct research and field work, for example, on ethnic communities in Queens, on environmental issues using the GLOBE model, on cultural issues using interviews, or on economic questions. They will report their findings in research papers which will form the vehicle for individual and joint writing and oral presentations. Thus the research activities will provide opportunities for these linguistically diverse students to develop their English language writing and oral communications skills. At the same time, developing linguistic abilities and critical thinking skills are important steps for college level academic work.
Specific college-level courses that could be particularly appropriate for the students in the early college school, who will be somewhat younger than typical college students, will include languages, mathematics, and the field-oriented sciences, as well as college level lab work. Multiple literacies should be included, with a writing- and reading-intensive curriculum of research and inquiry in contextualized fields, including literature as part of language instruction. There could also be courses from the Education Division on “how we learn,” concerning cognitive strategies and developmental processes. As much as possible, courses could be designed to meet state high school requirements and be appropriate for college-level work.
From an educational point of view, it would be desirable for the school to teach the languages most commonly spoken in the student population, enabling students to grow in their own languages; heritage language speakers are often weak, lacking formal instruction. However, given the relatively small size of the school, and the large number of different heritage languages students will have, this is not likely to be feasible with only the school’s teaching resources. Connections with the many ethnic community-based organizations in Queens could make available off-campus instruction in multiple languages. Such instruction could help students establish a sounder literacy base in their heritage languages, desirable in itself and as a way to facilitate English language learning.
In order to build appropriate college level credit into the curriculum, the critical thinking inherent in college work must be considered. In college, one does not merely absorb more facts than in high school. Students must also ask questions of and work with the material to develop their own ideas and perspectives. This requires adjustment of the course curriculum, which cannot be simply a high school course with additional content. The earning of college credit might be tied to measures of the extent to which students have mastered the content and are able to work with it in their own way. These measures could be embedded into regular course examinations and other learning assessment instruments. The ECSS courses could then be designed to meet existing State Education Department requirements. There are differences in the number of hours – 54 for a high school course, versus 48 for a 3-credit college course. This is a difference we have effectively handled in our College Now program; one common solution is to require an additional project to make up the missing hours.
The curriculum and teaching methods must be designed so that the learning outcomes achieved by the students in the early college program meet Queens College’s goals. In that sense as well, the school must be viewed as a research project. As such, it should be modified if the outcomes are unsatisfactory and, if necessary, even abandoned entirely. Accordingly, as they are developed the learning goals of the program will be clearly stated, in terms susceptible to measurable results. To assess learning outcomes, a Queens College research team including members of the Education Division and representatives of the disciplines or divisions will develop standards, in cooperation with the Department of Education.
There are many tasks involved in the establishment of any new school, including everything from bricks and mortar issues to staffing and support functions. The proposed early college high school involves even more tasks: the administrative structure needs to be determined; the site needs to be identified; the curriculum needs to be developed; the standards need to be set; and the staff needs to be recruited. The intermediate entity being developed by the University will no doubt provide crucial support for all these tasks. It will be necessary to recruit a few key individuals for leadership roles very early in the process. The college will also need to work closely with the intermediate entity to recruit appropriate faculty committees for curriculum and professional development.
The school should be implemented in stages in order to allow preparation time. However, implementation one grade at a time, beginning with the 6th grade, would mean that it would be 6 years before the first class graduated. It might be possible to start with, say, the first two or three grades, and then bring in higher grades one at a time as students in the first cohorts are promoted. In order to maintain the principle of non-selective admissions, qualifying students could be chosen by lottery. This system has been successful used by the Department of Education at other schools, including PS/IS 499 on the Queens College campus.
A staged implementation does have the disadvantage that extra-curricular activities at the school would be rather weak for the first few years, with no students who have been at the school for any length of time and no traditions of team sports, club activities, etc, on which to build. These nonacademic components must be considered. The measure of a high school is in part its after-school programs; activities such as music, sports, and theater should be set up from the beginning, not added later.