Early college high school

might be another idea for DC to consider.

One of my complaints about terming the library planning process as being about creating a community of learning that we have a simultaneous process for the K-12 public schools that is disconnected from the library planning process. And the school library planning process is disconnected from the overall Library Planning Process.

At the same time, a "community of learning" should be about lifelong leaning, from before formal schooling starts, throughout our lives, and in the context of city planning, should include the city's higher education system, because DC is a city-state.

Today's Orange County Register has an article about a new high school opening in Newport Beach, California, with financial support from the Gates Foundation. From, "O.C.'s 1st early-college high opens: Gates Foundation program aims to help underprivileged students get a head start on their postsecondary education":

The first early-college high school in Orange County opens its doors today, giving struggling and underprivileged students a leg up on a college education. Early College High School, the first new Newport-Mesa Unified School District school to be built in five years, is part of a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation project to reduce the time and money it takes students to earn a postsecondary degree. The campus is a joint venture by the Newport-Mesa district and Coastline Community College.

Attending high school courses in the morning and college classes in the afternoon, students will be able to receive both a high school diploma and an associate of arts degree in five years. The Irvine Avenue campus, funded in part by a $400,000 foundation grant, will be one of eight early-college high schools to open in California this year. Another 38 are scheduled to open across the country.

In DC we don't have a "community college." Three different post-secondary institutions were merged into what is now called the University of the District of Columbia, and the community college was subsumed within this institution, which focuses on the granting of four year degrees, although AA degrees are offered in some programs.

Index Keywords: education