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Henry Ford Early College's first graduating class.

A San Francisco-based college access program that helps students finish high school and become the first in their families to graduate from college. The program takes a long term, individualized approach, making a 10 year commitment to each student, starting the summer after sixth grade through college graduation. The program serves more than 200 San Franciso-based students each year.

By Kevin Carey in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Issue #15, Winter 2010. In this editorial, Carey (policy director of think tank Education Sector) argues that colleges are not fulfilling their mission to students: costs are rising and students are not learning (or even graduating). He argues for transparency and studies of the effectiveness of teaching and learning, and warns of the education-related lobbies that keep the rest of us in the dark about higher education.

Sounds like EC and then some...the story of Perry County in Alabama and how they are succeeding at producing high school graduates at a much higher rate than everyone else in this demographic group PLUS they place 75% of their students in college. Reference is made also to students needing but one semester to get a nursing degree when they graduate from high school. They start the concentrated learning in kindergarten.

Miami Dade, which has more than 90,000 students, for example, decided to require those who place into developmental courses to take a "success" course that teaches basic study and time-management skills. That requirement helped to double graduation rates for the college's minority students. Valencia, seeing data that students who added classes late had poor completion rates, instituted a policy barring students from registering for classes that have already met. To maintain some flexi­bility, the college introduced "flex start" sections, which begin a month into the semester. Another excerpt: Faculty-Led Efforts Faculty buy-in is another crucial component to colleges' meeting their completion goals. Finalists for the Aspen Prize all had faculty members strongly dedicated to teaching-and conducting research on teaching methods. "What we heard a lot from faculty was, 'How can I find better ways to deliver instruction to my students?'" Mr. Wyner says. As part of the tenure process at Valencia, full-time faculty develop three-year "action research projects" on teaching techniques that involve training courses, advisers, and peer-review panels. The faculty members test teaching strategies, assessing students' performance against that of control groups. Ideas that work find a place in the classroom. In one project, a professor tried giving individual lab assignments to developmental-reading students, rather than a blanket assignment for all students. The new method worked better, the professor determined, and all sections of that course on Valencia's East Campus now use that model of instruction. Valencia is not the only college where faculty drive the innovation. At Miami Dade, faculty members banded together to improve students' pass rates in math, choosing and testing several new teaching methods. Some showed promise, such as testing algebra students more often on smaller amounts of material, a practice that continued.

"In fact, one of the benefits of the assessment movement is that rigorous analysis of data about student engagement and learning is showing precisely what works and what doesn't. For example, data from the National Survey of Student Engagement have led to the identification of 10 "high-impact practices" that demonstrably increase student engagement, retention, and graduation rates. They are: first-year seminars and experiences; common intellectual experiences; learning communities; writing-intensive courses; collaborative assignments and projects; undergraduate research; diversity/global learning; service and community-based learning; internships; and capstone courses and projects."

A program of the Greater Texas Foundation (GTF). Studying a cohort of 250,000 students who were in 9th grade in 1997, data showed that 75,000 "who graduated high school and enrolled in college left empty-handed." GTF then worked with FSG Social Impact Advisors to look at persistence and completion as they restructured their post-secondary scholarship funding. Two related reports are available on this page.

First in the Family: Your College Years is comprised of two products for sale: Audio slideshows that capture the voices of students interviewed by the Next Generation Press and a 124-page book that shares the stories of those interviewed and provides tips for high school graduates. These are intended for first-generation college students and the faculty and staff who guide them.

Elmore's current writing on the instructional core; Harvard Graduate School of Education Usable Knowledge website

blog and newsletter site for the Harvard Graduate School of Education, includes Richard Elmore's writings

Marrying the four Cs (critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity) to the three Rs to lead to 21st Century schools, teachers, students, and graduates.

The College Success Foundation guides underserved, low-income students to finish high school, and provides the system of supports and scholarships needed for students to graduate college and succeed in life.

Supported by an organization called ICS College Funding, the Weekly Scholarship Alert is an email service that delivers 5-10 scholarship ideas to your email in-box each week. According to their site, they present scholarships "for students in grade school to graduate school."

This online toolkit, published by Jobs for the Future, demonstrates how Hidalgo Texas built a successful early college program "where very student earns college credit before graduating from high school."

The Gateway to College National Network offers two major programs: for the 1/3 of high school students who earn their diploma but are not academically prepared for college work (Project DEgree) and for the 1/3 who don't graduate (Gateway to College).

A network of professionals from non-profit and campus-based college prep programs, university admissions and financial aid offices, and the School District of Philadelphia. The aim of this group is to increase the number of Philadelphia high school students who are college-ready, matriculate and graduate from post-secondary institutions.

This page includes not only completion data, but also the 2011 national report, Time is the Enemy, with downloadable summary, tables, state profiles, and full report. In the Metrics That Matter Most section, see links for remediation enrollment figures and for remediation graduation metrics.

Research & Reports page. Available resources include: research reports, tools, newsletters and policy briefs related to education reform and workforce development at local, state and federal levels.

In pre-Jam materials, participants recommended these specific publications: Nodine, T. (2009). Innovations in college readiness: How early colleges are preparing students underrepresented in higher education for college success. Washington, D.C. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Graduate School of Education & Jobs for the Future and Hoffman, N., & Vargas, J. (2010). A policymaker's guide to early college designs: Expanding a strategy for achieving college readiness for all.

Isn't this what MCHS and ECHS do with their students to ensure college readiness and success? Excerpt: "Some institutions do require students to participate in specific programs-and they've seen positive results. For instance, Brazosport College, in Lake Jackson, Tex., began to require first-time students to take a student-success course in 2007. It teaches time-management skills and proper study habits. As a result, the fall-to-spring retention rate for students who completed the course jumped to 89 percent, compared with the baseline rate of 66 percent. Those students passed remedial courses at a higher rate than before, and as a result were more likely to stay enrolled in college, the report says."

Washington, DC-based national policy and advocacy organization that works to improve national and federal policy so that all students can achieve at high academic levels and graduate from high school ready for success in college, work, and citizenship in the twenty-first century.