Middle and early college high schools offer traditionally underserved students the opportunity to simultaneously engage in high school and college classes, with the goal of attaining both a high school diploma and an associate degree within five years. This chapter describes how two such schools support students as they confront the complexities of their educational and personal lives.Adolescence is an age of border crossings. Children move from innocence to experience through experimentation, challenge, and high-stakes risk taking. They try on identities-personal, intellectual, sexual, and political-as one would change hats, always conscious that they can retreat into their childish personas if things get too dangerous. For adolescents, decisions are not forever. Relationships and commitments are not necessarily obligations. Yet as young people experiment, society simultaneously pushes back, and opportunities to grow up faster force or tempt young people to assume adult roles. The early college high school movement challenges adults and youngsters to use this period of inconstancy to build a foundation that may change the way we look at educating youth in a time of transition. If we can be successful at naming the challenges and building adequate support structures, we can channel our students' restless energy into positive accomplishments.Middle college-early college high schools integrate high school with college in programs that graduate students with a high school diploma and an associate degree within five years. Since 2002, the Middle College National Consortium (MCNC) has served as an intermediary organization for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Ford Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, and Carnegie Corporation, all of which provide funding for the program, redesigning existing middle colleges and facilitating the opening of new early colleges throughout the country. 49 5 NEW DIRECTIONS FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGES, no. 135, Fall 2006
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