a high school diploma but 60 units of college credit and an A.A. degree from Bard College. Much more important than credits and degrees, however, is the intellectual engagement these students experience, thanks in part to two components that are central to Bard’s early college design. First, the course work in all classes is writing intensive. Students began each academic year with a week of writing workshops supported by Bard’s Institute for Writing and Thinking. Second, the last two years of the program are grounded in four sequential semesters of humanities seminars, patterned after Bard’s First-Year Seminar. BHSEC graduates who go on to four-year college programs (which more than 90 percent do), take with them those 60 units of transferable college credit but also—and more important—college-ready skills. Hard data bear out the comparison of BHSEC graduates and those of other educational models. Bard asked Columbia University’s National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools and Teaching (NCREST) to undertake a study of BHSEC’s key practices, including the writing and thinking workshops and college-level seminars. Additionally, Metis Associates, an independent research and evaluation firm, undertook a rigorous quantitative study examining outcomes for BHSEC students compared to other students in similar circumstances. Metis used a state-of-the-art design to match BHSEC students with other New York City public school students across a variety of categories, such as demographics and academic achievement. It turns out that Bard’s early college graduates are doing remarkably well when compared both with closely matched students who attended traditional public high schools and those who attended other selective or specialized high schools in New York City. Four-year college enrollment rates for the graduating classes of 2010, 2012, and 2013 were nearly 10 percentage points higher for BHSEC students. Furthermore, four-year college graduation rates were 13 percentage points higher for BHSEC students compared to their peers in selective high schools, and 31 percentage points higher in comparison to those who had enrolled in traditional public schools. What really impressed the researchers was that these differences were even more pronounced for African American students, in particular: four-year graduation rates for BHSEC students were 17 percentage points higher than for those who went to selective high schools, and 37 percentage points
higher than for those who went to traditional high schools. The Metis study also looked at the return on investment for Bard’s early graduates and found that for every dollar invested in BHSEC Manhattan, an additional 53 cents is returned, compared to a dollar invested in a specialized/selective or traditional New York City high school over a 15-year period. All of these results are amazingly positive, but another question remains: how can Bard afford this success? The early college programs, free to students, are expensive for Bard. All of Bard’s early colleges begin with memoranda of understanding (MOUs)—financial and governing agreements negotiated between Bard and the respective local boards of education. This was the case for the flagship schools of Manhattan (2001) and Queens (2008), as well as Newark (2011), Cleveland (2014), and now Baltimore (2015). But Bard continues to face added costs in providing a quality college education during the last two years of high school. Everything from science labs to college textbooks make operating an early college a pricier proposition. Recasting the federal Pell grants to support early college high schools would offer an important injection of funds for programs like BHSEC. This legislation would relieve the financial pressure on colleges that undertake early college programs, and perhaps encourage new BHSECs to take root. BHSEC Baltimore is now in its first semester. Just before classes began, Head of School Francesca Gamber said, “We’re so grateful to Baltimore for the enthusiastic welcome that it’s given BHSEC. As a Baltimore native, I know that this is the moment and this is the place for Bard’s newest early college to make its mark.” A closing anecdote serves as witness to how much communities like Baltimore have been yearning for an early college alternative. In August, Gamber invited students and their parents to come to the school to help assemble the IKEA seminar tables that would serve for the first week of writing and thinking workshops and the college seminars to follow. The Baltimore Sun reporters covering the event overheard one student say, “It feels like home.”
Ray Peterson is founding principal of Bard High School Early College (BHSEC) Manhattan and BHSEC Newark, consultant for ongoing BHSEC projects, and former director of Bard’s Institute for Writing and Thinking.
Students Tziporah Seitu-Quinn (left) and Shabre'a Ellison flank Leon Botstein (center left) and Baltimore City Public Schools CEO Gregory E. Thornton at BHSEC Baltimore's ribbon-cutting day in September. photo Jim Mahjoubian/Baltimore City Public Schools
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