Preparing High School Students for College - ERIC - U.S. ...

these situations, a community-based organization with ties to a school district acted as anintermediary and facilitated partnerships between high schools and postsecondaryinstitutions. In Houston, for example, Project GRAD offered college preparatory services inthe school and contributed to the strong student participation in Houston CommunityCollege’s Summer Bridge Academy by recruiting students from these high schools to attendthe program. In Dallas, Brookhaven College partnered with Dallas Consuela, a localcommunity-based organization, to recruit participants for a college knowledge workshopfor Spanish-speaking parents.P-16 Councils and Similar InitiativesAnother form of college readiness partnership consists of state and regionalinitiatives in which multiple postsecondary and high school partners come together tocoordinate their college access and readiness activities, with a focus on improvingalignment between systems and sharing data. For example, the North Texas Regional P-16Council in Dallas, funded by the THECB, has a membership of local school districts,community colleges, universities, nonprofit organizations, and businesses. The council iscurrently sharing data among postsecondary partners for the purpose of building a newsocial networking site promoting college readiness and a college-going culture. While thesetypes of initiatives create partnership opportunities and play an important role in increasingcollege readiness in Texas, the rest of this chapter focuses on the partnerships betweensecondary and postsecondary institutions because they are more directly connected to thecollege preparation opportunities available to students.Key Characteristics of Partnerships Between School Districtsand Postsecondary InstitutionsIntensityThe partnerships we observed varied in the intensity of their relationships. The lessintense relationships involved coordination, or networking and sharing information. Themore intense relationships involved collaboration, with joint planning and power sharing(Greenberg, 1992; McCants, 2004). Coordinated partnerships include initiatives designed toprovide high school students with access to existing college resources and offerings, such asearly assessment and dual credit, while collaborative partnerships are more likely to offerjointly developed programs or activities, such as summer bridge programs and early andmiddle college high schools (Barnett & Hughes, 2010).24