Transforming Comprehensive High Schools into Early Colleges: The Impacts of the Early College Expansion Partnership

As originally conceptualized, Early Colleges were small schools focused purposefully on college readiness for all students. Frequently located on college campuses, Early Colleges targeted students who might face challenges in postsecondary education, including students who were the first in their family to go to college, economically disadvantaged students, English Language Learners (ELL), or students who are members of racial or ethnic groups underrepresented in college. The Early College Expansion Partnership (ECEP) is among the first large-scale effort to apply Early College strategies into comprehensive high schools. Supported by a $15 million grant from U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation (i3) program, the ECEP was designed to increase the number of students graduating from high school prepared for enrollment and success in postsecondary education. The project sought to blend high school and college by applying strategies from the successful Early College high school model to 14 middle schools, 12 high schools, and two 6th-12th-grade schools in three districts in two states: Colorado and Texas. ECEP implemented an adapted version of the Early College High School Model. The program provided a set of services that supported implementation of a whole-school reform model emphasizing the creation of a college-preparatory school environment. A primary emphasis of the program was increasing the number of students who participated in college-credit-bearing courses while in high school. This report describes the approach used to assess student impacts and to track changes over time; uses survey and site visit data to describe key changes that have been made at the district and school levels; presents the impact estimates for the core student-level outcomes; places the findings in context and discusses the broader implications of this work; and summarizes the overall findings. [For the companion report, "Implementation Supports of the Early College Expansion Partnership," see ED618696.]