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Recently I have been harping on the impact of budget cuts on public schools. And I've come across another potential victim of these cuts: Early college high schools, a school improvement model that allows students to take college courses while still in high school. Early college high schools often target disadvantaged students who would be the first in their families to attend college. Many of these students earn associate degrees by the time they graduate high school.

But a recent EdWeek article pointed out that many of these schools are struggling to cover costs – some have even had to close for financial reasons. This is despite findings that these schools have increased access to college for underrepresented students and enabled them to succeed in postsecondary education. One forthcoming study will show that students in early college high schools appear to have higher proficiency rates on standardized tests, higher attendance rates and higher four-year graduation rates than students in a control group.

The article implied that these several of these programs are struggling financially for mainly two reasons: One, state subsidies for the programs have decreased. And two, many were initially funded by a large investment in the early college model by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has been mostly spent. This raises interesting (and to some, troubling) questions as to what happens to promising school improvement strategies funded by foundations when the money runs out...but that it is a somewhat different issue.

Here I just wanted to draw attention, once again, to the cuts that are being made in an era of tight budgets. As I wrote yesterday: At this point in time, when we as a nation are concerned about our performance on the world stage and when research is starting to give us some guidance on what we can do to improve our students’ achievement, is education really the place to cut?

If you are interested in learning more about the early college model, check out a detailed case study of Texas’ Hidalgo Independent School District, which has adopted it as a district-wide strategy to great (early) success.