"Secondary-Postsecondary Learning Options"

I spent my lunch-hour today listening to an informative webinar on “Secondary-Postsecondary Learning Options,” a catch-phrase coined by the American Youth Policy Forum (www.aypf.org) to describe schools and programs that link secondary education with two- and four-year institutions of higher education and allow high school students to participate in college-level courses. The webinar was presented by the Educational Policy Institute (www.educationalpolicy.org), which excels in disseminating knowledge of educational opportunity policy issues to a wide audience of policymakers and practitioners.

I particularly enjoyed the comments of Betsy Brand, the president of the American Youth Policy Forum, who shared her thoughts on the common characteristics of successful SPLOs: supports for students; transferability of academic credit; and rigor of classes. Providing support for secondary students pursuing college-level credits is essential for their success, and Betsy pointed out that the most successful programs had a “caring adult advisor” assigned to each student. She also noted that academic assistance and tutoring and the presence of a peer support network were also characteristics of successful SPLOs. The transferability of credit, while a common characteristic of these programs, can also pose a problem: Credits are too often not portable between institutions of higher education, even within the same state, and too often the responsibility for figuring out which credits transfer and which don’t fall on the student. The solution, Betsy suggested, is the use of articulation agreements at the local level but also, ideally, at the state level. The rigor of the curriculum is also important, supported in large part by the proper preparation of teachers and faculty who teach the courses.

Much of this webinar was inspired by The College Ladder, a recent publication of the American Youth Policy Forum, which is available on the AYPF website. In the spirit of full disclosure, I was one of the reviewers of this publication.