A Study Of Early College High School Initiative

High school is a pivotal institution for American that lays the foundation foradult participation in the American economy and civil society. The technological andscientific advances of the21st century demand that high school graduates be bothcompetent in high-level skills and prepared to attain higher education．As the bridgethat connects basic education and higher education,but high school educationconfronts the challenge in the process of social development．American high schooldropout rates and graduation rates form a great contrast. African-American andHispanic students, low-income groups and the first generation of college students’academic achievement is not very good, high school dropout rates and the universityenrollment rates are far lower than white and Asian students and thus the academicachievement gap between different groups of students is taken shape. In order to solvethe problems above, the United States carried on tremendous reform practice.ECHSI of the earliest practice began in1970s, at first its main target group ishigh school students who has a poor performance and in danger of dropout. Themodel provides students with strict high school curriculum and integrate part of theuniversity course and at the same time carries on the comprehensive academic andsocial guidance to the students, so as to improve the students’ performance and makepreparations for high school graduate students enter the college smoothly. This paperis aimed to introduce the implementation of the American ECHS initiative andanalyse and interpret the operating mechanism and impact of this initiative.This thesis opens with the “introduction”，in which quite a few aspects related tothe thesis are introduced, including title choosing, the present situation of the research,the significance of the research, the research methods employed in the research andthe scope of the research．Besides the “introduction”，there are other five parts in thisthesis．The research follows the logic clues listed below．Chapter one, survey of American ECHS initiative. It mainly introduces theECHS initiative background, history.Chapter two, ECHS initiative operating mechanism. Through elaborating thebasic ideas and elements of ECHS initiative to reveal its operating mechanism.Chapter three, how does the ECHS promote the students’ progress. Centering onthe main target of ECHS, selecting representative case to elaborate how does the ECHS help the vulnerable student group to improve their academic achievement bycourse study and guidance.Chapter four, ECHS initiative effect and problem. By the form of case, itconcretely analysing the positive impact the ECHS produced to the students and theeffect it achieved. It also analyses the problems and challenges faced by the ECHSand explores its development tendency and problem-solving approaches.