College of Alameda, Alameda Unified School District Awarded $400,000 Gates Foundation Early College High School Grant

The Foundation of California Community Colleges has selected Alameda Unified School District and the College of Alameda to implement a $400,000 Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in partnership with Carnegie Corporation of New York, Ford Foundation, W. K. Kellogg Foundation will invest more than $50 million to support the development of approximately 100 new Early College High Schools nationally, over the next five years. The grant to the College of Alameda and Alameda Unified School District is one of the first awarded nationally and one of two in California.

Under the new model, students can earn a high school diploma and an associate in arts degree, or finish two years of college credit while developing skils for a family-supporting job, or earn two years of college credit toward a bachelor's degree and be eligible to transfer to a four-year university. Porspective students will apply by early next year.

The Gates Foundation vision is to provide first-generation, educationally and economically disadvantaged students with rigorous model for teaching and learning. By changing the structure of thier high school years and compressing the number of years it takes to finish the first two years of college, Early College High School can save dollars for families who can not afford to pay for college.

Scheduled to open in summer 2004, Alameda's Early College High School will offer majors in four areas: information technology, transportation technology (which includes aviation, auto and diesel mechanics) aeronautical engineering and pre-engineering, and teacher education, the latter with an aim toward developing future math and science teachers.

In the first year the school will open withup to 100 ninth graders, building to a maximum of Early College High School students at the end of four years.

Summer Schedule for Alameda Science & Technology Institute

For additional background information, read Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Announcement.

The 3 Rs of the Gates Foundation

Gates Foundation and Small Schools

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Last modified: May 15, 2003

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