February 17, 2008
Collegiate High Schools Wave Of The Future
Good news for advanced education in Charlotte County, Florida!
Edison Community College, and the County Public Schools, are expanding their long-standing program of allowing high school students with extra-good grades to enroll in some college classes simultaneously.
The program likely will include a future “Collegiate High School” building on the Edison campus, according to Dr. Patricia Land, president of Edison’s Charlotte Campus, and by Dr. Rene Desjardins, assistant superintendent of county public Schools for Learning.
Collegiate High School
Dr. Land says the Charlotte Campus of Edison is conducting a feasibility study for an on-campus high school that could open as early as the Fall of next year.
The 9 through 12 “ Collegiate High School” would offer a “rigorous curriculum designed to allow students opportunity to earn an Associate In Arts degree by the time they are graduated from high school.
“Simultaneously graduating with a high school diploma -- and a two-year college degree -- is a dream come true,” enthuses Dr. Land. “We are excited that it could happen.”
Dr. Desjardins states, “The joint project is among fore-runners in the nation-wide Collegiate High School movement.” Notable examples are those at community colleges in St. Petersburg, Indian River, Okaloosa and Stuart.
Local Goals
Emphasis at Charlotte Edison will be on general education and critical thinking, according to Land and Desjardins. Students will be provided access to the latest technologies in a small-group setting.
In collaboration with his/her parents and an academic advisor, the student will design an approved, individualized program of study.
The curriculum will meet all Florida statutory requirements for a high school diploma and a college Associate Arts degree. It allows students to transfer to Florida colleges and universities as juniors.
Edison’s current dual-enrollment program offers 20 college-credit courses each semester to highly motivated juniors and seniors on the campuses of Charlotte, Port Charlotte and Lemon Bay high schools.
Costs And Goals
The Collegiate School’s college-credit classes, textbooks, transportation, equipment and facilities would be available without cost to students.
An initial enrollment of 100 ninth graders would be planned for 2009 – with an additional 100 freshmen accepted each year for a goal enrollment of 400.
Eventually there would be a free-standing high school building on campus operated by the County school system.
Already approved is a four-story county-owned and operated Public Library and Local History Study Center near the college entrance on Airport Road.
Future Shock
The upgrading of America’s education system recognizes an ongoing, world struggle between information and technology.
Noted sociologist Alvin Toffler – in his famous book “Future Shock” – says the rate at which man stores knowledge about himself and the universe is spiraling upward by computers at multiplying speed.
We tend to focus on one situation at a time. Yet, “information overload” forces us to cope with many global situations simultaneously.
Toffler argues that society is undergoing an enormous structural change – a revolution from an industrial society to a “super-industrial society."
This change overwhelms people, leaving them disconnected and suffering from “shattering stress and disorientation – future shocked by information over load."
Herbert Wells, noted sociologist, expressed the problem succinctly after the Great European War (now called the First World War):
“Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.”
Fasten your seat belts. The road ahead is rocky.
PARTING SHOTS
Education is what you learn after you think you know it all.
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
We grow too soon old, and too late smart.
Americans believe in education. The average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.
By Lindsey Wilger Williams, retired newspaper publisher and syndicated columnist
