This series of blogs has summarized and highlighted important portions of our recent white paper, The New York City DOE/CUNY Library Collaborative: Bridging the Gap Between High School and College, which you can view here. This entry focuses on the executive summary, and concludes the series.
The white paper presents the progression and processes of the New York Collaborative Curriculum Revision Project (CCRP), a collaborative of high school teachers, college faculty, and librarians formed to build upon the new Common Core State Standards and better prepare students for post-secondary success. The posts will include sections quoted from the white paper as well as our own editorial.
Part 12: Executive Summary, The Challenge and The Goal
The Challenge
Across the country, educators are forming and implementing strategies to held students build foundations for college and career success in the 21st Century. High dropout rates and college students who are not equipped for the rigors of higher education have driven this movement forward.
The challenge is to engage high school students and put them in a position to acquire knowledge, analyze and evaluate information, explore ideas in-depth and in a logical manner, draw conclusions, and test theories. College students must think critically and conduct proper research that leads to understanding through discovery, but too many students graduate from high school without these skills.
To help address these problems, New York City’s Department of Education (NYCDOE) and the City University of New York (CUNY) formed a collaboration. Since such a high percentage of NYC high school graduates go on to CUNY colleges, this presents a unique opportunity to measure the impact of the work. The NYCDOE/CUNY Library Collaborative includes high school teachers, media specialists, college faculty, and librarians who are vested in bridging the gap between high school and college.
The Collaborative strives to improve educational outcomes for students in ways that benefit both librarians and educators. The Collaborative demonstrates that librarians can and should play a central role in building the “pipeline” between institutions to develop an inquiry-centered model of education.
The Goal
The Collaborative’s goal is to be an agent of change both within their own institutions and nationally. The fervent hope is that other learning institutions will adapt the ideas presented in the white paper to close learning gaps in their school and districts.
To learn more about the Collaborative and the CCRP, access the full white paper here or the executive summary here. Read the previous entries in this blog series here.
[alert-info]
About the Author
Geoff is a Renaissance man, who can often be found reading about obscure historical topics, working on cars, or debating world affairs. He comes from a family of teachers and has a BA in communications.
[/alert-info]nike