Achieving College Dreams tells the story of a remarkable partnership between a public research university and charter district to create an exemplar early college high school for low-income and first-generation college youth—launched to make good on the American ideal of providing excellence with equity in secondary education. California College Preparatory Academy is the result of the more than 10-year collaboration between the University of California, Berkeley and Aspire Public Schools. Reflecting a diversity of voices from students to superintendents, this book charts the journey from the ... More

Achieving College Dreams tells the story of a remarkable partnership between a public research university and charter district to create an exemplar early college high school for low-income and first-generation college youth—launched to make good on the American ideal of providing excellence with equity in secondary education. California College Preparatory Academy is the result of the more than 10-year collaboration between the University of California, Berkeley and Aspire Public Schools. Reflecting a diversity of voices from students to superintendents, this book charts the journey from the decision to open a school to the second class of high school graduates, all of whom were accepted into four-year colleges. It captures struggle, improvement, and possibility as it takes readers inside the workings of the partnership, the development of the school, and spillover of effects across district and university. Confronting the challenge of interweaving rigor and support, the authors explore such critical ingredients as teacher–student advisories; school transition; the home–school divide; a supportive college-preparatory culture; teaching with depth, relational power, and equity; forging an academic identity; and scaling up. At a time of sharply unequal schools and glaring disparities in college readiness, this book uniquely extends the knowledge base about how to better prepare underserved students for college eligibility and success. The book also serves as a clarion call for universities to step up to the plate and partner with districts in achieving transformative secondary school reform benefitting all students.