Let's work on solving a problem. The problem? High school is, to borrow  a phrase, "a long, drawn-out lull." Before high school, Americans are among the highest achieving students in the world. But starting in junior high, American students enter a muddle of lowered standards, confused expectations and easy excuses.  In the meantime their counterparts in other countries are catching up to their elementary gains and then zipping right on by them (High Schools, 2001). Those students who survive the lull of American high school and graduate lurch clumsily but optimistically into college. Sadly, in Alaska, only 27% of those graduates are ready to begin college (Green, 2005). The high school lull is now the college lull as students take remedial courses to bring them to college readiness. Many never get there. At four-year colleges in the US, 26% of freshmen do not return for a sophomore year, and at two-year colleges, 45% do not return (Ticket to Nowhere, 1999; Wolk, 2005).

Problems beget problems. There is no shortage of data on American students' lack of preparedness for high school graduation, for college, and especially for the world of work—which now includes the whole world. Here is just one disheartening fact from the New York Times: "The National Assessment of Adult Literacy, given in 2003 by the Department of Education, found that less than a third of the college graduates it surveyed demonstrated that they were able to read complex English texts and draw complicated inferences" (Arenson, 2006).

Our children are emerging into a world where they will compete with a billion workers in a global marketplace in which their competitors will work for less pay and are more educated. New York Times columnist and Pulitzer-prize winning author, Thomas L. Friedman points out, "When I was a child my parents told me to eat all of my food because people in China and India were starving. Now I tell my children to do their homework because people in China and India are starving for their jobs."

This is Sputnik redux with a twist, we are not facing a technological problem. The challenge we face is to restore the essential relationship at the heart of learning: that between the teacher and the student. The answer is to structure a school that has one expectation for its students: that they pursue further education. This goal requires a revival of values in the classroom: hard work, self-reliance and entrepreneurship. What would this kind of school be like? Luckily we don't have to start from scratch. This proposal is based on the research and practice of the Early College High School Initiative. Under this initiative, dozens of early colleges blend secondary and post-secondary learning into accelerated student achievement. (See www.earlycolleges.org for more information.)

The Early College High School (ECHS) joins high school and college into a coherent educational program. Students at the middle school level prepare for the rigor and challenge of college-prep coursework by mastering content, especially in the areas of reading, writing and math. High school students pursue intensive core academic coursework rooted in the liberal arts tradition and its focus on science and the humanities. Secondary teachers, university faculty and counselors work together to teach, support and guide students. Students graduate with an Associates degree and are fully prepared for further challenges in college and the workplace.