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Economically disadvantaged students in rural West Texas communities can be successful in high school. Many go to work after getting their diploma, hoping to save money for higher education–but a substantial number never end up enrolling in college. In fact, Texas has been hitting record-high graduation rates, but only a fraction of those students earn their college degrees within six years.

“Walking across that graduation stage is like walking off a cliff,” says Kim Alexander, a former West Texas teacher, principal and superintendent who is now the CEO of  a burgeoning network of rural school districts focused on changing this narrative.

Collegiate Edu-Nation has partnered with West Texas A&M University, its extension services and several community colleges to build a sustainable, preschool-to-higher ed student success model in the face of the growing economic disadvantage in the region. It’s built on creating aspirations, starting with the youngest students, because “one of the characteristics of generational poverty is low expectations,” Alexander says. A key to the effort is the early college high school program that launched at Roscoe Collegiate ISD and has since expanded to at least seven other districts, creating opportunities that are lacking in many rural districts, Alexander says.

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Students in the network are now earning college credits online while still receiving the more extensive support typical of the K-12 system. Counselors provided by the network meet with students weekly to monitor progress, with the goal of getting students to graduate high school with an associate’s degree and then move on to a four-year school to complete college. Roscoe ISD just hired three of the 20-year-olds as teachers who had earned their bachelor’s degrees and teaching certifications from West Texas A&M.

The network has also adopted the P-TECH model to enable students to graduate high school with associate’s degrees in STEM fields. An early cohort of seven P-TECH students earned their bachelor’s degrees with no loan debt and higher GPAs than the average West Texas graduate. Collegiate Edu-Nation is now working with AASA, The School Superintendents Association, to bring the model to other states with large rural populations. “There are not very many rural models like this,” Alexander says.

Powering through obstacles

Dual-language education is as much about preparing students for the future as it is about core academics at the Harvard Community Unit School District 50 in northern Illinois. Students receive half their instruction in core subjects in English and half in Spanish, says Superintendent Corey Tafoya, whose dual-language program has been chosen as a college-and-career prep model for  organized by AASA, The School Superintendents Association.

“Our families have recognized the huge benefits of becoming bilingual,” Tafoya says. “There is both a future-ready component for our students in opening doors for the future as well as an equity piece. We want to make sure the talents and skills students have in their native language aren’t dismissed once they walk in the door.”

The majority of the district’s K-3 students now learn in English and Spanish, which is proof that the wider community sees value in becoming bilingual. “Bicultural literacy is also an asset to the whole community,” Tafoya says. “When we have community events, it’s enjoyable to see the broad base of people who support us.”

One of the challenges is recruiting English-speaking families who are sometimes concerned their students will feel lost when they start the dual-language program and that this could harm their academic performance. Studies, however, have shown that dual-language students often perform better by a range of academic measures. “Kids can get frustrated in the first year or so of being taught primarily in Spanish,” Tafoya says, “We do a lot of work with parents to help them work through the frustration so they don’t get scared and bail out.”

On the other hand, the program has convinced families who were thinking of leaving to stay in the district because they could not find another dual-language school. “Students experience what it’s like to be a language-minority person in a situation where you have to learn to adapt and grow–there is some benefit to that,” Tafoya says. “There are barriers and obstacles they learn to power through.”

A record number of Harvard’s students this year–20%–will graduate with Illinois’ Seal of Biliteracy, which is measured by standardized testing. As recruiting bilingual content teachers is another challenge to sustaining a dual-language program, Tafoya and his team are encouraging Harvard students who’ve graduated with the seal to eventually return to the district as teachers. “They’ll have the skill and background to be ready for this,” he says.