Large public high schools are not meeting the needs of too many of our country’s students. Nearly one in three students fails to graduate from high school. For African-American and Hispanic students the problem is even worse: Slightly more than half complete their senior year.

The need for reform is critical.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is committed to helping reduce the inequities in our education system, assuring every student in the United States the opportunity for success, regardless of race, location, or income level.

To better serve our students, the foundation is helping create new small high schools and transform existing high schools into smaller, more effective learning environments that provide that rigorous curriculum and support students need to graduate ready for college, work, and citizenship. Through partnerships with other foundations and local school districts, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has supported hundreds of such high schools around the country.

The foundation also is reducing financial barriers to higher education through several scholarship programs.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Early College Opportunities. The foundation committed more than $40 million to create 70 small high schools that provide early college opportunities. These high schools will help students get a jump start on college by enabling them to earn both a high-school diploma and an associate’s degree, or two years of college credit.
• Small High Schools. With support from the foundation, school districts in Baltimore, Sacramento, St. Paul, Ohio, and Maine launched programs to create new small schools and/or transform large schools into learning environments based upon rigor and relationships.
• Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund Inc. The foundation committed $4.9 million to support the redesign of five low-performing high schools and creation of three new high schools in economically distressed communities within the southern United States. Thurgood Marshall’s program aims to strengthen the role of public, historically black colleges and universities in education reform.
• Investing in Rural Washington Communities. In November, the foundation awarded grants to Dayton, Ferndale, Quilcene, Quincy, and San Juan Island school districts to create high schools modeled after San Diego’s High Tech High. The California school is based upon principles of personalization, academic rigor, and real-world immersion. This grant builds on existing networks of similar math, science, and technology high schools in California, Ohio, Utah, and other states.
• Leadership Development Grants. This year, the foundation completed making grants to all 50 states to develop quality leadership training on systems change, and integrating technology into the classroom.
• Increasing Access to Higher Education. To afford wider opportunities for college education, the foundation provided 1,625 students with scholarships through the following programs: Washington Achievers (500), Gates Millennium Scholars (1,000), and Gates Cambridge Scholars (125).