GEAR UP, a $28 million program, promotes college readiness at 21 schools

Middle years are key to getting prepared for college

by Michelle McKinney

How do you convince a seventh grader that if she does not start taking school seriously right now, she will have many career options closed off to her forever?

How can a teacher see unlimited academic potential in an eighth grade class with a fifth grade skills level?

How do you encourage a parent to start saving now for his sixth grader’s college education when his immediate concern is making sure his child has a teacher every day?

A major educational initiative here known as GEAR UP is grappling with these questions as it works toward its mission of college awareness and

preparation for all.

GEAR UP stands for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs. This national initiative is funded through federal legislation sponsored by Congressman Chaka Fattah.

As its full name suggests, the goals of GEAR UP are to ensure that students know what kinds of opportunities exist for post-secondary education, and that they are academically prepared to take advantage of those opportunities. This in turn ensures that more students will graduate high school with knowledge about a full range of career options and with access to choices in their adult lives.

In 1999, the School District of Philadelphia received the second largest GEAR UP grant in the United States, $28 million over five years.

There are 21 GEAR UP K-8 and middle schools in seven Philadelphia clusters. They are feeder schools for Edison, Franklin, Kensington, Overbrook, William Penn, University City, and West Philadelphia High Schools. GEAR UP is targeted to schools encompassed in the city’s "Empowerment Zones," with high percentages of low-income students.

Research has shown that schools with a high concentration of low-income students have higher dropout rates and tend to graduate students who are underprepared for college level work. Low-income students enroll in college at lower rates than other students.

For the past two years, GEAR UP has been working in Philadelphia schools to reverse these trends. It operates differently from many college-oriented programs because there is no application or screening process. All students in the seventh and eighth grades in the 21 GEAR UP schools (sixth and seventh grades in the Franklin Cluster) are GEAR UP students, and therefore eligible to participate in activities, events, and programs sponsored by GEAR UP.

The GEAR UP program begins working with students no later than the seventh grade and follows these students through middle school into high school.

Thus far, close to 8,000 students have been serviced by the initiative.

The premise of GEAR UP is that local partnerships between schools, community-based organizations, and institutions of higher education can provide the services and resources that students need to become well prepared for higher education.

Each of the seven GEAR UP clusters has a network of partnerships that provides a variety of services to students, families, and teachers. Services range from tutoring, mentoring, and after-school programs to professional development to financial aid seminars.

In Philadelphia, the GEAR UP initiative has three overarching goals: to enhance academic support for students, to increase college awareness, and to build family and community involvement. The intended outcome is that after five years, more students at the seven neighborhood high schools will apply and be accepted to post-secondary institutions without the need for remediation.

To achieve this outcome, instructional change is needed at the middle school and high school level.

"The first step in preparing students for higher education is to get them excited about the opportunities," says GEAR UP project director Beth Olanoff. "GEAR UP has done a good job in exposing our sixth, seventh and eighth graders to what college is all about."

"The hard work still to be done is in the classroom," Olanoff adds. "Students and teachers must work hard to raise the level of academic rigor to ensure students are prepared for post-secondary success."

Many middle school students enter high school without the academic preparation necessary to be ready to take algebra, lab sciences, and other demanding college prep courses. This is due in part to the lack of preparation that many middle school teachers have to teach the content and course work that students need.

Through GEAR UP, schools can employ their network of higher education and community-based partners to provide teachers with professional development and support to help them teach pre-algebra, critical literacy, and rigorous science classes.

Funds and partners can also be made available to create tutoring and extracurricular programs that directly support the work that students are doing in school, so that those who are struggling have help in reaching the high standards of a college preparatory sequence.

Where the resources and supports that GEAR UP provides are enacted effectively, students will be better prepared to pursue college and have access to the career options that are available to them through higher education.

Contact any GEAR UP school to find out about what programs GEAR UP is sponsoring there. As the first group of GEAR UP students begins ninth grade in September, ask what kinds of projects and programs are being initiated in the neighborhood high school as well.

The GEAR UP schools in Philadelphia are Julia de Burgos, Stetson (Edison Cluster); Bache-Martin, Stoddart-Fleisher, Vaux (Franklin Cluster); Adaire, Jones, Penn Treaty (Kensington Cluster); Beeber, Lamberton, Overbrook Education Center, Shoemaker (Overbrook Cluster); Elverson, Wanamaker (William Penn Cluster); Drew, McMichael, Sulzberger, Martha Washington (University City Cluster); Lea, Sayre, Shaw (West Philadelphia Cluster)