New obstacles for early college schools, with some SSO relief

Speaking of the School Support Organization run by the City University of New York, which netted the top rating in the Department of Education’s comparison of SSO performance, I have an article in this week’s Village Voice about the evolving nature of high school-college partnerships in the city.

The thrust of the story is that ballooning enrollment at CUNY colleges — the system is set to top a quarter of a million students this fall for the first time — is making it harder for the colleges to provide space and other resources to DOE schools. But the CUNY-run SSO is guaranteeing a deep relationship for at least the 13 schools that chose to partner with it. And rather than stewing about budget cuts and other constraints, the CUNY official in charge of the SSO, Cass Conrad, is thinking proactively about how more DOE schools might collaborate with CUNY colleges in the future. From my article:

For schools that do want to maintain a physical relationship in the face of CUNY’s system-wide space crunch, there might be other approaches to integrating campuses beyond simply busing students, says Conrad, who also heads the professional development network. “We’re hoping that some of the schools will develop the technology that will help them connect,” she says.