在高中修大學課程 美國理想主義教育實驗

ALONG his block in Newark’s West Ward, where drugs are endemic and the young residents talk about shootings with alarming nonchalance, Najee Little is known as the smart kid. He got all A’s his sophomore year, breezing through math and awing his English teachers. His mother, a day care worker, and father, who does odd jobs to make ends meet, have high aspirations for him. They want him to earn a college degree.

在紐瓦克市西區的一片社區，毒品肆虐，年輕人漠然地聊着槍擊事件，而納吉·利特爾(Najee Little)卻是公認的聰明孩子。在高中二年級的時候，他是一名全優生，數學考試手到擒來，英語水平讓老師稱讚不已。他母親在日託所工作，父親打着零工，只能勉強度日。全家人對他期望很高，希望他能拿到大學學歷。

So last year, when Bard College opened an early college high school in Newark for disadvantaged students with dreams of a bachelor’s degree, he was sure he’d do well there. He wrote his first long paper on Plato’s “Republic,” expecting a top grade. He got a D minus. “Honestly,” he recalled, “I was kind of discouraged.”

所以，當巴德學院(Bard College)去年爲夢想拿到學士學位的家庭條件不佳的學生在紐瓦克開設大學先修高中時，他確信自己能在那裏表現出色。他寫了生平第一篇長論文，討論柏拉圖的《理想國》(Republic)，期望能拿到高分。可是，他卻只得到了D-。“老實說，”他回憶道，“我有點灰心。”

That paper marked the beginning of a trying academic path that would both excite and disillusion him. The past two years have been peppered with some promising grades — an A in environmental science — and some doozies. He failed “Africa in World History” and squeaked by in calculus. Mostly, he came to realize that getting into college and staying there would be a herculean task. There was tricky grammar, hard math and tons of homework. There was the neighborhood cacophony to tune out and the call of his Xbox. And there was the fact that no one in his house could help him.

那篇論文標誌着他從此踏上了時而激動時而幻滅的艱難學術之路。過去兩年的學習裏，點綴着一些不錯的成績——環境科學得了A——還有一些非凡的經歷。但他的非洲史不及格，微積分也只是勉強通過。最主要的是，他漸漸意識到，上大學並堅持到畢業將是一項極爲艱鉅的任務：語法複雜、數學艱深、作業無數；要忽略鄰居製造的刺耳噪音，還要抵擋遊戲機的誘惑；家人卻幫不上任何忙。

“My work is more advanced than anyone at home has experienced,” he said. And that, it turns out, is why the school had accepted him.

“我的學業比家裏所有人經歷過的都複雜，”他說。而這一點，正是學校接收他的原因。

Across the country in communities like Newark, the early college high school model is being lauded as a way to provide low-income students with a road map to and through college. According to the most recent figures from the National Center for Education Statistics, 68 percent of all high school graduates make it to a two- or four-year institution, but only 52 percent of low-income students do the same. Of poor students in four-year institutions, only 47 percent graduate within six years, compared with 58 percent of the general population.

在全美像紐瓦克這樣的社區裏，大學先修高中的模式廣受讚譽，因爲它向低收入家庭的學生提供了一條進入並讀完大學的途徑。根據國家教育統計中心(National Center for Education Statistics)的最新數據，在美國所有的高中畢業生中，能升學到兩年或四年制院校的比例爲68%，但在低收入家庭的學生中，這一比例僅有52%。就讀四年制高校的貧困生裏，只有47%能在六年內畢業，與之相比，全體學生中的比例爲58%。

Not surprisingly, the challenges are greatest for students whose parents did not attend any college: their graduation rate hovers around 40 percent. Early college high schools seek to rectify that, by merging high school and some college. Students can earn both a high school diploma and an associate degree, and some are set on the path to a four-year degree.

不出意料，對那些父母沒有上過大學的學生而言，挑戰是最大的：他們的畢業率在40%上下徘徊。爲了改善這一點，大學先修高中將一些大學課程和高中課程歸併。學生既可以取得高中文憑，也將同時獲得副學士學位，其中一些學生還可以踏上四年制學位之路。

Educators and big-ticket donors have praised the schools for saving students money and time — most schools compress the academic experience into four years. Since 2002, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has provided more than $40 million toward initiatives. The Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York have also chipped in. President Obama is a proponent, giving a shout-out in his State of the Union address to P-Tech, a public-private partnership that pairs the New York City public school system and the City University of New York with I.B.M., which promises graduates a shot at a well-paying job.

教育界人士和大額捐贈者對此類學校稱讚有加，稱它們爲學生節省了費用和時間——大多數先修學校將學業壓縮到四年完成。自2002年以來，比爾和梅琳達·蓋茨基金會(Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation)已經向此類計劃提供了逾4000萬美元（約合2.5億元人民幣）的資助，福特基金會(Ford Foundation)和紐約卡耐基基金會(Carnegie Corporation of New York)亦出資捐助。奧巴馬總統也是支持者，曾在國情諮文演說中爲P-Tech叫好。P-tech是一個公立和私營機構合作的項目，爲紐約公立學校系統、紐約城市大學(City University of New York)與I.B.M.牽線搭橋，從而讓畢業生有望取得高薪的就業機會。

There are now more than 400 early college high schools across the country — North Carolina has 76 of them — educating an estimated 100,000 students.

目前，全美的大學先修高中超過400所，惠及約10萬名學生，其中，北卡羅來納州有76所。

Bard, a liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., is at the vanguard of the movement, with a president, Leon Botstein, who has long chastised the American high school system for its inefficiencies. More than 30 years ago, Bard took over Simon’s Rock, a private college for 11th graders and up in Great Barrington, Mass. In 2001, it opened an early college high school in Lower Manhattan, enormously popular with hyper-motivated New Yorkers, and in 2008 it started one in Queens that has become a magnet for the high-achieving offspring of Chinese, Polish and Bengali immigrants. Until now, Bard’s model has largely focused on elite students.

地處紐約州哈德遜河畔安嫩代爾的文理學院巴德正是該運動的先鋒，其校長利昂·波特斯坦(Leon Botstein)對美國高中體系的效率低下責備已久。30多年前，巴德接管了設在馬薩諸塞州大巴靈頓的西蒙洛克學院(Simon’s Rock)。後者是所私立學院，接收11年級及以上的學生。2001年，巴德在曼哈頓下城開設了一所大學先修高中，在有着強烈積極性的紐約人中極受歡迎。到2008年時，它在皇后區又開設了一所這樣的學校，像磁鐵一樣吸引着成績優秀的中國、波蘭和孟加拉移民後代。到目前爲止，巴德模型主要針對精英學生。

In Newark, Bard moved into a school building across from a tire shop and a bail bond business. Hanging outside is a cheerful red banner with the Bard name etched in white, as if to signal that new life is being breathed into the neighborhood.

在紐瓦克，巴德進駐的那棟教學樓位於一家輪胎店和一個保釋中介公司對面。歡樂的紅色橫幅掛在樓外，刻着白色的巴德名號，就像在說，學校向街坊裏吹進了新的生機。

Administrators admitted 87 eighth graders as freshmen in fall 2011, and 36 sophomores as juniors who could expect to start college-level work immediately. This year, there are students in all four grades.

該校錄取了87名8年級學生作爲2011年秋季的新生，另招了36名高二學生進入這裏的三年級，可以立即開始大學水平的學業。今年，四個年級都有學生就讀。

Najee seemed like a perfect fit. He had been pulling in top marks as a high school sophomore, but was bored by a math class that rarely progressed past the basics and never required homework. Essays for other classes were usually half a page long. Only once did a teacher assign a full-length book to read — “Fahrenheit 451.” And that was over the summer. Najee was also eager to create some distance between himself and his rough-and-tumble neighborhood, where a good friend had been stabbed to death “over an incident with a girl.”

這對納吉來說就像量身定做一樣。高中二年級的時候，他總是得最高分，但數學課很無聊，內容基本不會超越基礎知識，還從不要求家庭作業。其它課程的論文通常只要求寫半頁的內容。僅有一次，有位老師佈置了一項要求讀完一整本書的作業——《華氏451度》(Fahrenheit 451)——但給了他們整個暑假來完成。納吉也急切想在自己和混亂的社區間劃清界限。他的一位好朋友“因爲一個女孩”在那裏被人捅死。

His new classmates at Bard were similarly seeking to cocoon themselves somewhere safe and supportive. Miles Scott lives with his grandmother after his mother and father died within two years of each other. Billy Caraballo has been in and out of half a dozen schools. He calls Bard “a second chance.” Marvin Pinkrah transferred from a low-performing high school but had strong early preparation in Ghana. Friends call him “the human dictionary” and turn to him for help.

他在巴德的新同學也同樣希望找到安全且能受到支持的地方待着。邁爾斯·斯科特(Miles Scott)的父母在兩年內相繼去世，他現在和祖母住在一起。比利·卡拉巴羅(Billy Caraballo)換了6所學校。他稱巴德是“第二次機會”。馬文·平卡羅(Marvin Pinkrah) 是從較差的高中轉校過來的，但他在加納的早期基礎很紮實。朋友們稱他爲“活字典”，經常找他幫忙。

Bard’s goals are unapologetically ambitious, mimicking those at its other schools. Most teachers have doctorates, and some of its curriculum is borrowed from the college itself. Freshmen and sophomores cram yearlong high school math, social studies and science classes into one-semester chunks. Juniors and seniors — they’re called first years and second years — take 60 credits’ worth of college-level courses, on Caribbean literature, multimedia studies and Shakespeare. A series of classes known in Bard parlance as “seminar,” a replica of the series taught on the college campus, explores ancient philosophers and great American and European thinkers.

巴德並不避諱其雄心勃勃的目標，效仿在它旗下的其它學校。大多數教師有博士學位，其中一些課程就是從大學裏借用的。一、二年級學生要在一個學期內學完一整年的高中數學、社會學和科學課程。更高的兩個年級的學生被稱爲大一和大二生，要修完60個學分的大學等級課程：加勒比文學、多媒體研究和莎士比亞等。巴德提供一系列的“研討課”，複製了大學校園裏所教的同類課程，探索研究古哲學家和美歐的偉大思想家。

The ethos of early college high schools: catch students up, not by relegating them to the kind of remedial classes required at community colleges but by bombarding them with challenging work. At the Bard school, that means works by Dante, Locke and W.E.B. Du Bois that have populated and enriched the lives of their more affluent peers.

大學先修高中的精神是：不讓學生掉隊，不是把標準降低到社區大學裏要求的那類補習課程，而是用充滿挑戰的功課激發他們的潛力。在巴德，這意味着學生們將去研讀但丁(Dante)、洛克(Locke)和W·E·B·杜波依斯(W.E.B. Du Bois)的著作，而這些書通常是他們追求豐富人生的富裕同齡人纔會研讀的。

Students say the transition has been tough. Al-Nisa Amin, now a sophomore, remembers slumping over a math problem that first year, crying out of sheer frustration. But she has stuck it out, partly because she is scared of being sent back to her old high school.

學生們說，過渡階段非常艱難。目前讀二年級的妮薩·阿敏(Al-Nisa Amin)記得在第一年的時候，做一道數學題做到崩潰，沮喪地哭嚎。但她堅持了下去，一部分原因是擔心被送回原來的中學。

For those who parachuted into college-level classes, the climb has been steep, and often eye-opening.

對於那些猛然面對大學程度的課程的學生，學業的山峯陡峭而壯麗。

On a recent afternoon, Najee and his classmates, some in the optional uniform of khaki pants and rust-colored sweatshirts, settled into steel-framed desk chairs for a Shakespeare class.

在最近的一天下午，納吉和他的同學坐在鋼架桌椅上聽莎士比亞文學課，其中一些學生身穿自願穿着的卡其色褲子和赭色運動衫校服。

Flipping through their Signet Classic paperbacks and scribbling notes, they reviewed the first act of “Twelfth Night,” intuitively understanding that Orsino, Duke of Illyria, had become obsessed with Olivia. When their professor, David Cutts, asked what was going on in Orsino’s heart, several called out matter-of-factly: “Love.” The class then discussed the vagaries of love at first sight, and voted on whether they believed in it. Most didn’t.

他們翻閱着Signet Classic出版社的平裝版《第十二夜》(Twelfth Night)緊張地記着筆記。複習第一幕時，他們自然而然地明白了，伊利里亞公爵奧西諾(Orsino)着迷於奧麗維婭(Olivia)。當教授戴維·卡茨(David Cutts)問他們奧西諾的內心活動時，幾名學生斬釘截鐵地喊道：“愛情”。接着全班討論起了奇妙的一見鍾情，並就是否相信一見鍾情進行了投票。大多數學生並不相信。

Some were confused by the shipwrecked noblewoman Viola and her motives in disguising herself as a servant. “He’s rich, so why is she trying to hide?” one student asked, befuddled. Another hypothesized: “I think she’s interested in him.”

一些人對遭遇海難的貴婦薇奧拉(Viola)，以及她爲什麼把自己僞裝成僕人而感到困惑。“他很有錢，那她還有什麼好隱瞞的？”一名學生不解地問。另一名學生則猜測：“我覺得她對他有好感。”

When Dr. Cutts reviewed a plot point toward the end, one girl scolded him: “spoiler alert.”

當卡茨教授點出結尾時的一段情節時，一名女生責備說：“不要劇透。”

Less lighthearted was seminar, which on this day involved mulling over a densely written essay by the Marxist political theorist Fredric Jameson on the meaning of self in a postmodern world. Reading aloud a 2006 article in The Economist titled “Post-Modernism Is the New Black,” one student stumbled over “facade,” “anachronistic” and “grandeur” — words that would seem fair game for late high school.

研討課則沒那麼多歡樂，這一天要研讀馬克思主義政治理論家詹明信(Fredric Jameson)撰寫的一篇信息量極大的論文，主題是自我在這個後現代世界裏的意義。在朗讀2006年《經濟學人》(The Economist)上題爲《後現代主義成爲新時尚》(Post-Modernism Is the New Black)的文章時，一名學生被“立面”(facade)、“時代錯誤的”(anachronistic)，以及“壯麗”(grandeur)這樣的詞難住了——它們本該屬於高中高年級的理解範圍。

Another student wanted to know: “What’s a phenomenon?” One inquired about the meaning of “sinister.”

另一個學生問：“什麼是‘現象’(phenomenon)？”另一個則想知道“險惡的”(sinister)的含義。

The article cited Auschwitz as an example of how the Enlightenment had “given birth” to totalitarianism. Not one of the 10 students knew what Auschwitz was. Debate ensued over whether it was a city in Switzerland, Russia or Poland. Their professor finally interjected: “It’s usually used as the big example of the Holocaust.”

文章將奧斯維辛(Auschwitz)作爲例子，描述啓蒙運動(Enlightenment)是怎樣孕育出極權主義的。10個學生中沒有一個人知道奧斯維辛是什麼。接着他們開始辯論它是不是瑞士、俄羅斯或波蘭的一座城市。教授終於插嘴解釋：“人們常常把它當作猶太人大屠殺的一個主要例子。”

In similar classes in Bard’s New York schools, students’ vocabulary, communication skills and historical knowledge appear noticeably more advanced. During a recent discussion in the Manhattan school on punishments doled out in the ninth and tenth pouches of Dante’s Inferno, one student said she thought the physical torture was “consistent with the logic of the story.”

巴德學院在紐約開辦的學校裏類似的課堂上，學生們的詞彙量、溝通能力和歷史知識明顯更爲好。曼哈頓學校最近關於但丁的《地獄》(Inferno)一書中，第9和第10囊裏做出的懲罰進行了一場討論。討論過程中，一名學生說她認爲身體折磨是“與故事邏輯相符合的”。

“Their souls do inhabit a form,” she mused. “They do have an underworld body. He even describes the shape of their tear glands.”

“他們的靈魂的確棲息於一種形式，”她思忖道。“他們的確有一副地獄之身。但丁甚至描述了他們淚腺的形狀。”

Another student disagreed, pointing to the way the sinners who had split with the Catholic Church were being split open with swords. “I think this is really about metaphorical pain,” she said confidently. “It’s not literal.”

另一名同學不同意這個說法，指出與天主教會切斷關係的罪人，後來身體被劍劈斷了。“我覺得這裏講的是隱喻性的痛苦，”她自信地說。“並不能從字面上理解。”

The disparity raises an uncomfortable question. Can students who are so behind be brought up to college level in a few efficient years, even with good teachers and good intentions?

學生水平的差距，又引出了一個令人不安的問題：即使有出色的老師、良好的意圖，如此落後的學生是否能夠通過幾年的高效學習，就提升到大學水平？

Meandering through the bustling hallways of the Newark school one day this winter, waving at students as they passed, Lori Ween, dean of studies and faculty in English, was hopeful but frank: “We tell our students whatever happened before this, this is where you are now.” Still, she acknowledges, it has turned out to be harder than many of the students expected. This is in part because Newark’s most promising high school students flee for better districts, although officials say that as Bard’s reputation grows, they expect more will stay.

今年冬天的一天，漫步在紐瓦克校園人來人往的走廊裏，教務主任兼英語教學主任洛裏·維恩(Lori Ween)向經過的學生們招手，她滿懷希望但也很坦白：“我們告訴學生們，無論在這之前發生過什麼，這裏都是你們現在的學校。”但她承認，實際情況比許多學生想象的要困難得多。部分原因在於，紐瓦克最有潛力的高中生轉學去了更好的學區，不過官員表示，隨着巴德的聲譽不斷增長，他們預計會有更多人留下來。

So far, the school has lost 7 of the 36 students who entered in 2011 as first-year college students and 20 of the 87 who entered as high school freshmen.

到目前爲止，在2011年進入該校就讀大學一年級的36名學生中，已經流失了七名；而87名作爲高中新生入學的學生，則流失了20名。

Najee has repeated one class. Both Miles and Billy have repeated several. More than half the class had to repeat one of the required seminars in a monthlong intensive at the end of the last school year. A “free” period that had always been used as a study period at the other Bard high schools needed to be renamed “enrichment period” to signal it was intended for work.

納吉已經重修了一門課。邁爾斯和比利都重修了幾門課。超過一半的學生必須要在學年結束時的一個月高強度地重修所要求的研討班。在其它巴德高中一直被用作學習期的“自由”階段，在這裏需要更名爲“擴充期”，表示這一階段是用來完成課業的。

Dr. Ween says students come to school with problems that can easily derail them. One sophomore, after a few days off, announced that her father had been murdered, shot seven times. Another complained that she had been in a hospital room all weekend. When Dr. Ween asked if she was sick, she responded, “No, my boyfriend was shot.” Another is his younger brother’s primary caretaker, making him dinner and getting him ready for school.

維恩博士說，來這裏上學的學生有着各種會讓他們分心的問題。一名二年級學生請了幾天假後，回來說她父親被謀殺了，身中七槍。另一位抱怨她整個週末都在醫院病房，當維恩博士問她是不是生病時，她回答說，“不是，我男朋友被槍擊了。”另一位則擔當着弟弟的主要監護人，給他做晚飯，安頓他上學。

“When you hear these stories, it’s really easy to say, ‘Take a break,’ ” Dr. Ween said. But she resists. Her students, she said, need to be supported, but not let off the hook from schoolwork.

“當聽到這些故事時，很容易會有一種讓他們休息一下的想法，”維恩博士說。但她堅持不這麼做。她說，她的學生需要支持，但不能不完成課業。

Taken as a group, early college high schools place a premium on teaching rudimentary study skills — how to take notes, how to interact with professors, where the best spot is to sit in a classroom. But the greatest emphasis is on thinking. Students are encouraged to see themselves as participants in an academic world, and as interested in gaining knowledge as in getting good grades. Dr. Ween calls it “joining the debate.”

整體來說，大學先修高中非常重視傳授基本的學習技能：怎樣記筆記，怎樣和教授互動，教室裏最佳的座位在哪裏。然而最強調的是思考。學校鼓勵學生們將自己看成是學術界的參與者，不僅要取得好的成績，更要有求知慾。維恩博士稱之爲“參與討論”。

The students at Duplin Early College High School in eastern North Carolina take an applied math class in which they learn about velocity and graphing by building roller coasters out of wire, piping and masking tape. Then they are asked to defend the project. At the Dayton Early College Academy in Ohio, students learn about constitutional law in mock trials. And at Bard, in an environmental science class, students read articles about the effect biofuel is having on corn prices and debate the merits of renewable energy.

在北卡羅來納州東部的杜普林大學先修高中(Duplin Early College High School)，學生們上了一門應用數學課程，通過用電線、管道和遮蔽膠帶做一個過山車，研習速率和繪圖。然後，他們被要求就這個項目作答辯。在俄亥俄州代頓早期大學學院(Dayton Early College Academy)，學生們在模擬審判中學習憲法。在巴德的一堂環境科學課上，學生們閱讀有關生物燃料如何影響玉米價格的文章，就可再生能源的優點展開辯論。

“You cannot pull off an early college high school successfully without fundamentally changing pedagogy,” said Joel Vargas, vice president of Jobs for the Future, a nonprofit organization based in Boston that develops early college high schools. He calls it the opposite of “chalk and talk.”

“如果不從根本上改變教學法，大學先修高中不可能成功，”未來工作(Jobs for the Future)副總裁喬爾·瓦格斯(Joel Vargas)說。未來工作是總部設在波士頓的一家非盈利性組織地處，旨在發展大學先修高中。他稱大學先修高中爲填鴨式教學法的對立面。

The model reverses ideas about how to best serve students whose parents haven’t gone to college. Gone is knee-jerk vocational tracking. Gone is the thinking that students must master all the basics before taking on more challenging work.

對於父母沒有上過大學的學生，怎樣向他們提供最好的服務？這種模式帶來了截然不同的觀點。不假思索的職教分班不再適宜，認爲學生必須掌握所有基礎後才能研習更具艱深課程的觀點也不再適用。

“Traditionally, what has happened is that kids who come in below standards are put in a remedial track and they do addition and subtraction over and over again,” said Cecilia Cunningham, executive director of the Middle College National Consortium, a network of more than 30 early college high schools. “They’re bored out of their minds and the message is: ‘You really can’t do this.’ ”

“傳統的做法是，把不達標的學生集中到補習班，讓他們一遍又一遍地做着加減法，”有着超過30所大學先修高中成員的全美大學先修高中聯盟(Middle College National Consortium)執行主任塞西莉亞·坎寧安(Cecilia Cunningham)說。“他們覺得非常煩，向自己傳達了這樣一個信息：‘你真的做不來。’”

Studies show that high school students who take classes in which they get both college and high school credit — often referred to as dual-credit courses — fare better academically.

研究表明，上能夠同時拿到高中和大學學分課程（通常稱爲雙學分課程）的高中生，在學業上的表現要好得多。

According to Jobs for the Future, which is behind 246 early college high schools, 76 percent of its 2011-12 graduates have enrolled in college. A study last year of more than 30,000 Texas high school graduates found that those who took college-level classes in high school were more likely to have finished college after six years. Studies showing such attainment, however, aren’t able to determine if it is the type of students drawn to college-level coursework that makes the difference. And no long-term studies have been conducted about early college high school students and college graduation.

根據未來工作組織對246所大學先修高中的統計，76%的2011-2012學年畢業生考上了大學。去年，一項對3萬多名德克薩斯高中畢業生的研究發現，在高中學過大學水平課程的學生，更有希望在六年後從大學畢業。但是，這些研究不足以確定該差異是不是由於參加大學水平課程的學生的類型所造成的。並且，還沒有人針對大學先修高中學生和大學畢業率進行過長期研究。

This concerns Sandra Stotsky, a professor emerita in the University of Arkansas’s Department of Education Reform, who notes that there is not any substantial evidence that the model being tried out in Newark will help at-risk students get through four years of college. Dr. Stotsky finds the idea that students should have to go to college to get a good high school education counterintuitive, and has called on educators to refocus their efforts on making high school coursework more challenging.

這讓阿肯色大學教育改革部(University of Arkansas’s Department of Education Reform)榮休教授桑德拉·司託茨基(Sandra Stotsky)很擔心，她注意到，沒有任何實質性證據能表明，在紐瓦克嘗試的這一教學模式，能夠幫助處在危險中的學生完成四年大學的學習。司託茨基博士覺得，學生必須到大學裏去得到好的高中教育，這樣的觀念違反直覺，並且她呼籲教育家將功夫重新放在提高高中功課的挑戰性上面。

Critics also worry about rushing students through the material and pushing them prematurely onto college campuses, thus dumbing down classes for the other students. Many colleges have resisted the pressure to promote 18-year-olds to sophomore or junior status. In 2009, New York University stopped accepting dual-enrollment credits, saying it was impossible to determine the rigor of the classes.

批評者也擔心向學生們填塞內容，把他們過早地推進大學校園，會使其他學生的課程難度相形見絀。 許多大學在抵抗讓18歲的學生跳級到大學二年級或三年級的壓力。從2009年起，紐約大學(New York University)不再接收雙學分學生，稱其無法確定課程的難度。

Bard officials say public colleges are generally more open to accepting credit earned in high school. They estimate that more than half of last year’s 143 Manhattan graduates were able to transfer two years of credit.

巴德行政管理人員說，公立大學一般對接受高中獲得的學分持更爲開放的態度。他們估測，去年曼哈頓的143位畢業生中，超過半數的人能夠轉到兩年的學分。

Ray Peterson, who has helped start all three of Bard’s public high schools, says that given the Newark students’ struggles, he is pleased with where they are: of the remaining 29 second-year students, 21 have been accepted to a four-year college. It’s promising news, but no guarantee of a bachelor’s degree. While some of the colleges have impressive graduation rates, many do not.

參與了巴德所有三所公立高中的創辦的雷·彼得森(Ray Peterson)說，鑑於紐瓦克學生所處的困境，對目前所取得的成績，他感到很欣慰。在現有的29名二年級學生中，有21位已經被四年制大學接收。這個消息展現了美好前景，但並不是拿到學士學位的保證。雖然一些大學的畢業率非常高，但還有許多大學不樂觀。

Najee has been accepted to Bloomfield College and Felician College, both in New Jersey, and is awaiting word about scholarship money. His parents cannot afford to assist him financially, so he hopes to gain junior status. Marvin has been accepted by St. John’s University in Queens and, with a partial scholarship, D’Youville College in Buffalo.

納吉已經被布盧姆菲爾德學院(Bloomfield College)和佛裏森學院(Felician College)錄取，這兩所學校都在新澤西州，目前他正在等待關於獎學金的消息。他父母在經濟上負擔不起，所以他希望能獲得讀大三的資格。馬文已經被皇后區的聖約翰大學(St. John’s University)和布法羅的德尤維爾大學(D’Youville College) （提供部分獎學金）錄取。

The school’s star pupil, Katrina Anderson, who attended a well-regarded charter school before Bard, has been accepted on a four-year scholarship to Oberlin. But Billy has failed most of his college-level classes and is working toward a high school diploma.

在進入巴德之前曾在一所備受重視的特許學校就讀的明星學生卡特里娜·安德森(Katrina Anderson)被奧伯林(Oberlin)錄取，並獲得了四年的獎學金。但比利的大多數大學水平課程都沒有通過，他正在爲高中文憑努力。

“My prediction after the first year was that a lot more kids would drop out and go somewhere where they had less stress,” Dr. Peterson said. “But most came back. They really appreciated the faculty holding onto its standards.”

“第一年後，我的預測是許多孩子將退出，轉到壓力更小的學校，”彼得森博士說。“但很多人回來了。他們非常感激教師們能夠堅持其標準。”

Leon Botstein says there has to be room for fits and starts. He is planning to take the model to Baltimore and Cleveland, two cities with ailing public schools, and to Harlem.

利昂·波特斯坦說，必須有讓學生有忽斷忽續的餘地。他計劃把這一模式推廣到巴爾的摩和克利夫蘭這兩所公立學校境況不佳的城市，以及非裔美國人聚居的哈萊姆。

“With idealism comes tolerance for failure,” said Dr. Botstein, chatting from behind his desk at his office at Bard’s campus upstate. “We need to think about these efforts the way we think about hospitals. Mortality rates can be zero if you don’t take any patients who are really sick.”

“要理想主義，就要有對失敗的寬容，”波特斯坦博士坐在州北的巴德校園辦公室桌子前說。“我們應該像看待醫院一樣看待這些努力。如果你不接收任何重病患者，死亡率可以是零。”

For Najee, failure would come at a disheartening price. The people he knows without a college degree have low-paying jobs or no jobs, or deal drugs.

對納吉而言，失敗的代價太令人痛心。他認識的那些沒有大學學位的人們，有的拿着很低的薪水，有的沒有工作，還有的成了毒販。

So, when he is feeling overwhelmed or simply in need of a pep talk, he sometimes calls on Dr. Ween. One afternoon, they sat together in her office discussing strategies. Najee had a paper due and calculus to study for. Dr. Ween told him to plan out what he was going to do step by step. “Find a place where you are capable of doing work,” she said. “If it’s the library go to the library. If it’s my office, come here.”

因此，當覺得不堪重負或需要有人打氣時，他偶爾會打電話給維恩博士。一天下午，他們在她的辦公室裏坐下來，討論策略。納吉有一篇到期未交的論文，還要學微積分。維恩博士讓他一步一步計劃將要做的事。“找一個你能夠寫作業的地方，”她說。“如果是圖書館，就去圖書館。如果是我的辦公室，就過來。”

And so he saddled up in a chair in the library recently. For an essay on postmodernism and music, he browsed the review of a book by a University of Louisiana jazz professor and an excerpt from a book by two music professors at Stony Brook University.

因此，最近他坐到了圖書館的椅子上。爲了寫一篇關於後現代主義和音樂的論文，他瀏覽了路易斯安那大學(University of Louisiana)一位爵士樂教授的一本書的書評，以及由石溪大學(Stony Brook University)兩名音樂教授所著書籍的摘錄。

“I realize that a lot of people really want me to succeed,” he said. Even the neighborhood drug dealers. “That,” he added, “is my motivation.”

“我意識到許多人真心希望我能成功，”他說，甚至包括周圍的毒販。“那就是我的動力，”他說。