Educate Texas to support national efforts to scale college- and career-ready model for Texas students including BISD and PSJA

EDINBURG, Texas – Today two school districts in the Rio Grande Valley, Brownsville and Pharr-San Juan-Alamo (PSJA), announced a $5.6 million federal grant to expand the early college high school (ECHS) model in the region as part of the Early College Expansion Partnership. The Partnership includes the two districts as well as Educate Texas, a public-private partnership of Communities Foundation of Texas, and Jobs for the Future (JFF), a national nonprofit based in Boston. The grant, funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund, is part of a national $15 million effort to scale the early college model, and the Early College Expansion Partnership was selected as one of 20 national i3 recipients out of a highly competitive pool of more than 700 applicants. The early college model is a bold approach that provides students with the opportunity to earn up to two years of college credit, tuition free, while obtaining their high school diploma. View media release.