Bard High School Early College - New York City

In 2001 a radical educational project was founded at Bard High School, New York. This program fast-tracks students in years 11 & 12, moving them straight into college studies. Mark Dobson was a founding member the project, with a specific role to establishing an elite school culture. President Barack Obama is now leading the movement to begin further similar initiatives stating that, to achieve America’s educational goals “we also have to explore innovative approaches, such as those being pursued in New York City. Innovations like Bard High School.”

Mark's role in New York was to establish the most unique of school cultures. A culture free of violence, weapons and aggression, and instead create one that inspires students to learn and study at the highest level.

Vice President of Early College Policy and Programs , Ba Win, commented that they “knew one of the challenges for Bard High School Early College would be to create and inculcate a culture that would value serious engagement in ideas, and celebrate the academic endeavor rather than prowess in sports.”  

The New York Times covered the announcement from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation who stated “that it would use Bard as a model for creating up to 70 new early-college high schools across the country”. Australia is at an advantage to this new approach with founding member, Mark Dobson, facilitating a similar project in Melbourne, Australia – The Summit.

The Summit is a school camp venue that provides a highly educational product, focused on shifting student thinking and culture. The product is so unique and so valuable to schools that in its first year of operation it attracted the most elite schools in the State and is near booked out for the next several years.

Mark Dobson says that “School camps are an incredible opportunity for powerful education, however too often camps are more about supervised recreation than profound learning. We all  must commit to education standards that respects Gen Y’s intelligence and processing speed.”

The Summit seeks to engage students with fantastic activities like a dual control army tank to drive, tunnels to explore and towers to leap from. Summit organizers are most interested in students’ awareness of how they impact each other and how they can support one another to grow in their chosen areas. It is this focus that is the centre of the many discussions and workshops students also partake in.