Albuquerque envisions a "seamless educational pathway" for N. M. students.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- Central New Mexico Community College, the University of New Mexico, and Albuquerque Public Schools have signed an agreement that officials say will help students more easily pursue higher education.

CNM President Kathie Winograd, UNM President David Schmidly and APS Superintendent Winston Brooks recently signed the memorandum of understanding in front of a group of wiggling kindergartners at an Albuquerque elementary school. The officials hope the agreement will create a seamless educational pathway for APS students.

The agreement expands existing programs, such as English as a Second Language, dual-credit and Advanced Placement programs, and is a step toward several other new cooperative initiatives.

"Our greatest hope is that (the agreement) will align education in the Albuquerque community from preschool to secondary through higher education," Brooks said, since research shows that students are more successful when there is a link between their schools and institutions of higher learning.

The agreement also:

--provides for the three institutions to share financial and operational resources;

--calls for APS, CNM and UNM to coordinate schedules and jointly plan events, such as graduations, to lessen conflicts for community members;

--allows joint board meetings on topics of common interest; and

--moves toward creating a professional development program for APS teachers to become principals.

Winograd hopes the cooperation will be replicated in other school districts around New Mexico, especially in Rio Rancho.

"We, over the years, have underestimated what we do to students socially, emotionally and educationally when we move them from one transition to the other," she said in an interview after the signing ceremony. "The message to our citizens is that we are going to do a better job of making sure we recognize that the transitions are difficult."

Another goal is to increase the number of dual-credit courses--which allow APS students to simultaneously attend CNM or UNM and college students to attend both CNM and UNM--by 10 percent annually over the next five years and eventually serve about 20 percent of APS students.

Winograd also supports creation, within the next year, of a three-digit telephone number that would be a one-stop shop for parents and students seeking information about the public schools, CNM or UNM.

In January UNM will open a center to help students with career planning, and next month it will launch a program to reach out to returning veterans who are eligible for federal higher education benefits. But the school's greatest challenge is keeping students from dropping out before graduation, Schmidly said.

He predicted that college graduation rates would increase if elementary school students learn early messages about the importance of higher education.