In its infancy on YouTube, the video that students at Village Academy High School in Pomona, Calif. made about how the current economic crisis was devastating their families lived in relative obscurity in cyberspace.

Click on the photo above to see the video.

Then a White House staffer discovered the video - titled "Is Anybody Listening?" - and brought it to the attention of the man who occupies the Oval Office. Next thing you know, President Barack Obama was quoting a student in the video at length in a mid-March speech about education to the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C.

For the students at Village Academy, a predominantly Hispanic school where most of the students come from families where money is tight, getting formal recognition from El Presidente was reward enough.

But this week, the YouTube video led to something the students never imagined: a private meeting with the Commander-in-Chief himself. The meeting took place across the street from the Village Academy at the Southern California Edison Electric Vehicle Technical Center. It wasn't even a school day, but the students eagerly showed up for this special visit that essentially turned into a lesson on topics that ranged from American history to civics to economics.

From the standpoint of the students, the presidential visit was something like a meteor crashing into the Earth. Some students even said the experience was better than graduation itself.

"It was pretty mind-blowing, because we didn't think the video was going to get that far," said Village Academy student Brianda Mladosich, 16. "Now that we met (President Obama), it's just amazing."

But beyond providing the students with five minutes of fame, the YouTube video seemed to accomplish much more.

For starters, the video brought some welcome attention to the relevance of the Early College High School Initiative, a growing nationwide movement of more than  200 schools, including Village Academy, designed for low-income youth, first-generation college students, and other groups that are disproportionally underrepresented on college campuses throughout the nation. 

Sponsored by various private foundations (Village Academy started in 2006 with $400,000 in "catalytic" money from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation), Early College schools are paired with area colleges, or "post-secondary partners" to offer both high school and college courses. Some Early College schools are district schools or charter schools and thus eligible for federal and state funding. The college portion is funded in a variety of ways that include tuition waivers and scholarships for high school students to take college courses. By the time Early College students graduate from high school, they have earned two-year-college degrees or enough college credit to transfer to a four-year-college as college juniors, all without paying a penny for tuition.

The timing of the YouTube video's impact was notable as well. The day before Obama visited Village Academy, Rep. Dale E. Kildee (D-Mich.) and Sen. Herbert Kohl (D-Wis.), introduced the Fast Track to College Act of 2009.  The proposed legislation would create a $140 million competitive grant program to support Early College high schools and other "dual enrollment" programs, and $10 million would go to states for planning and technical assistance.

The lawmakers announced the legislation at the Center for American Progress, in Washington, D.C., where moments later a panel discussion about the Early College Initiative generated some provocative discussions when a questioner hinted that it might be wiser to focus attention and resources on reforming regular public high schools to make them more effective instead of starting Early Colleges.

Joel Vargas, program director for Jobs for the Future, the lead partner in the Early College High School Initiative and a panelist at the center, said Early Colleges are part of educational reform and help focus attention on the need to better align standards between high schools and colleges.

 "These (Early Colleges) can be seen as on-the-ground proofs for how to create an improved scope and sequence of learning expectations and supports for students from grades 9 through 14, ensuring they get through high school, into college, and through the critical first two years of college," Vargas said later in an interview.

He said low-income students not only face academic preparatory barriers to college, but also social and financial barriers that Early Colleges remove.

"Even if we ‘fixed' existing high schools, they don't do much, if anything, about ensuring students can afford college or helping students really understand what being in college is like and having a realistic conception of whether it's something they can really do," Vargas said.  "Providing free college credit and early college experience does that, in addition to providing them with college-prep through college course work."

In California, as in other parts of the nation, the Early College High School Initiative's efforts appear to be paying off. According to figures provided by Vargas, students from California's first 10 Early Colleges who took the California High School Exit Examination passed the language arts portion of the exam at a rate of 91 percent, versus 79 percent for all California students. And they passed the exam's math at a rate of 89 percent versus 78 percent for all state students.

Early College students also drop out much less than other students in California, figures show, although the rates varied depending on the school districts, which were not identified in the data.

Beyond test scores and dropout rates, the video that the students at Village Academy made speaks volumes about the kind of education taking place at the school.

"Obviously, they've done a good job in teaching their students kind of important questions of consequence in the country and have developed their sense of efficacy and agency in terms of being able to assert themselves and make their point of view known to the president," Vargas said. "I think that's a pretty powerful take on what the school is doing on the ground there."

Michael Steinman, the Advanced Placement language arts teacher said he encouraged the students to make the video following a discussion of The Great Gatsby, a 1920s novel about indulgence and the American dream. Steinman asked his students how many were being affected by the current economic crisis and every hand in the room went up: Students began to tell their stories of how their parents were losing jobs, homes and having to forgo health care, and how difficult it was to concentrate in school.

Steinman told the students to tell their stories to the camera. He originally wanted to send a DVD of the video to Obama and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) during the presidential campaign, but the video wasn't finished on time. Based on the results, it ended up being better late.

"This whole process of going from a thought to actually putting together something that the president referenced has taught the kids to stick to something and focus," Steinman said. "And even though it is a long shot, I'm sure many people thought, ‘This is ridiculous. It's never going to happen.' But it did happen, and I think they have this great feeling that they're successful, and going to college is no more of a long shot than that."

On a personal level for the students, the presidential visit has inspired the students to pursue their college dreams in ways that few other things could.

Several Village Academy students told Youth Today how they occasionally thought about forgoing college in order to help their economically distressed families.

Pablo Flores, 16, a Village Academy student who was featured in the video, said times are so tough that he has occasionally thought about forgoing college himself. But after meeting with Obama and hearing directly from him about the importance of college and how the stimulus act would increase financial aid to make college easier to access, Flores said skipping college to go straight to work is a lot less likely.

He said the visit from Obama also makes him that much more determined to pursue his dream of becoming an economist. Looking to the future, he sees himself being an economist who can say "I was raised in this economy," referring to the current economic crisis.

"I want to help," Flores said. "Obama really inspired me to want to change this whole situation."

To view the video "Is Anybody Listening," go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WMTTrOrKVI.

To learn more about Village Academy, go to http://www.pusd.org/education/components/scrapbook/default.php?sectiondetailid=564.

To learn more about the Early Colleges Initiative, go to http://www.earlycollege.org.