The Multiple Educational Pathways Blueprint Initiative, a groundbreaking initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Labor, provides an opportunity for seven mid-sized cities to build a system of new pathways and supports that addresses the needs of struggling students and dropouts. Each city, working with Jobs for the Future and the Department of Labor, is building a multi-sector partnership to assess the scope of the dropout challenge, the capacity of the current service system, and the strength of existing high school reform efforts. Partners in each community are using this information to develop comprehensive “Blueprints” for building multiple pathways that ultimately improve the education and workforce outcomes for these youth.
Rationale
The twenty-first century economy requires a more highly skilled and educated workforce to meet the demands of an increasingly global marketplace. Yet too many of the nation’s youth are leaving high school without credentials or lacking skills needed for postsecondary education, training, and work. By some estimates, one-third of all youth entering ninth grade will leave high school without earning a diploma. Eleven percent of 16-24 year olds nationally have left school without a diploma or a GED. These numbers of unprepared or underprepared youth strain state and regional economies. According to the Alliance for Excellent Education, our country could reap $45 billion in taxable income and recovered social service costs if the United States could just halve the number of high school dropouts for one year.
With increasingly sophisticated and available data, cities and states across the country are gaining a better understanding of the scope and dimensions of the dropout crisis. Local leaders recognize that young people we currently lose are an important part of the new workforce pipeline that businesses need to fill job vacancies in the knowledge-based economy. These dual recognitions—that our youth are losing opportunity and employers are losing a workforce—are leading to heightened action on behalf of struggling students and out-of-school youth.
In a number of urban areas, school systems, other youth-serving systems, mayor’s offices, employers, the public workforce system, and community and faith-based organizations are stepping up their dropout prevention, intervention, and recovery efforts. However, the dropout challenge facing our cities is far larger in scope and more complex in nature than a few isolated programs or policy waivers can address. The challenge for local policy, practice, and community leaders is to be strategic and intentional in coordinating these efforts. The Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration, in order to provide national leadership for and support to this work, developed and launched the Multiple Education Pathways Blueprint Initiative. ETA, recognizing Jobs for the Future’s expertise and experience with these issues, contracted with JFF to provide technical assistance to the MEPB communities.
Goals
The Multiple Educational Pathways Blueprint Initiative provides an opportunity for mid-sized cities—often challenged by high dropout rates but overlooked on the national scene—to build systemic strategies to address the needs of struggling students and dropouts. Each city has built a multi-sector partnership to study the scope of the problem, map the service and resource landscape, and assess system reform efforts. Partners in each community are using this information to inform their decisions about what education options are most needed and then develop a comprehensive Blueprint for building these new schools, programs, or pathways.
Each city’s Blueprint will leverage an array of education and workforce assets to support new or expanded options that move struggling students and out-of-school youth through high school to postsecondary experiences and career pathways. Community partners are already planning or pilot testing new approaches. These include: the launch of early warning systems and new supports during the summer or first semester of high school; Saturday school programs that get youth back on track with their age mates; and sector-based education and training programs. Cities are planning to build or replicate evidence-based new school models that feature blended high school/postsecondary designs, drawing from resources and expertise of community agencies, workforce systems, school districts, and community colleges.
The Role of Jobs for the Future
Jobs for the Future provides technical assistance for the learning network of cities selected to participate in this Department of Labor initiative: Mobile, Alabama; Gary, Indiana; Metairie, Louisiana; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Brockton, Massachusetts; Fall River, Massachusetts; and Des Moines, Iowa.
JFF is helping city teams develop Blueprints focused on how to create and finance education pathways that better support young people’s educational progress and help raise high school completion rates. This work builds on the lessons from frontrunner cities—New York; Boston; Philadelphia; Portland, Oregon; and San Jose—that have made progress in improving the educational options and outcomes of struggling students and dropouts, with support from JFF and the Youth Transition Funders Group. City teams also benefit from an array of DOL-sponsored resources, including related efforts such as the WIRED initiative and a series of national Webinars.
Funder
Multiple Education Pathways Blueprint (MPEB) is an initiative of the U.S. Department of Labor.
