For as many as 30 percent of our young people, the road
to a productive adulthood is interrupted well before they secure
the postsecondary skills and credentials that are essential for
citizenship, economic security, and productivity. Among African-American
and Hispanic students, the numbers hover around 50 percent, and
in hundreds of large city high schools around the country more
than half of the young people are not on track to graduation.
JFF’s Connected by 25 initiative
is directed at improving the options and outcomes for this large
group of young people.
Addressing the growing dropout crisis stands as a major component
of JFF’s work to improve youth transitions to higher education
and careers and to seal the “leaks” in the educational
pipeline. Connected by 25 focuses
on creating the systemic and policy changes necessary to develop
and support effective models that prepare students who are not
on track to graduation to complete high school and advance along
pathways to postsecondary credentials. This work requires:
- Ensuring that school districts
put struggling students and out-of-school youth at the
center of high school reform efforts;
- Building cross-sector collaboration
among school systems, municipal and state agencies, alternative
education providers, community-based organizations, and
community colleges to create immediate, targeted interventions
to assist struggling students and to provide diversified,
flexible, and community-based programming options for
out-of-school youth; and
- Improving the capacity of states
and school districts to identify struggling students and
design and assess programmatic options for them, while
addressing current and potential state policy barriers
to success for this population.
JFF’s efforts to bring struggling students and out-of-school
youth from the margins and into the
mainstream currently take three forms:
Local System Reform
JFF partners with the Youth
Transition Funders Group in its multi-city Strategic
Assessment Initiative for struggling students and out-of-school
youth. As the national intermediary to that initiative, JFF works
with selected cities to improve outcomes and options for disconnected
youth, address race and class inequities, and gain national visibility
for this important systemic work.
Five cities—Boston, Philadelphia, Portland (Oregon), San
Jose, and New York—received Strategic Assessment Grants
jointly funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Carnegie
Corporation of New York, and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.
Two additional cities, Las Vegas and Washington, DC, are affiliated
with the initiative with support from regional funders. JFF provides
strategic consultation and technical assistance to the selected
cities and affiliates, as well as peer learning opportunities
that include a cross-site Learning Institute.
For more information, see:
Early
Lessons from Strategic Assessment Initiative of the Youth Transition
Funders Group
Frameworks and
Tools for the Field
The cities participating in the Strategic Assessment Initiative
are beginning to illustrate what it means to move from piecemeal
to systemic approaches to keeping youth on and reconnecting youth
to pathways to postsecondary achievement and career advancement.
With support from Carnegie Corporation of New York, JFF is drawing
from the experience of these and other frontrunner communities
to codify the key elements of a school system that addresses the
needs of young people not on track to high school graduation.
Based on these elements, we are producing and disseminating a
practical set of frameworks, benchmarks, tools, and policy guidelines
that leaders in a widening set of districts and communities can
use.
For more information, download:
State Policy
State education policymakers are giving increased attention not
only to raising the standards of performance in high school but
also to reducing the dropout rate. To help states gain traction
on this dual agenda, JFF is developing a framework for state action
based on our new analysis of the National Educational Longitudinal
Survey (NELS) databases, and we are collaborating with Achieve
on a state policy initiative.
JFF’s analysis of NELS data reveals high levels of educational
persistence among those who have dropped out or experienced interruptions
in schooling. Most of these young people eventually obtain GED’s
or diplomas, and then enroll in a postsecondary program of study.
Yet this persistence has only very weak results in terms of postsecondary
outcomes. Based on this analysis, JFF has identified key opportunities
for state and local policymakers to better support a productive set
of pathways for getting young people back on track to postsecondary
credentials with value in the labor market.
JFF and Achieve are collaborating in a policy initiative, Moving Forward: High Standards and High Graduation Rates. Selected from Achieve’s
American Diploma Project and the National Governors Association
Honors States competition, three states will develop an enhanced
capacity to collect leading indicators of dropping out and to
use those indicators to assess the value of their investments.
The work will result in frameworks and tools for other states
and districts to use in engaging with this agenda and enacting
a policy development process that is rooted in the practice.
Funders
Addressing America’s Dropout Challenge: State Efforts to Boost Graduation Rates Require Federal Support 
