West Hills Community College of California's San Joaquin Valley and Sinclair Community College of Dayton, Ohio—one small and rural, the other large and urban—are the recipients of METLIFE FOUNDATION COMMUNITY COLLEGE EXCELLENCE AWARDS. Administered by JFF, the awards recognize innovative community colleges for excellence in helping underserved youth and adults succeed and advance in education and careers.

In addition to West Hills and Sinclair, four other community colleges were honored as finalists: Central Piedmont Community College of Charlotte, North Carolina; Community College of Vermont in Waterbury, Vermont; Portland Community College of Portland, Oregon; and San Jacinto North Community College of Houston, Texas.

What strategies, practices, and policies—internal, regional, at the state level, and in federal policy—are needed if community colleges are to help people of all academic backgrounds gain skills and credentials that can move them toward self-sufficiency and the ability to keep learning and advancing? This question was the focus of a recent conference, COMMUNITY COLLEGES AND LOW INCOME POPULATIONS. Organized by JFF and cosponsored by the Annie E. Casey, Ford, and KnowledgeWorks foundations, the conference brought together experts, from both within and outside the community college world, in research, policy, and practice.

• Community Colleges and Low Income Populations: A Background Paper describes factors that make the community college the best-positioned institution for serving the learning and advancement needs of low-income individuals. This report also identifies obstacles to success for community colleges and highlights approaches that innovative colleges are using to address those challenges. Download the paper

• Community Colleges and Low Income Populations: A Selet Bibliography includes studies, reports, and books that address the issues surrounding community colleges and low-income populations. Some works are descriptive, focusing on trends and statistics for community colleges and higher education in general. Others focus on particular challenges facing community colleges for improving services.
  Download the bibliography

Community colleges have many missions: academic education and transfer to four-year colleges, remediation, occupational education, workforce and economic development, and personal enrichment. In a keynote address to the League for Innovation in the Community College, JFF CEO Hilary Pennington focused on their role as a bridge across the digital job divide—their role in providing pathways to help low-income youth and adults advance from dead-end jobs to careers in today's knowledge-based economy.

Download From Best Practices to Large Scale Change

To view a Web cast of Best Practices to Large Scale Change, go to: www.league.org/inn2002/horizon.html.

WHAT KIDS CAN DO invites "nominations" of youth-produced print publications that serve a public purpose. In California, for instance, high school students researched, wrote, photographed, and published a guide to tide pools along the local coastline. And seventh graders in North Carolina turned weekly visits to a local retirement home into a book that preserves the stories of their senior citizen friends.

About a dozen publications will be posted on the WHAT KIDS CAN DO Web site. Each entry will include a description of the publication and its creation, along with excerpts.

With the school year ending, time is short. Please e-mail your nomination to info@whatkidscando.org by May 17. Include the publication's name, a brief description of its contents and authors, and contact information for how to track it down.

If you can, mail a copy of the publication to: What Kids Can Do, P.O. Box 603252, Providence, RI 02906.

Working with several strategic partners, including Jobs for the Future's FROM THE MARGINS TO THE MAINSTREAM initiative, WHAT KIDS CAN DO documents the value when young people work with teachers and other adults on projects that combine powerful learning with public purpose.

For information on WHAT KIDS CAN DO, go to: www.whatkidscando.org.

Read about FROM THE MARGINS TO THE MAINSTREAM

WELFARE IN THE JOBS INITIATIVE
This ethnographic study by Dr. Roberta Rehner Iversen of the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work follows the lives and fortunes of 10 families participating in the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Jobs Initiative programs. The Jobs Initiative is an eight-year, $30 million effort to help 18- to 35-year-old inner-city residents obtain family-supporting jobs. JFF provides assistance to the initiative's sites to help them achieve systemic reforms that improve job opportunities for low-income people.

For more information and to download Moving up is a Steep Climb, go to: www.aecf.org/jobsinitiative/ethnography.htm.

MOVING AN OUT-OF-SCHOOL AGENDA:
LESSONS AND CHALLENGES ACROSS CITIES
The GRASP Project—Greater Resources for After-School Programming—has aimed at helping cities document how effectively they support young people in the out-of-school hours. The Forum for Youth Investment produced this report based on its work with the four GRASP cities—Sacramento, Chicago, Little Rock, and Kansas City—and on a scan of other cities around the country. The report makes the case for shifting the national conversation from "after school" to "out of school," describes the on-the-ground programmatic reality young people encounter in GRASP cities, and lays out the challenges cities face as they increase the quality, quantity, and continuity of supports for young people.

The Forum for Youth Investment is a strategic partner in JFF's FROM THE MARGINS TO THE MAINSTREAM initiative, which is looking at practical answers to the question of how communities can take advantage of breakthrough possibilities offered by emerging, powerful learning environments—inside and outside of the school building, school day, and school year.

To download Moving an Out-of-School Agenda, go to: www.forumforyouthinvestment.org/grasp/execsumm.htm.