As high school students around the country prepare to graduate this spring, a new book from JFF warns that the high school diploma—as elusive as it remains for too many American youth—is no longer an adequate educational endpoint for any of our youth. Double the Numbers: Increasing Postsecondary Credentials for Underrepresented Youth issues a "call to action," urging the U.S. to "double the numbers" of low-income and minority youth who go to and complete college or some other form of postsecondary training or education.

Edited by Richard Kazis, Joel Vargas, and Nancy Hoffman of JFF, and with a foreword by Tom Vander Ark of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Double the Numbers highlights emerging strategies—at the state, district, and school levels—for improving postsecondary outcomes. It looks at how to motivate older adolescents in school settings; how to overcome the rigidities of high school schedules and routines; how to prepare students for smooth transitions to postsecondary learning and success; and more.

To see a complete list of contributors and the table of contents, or to order Double the Numbers, go to: http://gseweb.harvard.edu/%7Ehepg/doublethenumbers.html

Read the press release

JFF is one of seven national partners in Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count, a multi-year initiative launched by Lumina Foundation for Education. Twenty-seven community colleges in five states are participating in this effort to enhance the academic success of low-income and minority students.

Achieving the Dream addresses a national imperative: increasing success for the growing number of students for whom community colleges are the point of entry into higher education, particularly low-income students and students of color. JFF coordinates the initiative’s effort to improve state policies in Florida, North Carolina, New Mexico, Virginia, and Texas. In this role, JFF will select a lead organization in each state, make grants to those organizations, and help leadership teams set agendas for policy change. JFF also co-leads the national policy effort and participates in engaging the public in the initiative and in developing knowledge around the role of community colleges.

For more information on Achieving the Dream, go to: http://www.luminafoundation.org/newsroom/news_releases/060104.html

The number of high school age students who do not complete high school is a serious challenge facing our educational system. The very scope of the problem—and the economic consequences for those who stop their education in high school or at graduation—calls attention to the need to become more systemic and more intentional in addressing the needs of this group of young people.

In The Dropout Crisis, Adria Steinberg and Cheryl Almeida of JFF describe current practice in both prevention and recovery, highlighting promising approaches that can help reduce stubbornly high dropout rates. They conclude with recommendations for state policymakers seeking to promote a more systemic approach to the dropout crisis:

• Count dropouts accurately in accountability measures.
• Provide adequate financing for programming that meets the needs of dropouts.
• Make connections to postsecondary education, particularly community colleges.

Download The Dropout Crisis

The challenge of improving high-school education demands the best thinking from all quarters, including those focused on transforming the high school, as well as those focused on supports and structures to meet the needs of youth outside the high school. Last fall, an unprecedented number of national meetings (including "Double the Numbers," organized by JFF) focused on the issue of high schools and high-school-age youth. In Crisis or Possibility? the High School Alliance captures the themes and ideas that emerged from these meetings. The HS Alliance is a partnership of over 40 organizations, including JFF, representing a diverse cross-section of perspectives and approaches, but sharing a common commitment to promoting the excellence, equity, and development of high school-aged youth.

To download Crisis or Possibility? go to: http://www.hsalliance.org

Despite working hard and playing by the rules, millions of American families struggle to make ends meet because they pay more—both proportionately and absolutely—for basic necessities: automobile loans and insurance, goods and services, child and health care, rent, and mortgages.

Community Investments for Family Economic Success offers strategies that can help level the economic playing field for low-income families by assisting the effort of their communities and neighborhoods to plan, secure, and direct new investment in jobs, training, financial services, housing, and other areas. With Jerry Rubin and Claudia Green as primary writers, JFF prepared the guide for Making Connections teams, neighborhood residents, and community leaders. Making Connections is a ten-year investment by the Annie E. Casey Foundation to improve outcomes for families and children in tough or isolated neighborhoods.

To download Community Investments for Family Economic Success, go to: http://www.aecf.org/tarc/publications/pubs.php

City College of San Francisco and Community College of Denver are the winners of the 2004 MetLife Foundation Community College Excellence Award. The winners were announced in Minneapolis on April 25 at the 2004 annual convention of the American Association of Community Colleges.

In May, Adria Steinberg, project director at JFF, and James Caradonio, Superintendent of the Worcester, Massachusetts, public schools, were the featured speakers for the forum, The New Urban High School: A Report Card. The forum began with an overview presentation by Steinberg, who plays a central role in shaping JFF’s strategies for addressing the needs of the large number of young people who are underserved in our high schools. Caradonio then discussed how his city is addressing the challenges Steinberg laid out.

The forum was co-sponsored by the Worcester Regional Research Bureau and the Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy at MassINC. As the moderator, Rennie Center Executive Director Paul Reville, noted, "Secondary school reform has been the most intransigent, difficult issue of school reform. Notwithstanding that, there are many fine examples in this city and elsewhere that are working. We want to take the islands of excellence and transform whole systems so they work for each and every child."

To read the transcript of The New Urban High School, go to:
http://www.massinc.org/about/cerp/events/
new_urban_hs_reportcard_5_04.htm

BY THE NUMBERS: This fall, 22 additional early college high schools are slated to open, joining the 24 now in operation. For an up-to-date snapshot of the initiative, with a map of schools, data on the number of schools and students, and other key facts, download The Early College High School Initiative "At a Glance." http://www.earlycolleges.org

ALTERNATIVE PATHWAYS TO COLLEGE: According to Carnegie Reporter, "Challenging all students to achieve academic success is a key ingredient of the many new ways school systems, educators, and communities are finding to help students gain access to higher education." This article features a number of promising efforts, including many involved in the Early College High School Initiative.
http://www.carnegie.org/reporter/08/college/index.html

WORCESTER’S WONDER: University Park Campus School, an inner-city high school in Massachusetts, takes kids by lottery from an impoverished, largely minority neighborhood, yet it produces results that are the envy of any suburban high school. University Park was founded by Donna Rodrigues, who now works at JFF, helping Early College High School partners and others benefit from the experience of this pioneering partnership between the Worcester Public Schools and Clark University.
http://www.massinc.org/handler.cfm?type=1&target=2004-2/
worcester_wonder.html

ECHS: REQUISITES FOR SUCCESS
Over three decades ago, Janet E. Lieberman conceived of the idea of Middle College, which places high schools on college campuses. This concept led directly into the idea of early college high school, which goes a step further, blending high school education and the first years of college. JFF asked Dr. Lieberman to discuss the connections between high school and college education and how that can inform efforts to scale up early college high schools across the nation.
http://www.earlycolleges.org