1Big Buildings, Small Schools: A Strategy for High School Reform
Big Buildings,
Small Schools: Using a Small Schools Strategy for High School
Reform, a draft report from JFF, describes emerging
efforts by communities such as Boston, Oakland, New York City,
and Sacramento to convert large, comprehensive high schools into
"education complexes" made up of multiple autonomous
small schools under one roof.
Lili Allen and Adria Steinberg of JFF draw on
strategies being undertaken in these communities to explore implementation
issues that arise concerning school-level autonomies, governance,
and leadership of high school reform at the district level. They
also delve into the challenges for “central office”
leaders of managing a system of learning options that offers a
broader range of choices for students and parents.
2Breaking Through: Effective Pathways to College Degrees: Key Practices and Strategies
JFF in partnership with the National Council
for Workforce Education, an affiliate council of the American
Association of Community Colleges, invite you to attend an October
19th presentation in Baltimore, where we will release the findings
of a year-long research project supported by the Mott Foundation.
Our research shows that 65 million adults lack
basic skills for success in college or the modern workplace, and
it identifies four promising strategies that can be implemented
by community colleges to help increase these adults’ opportunity
to achieve an occupational certificate or degree.
This presentation is part of the NCWE’s
annual conference Charting a Course for the New Economy. It is
possible to attend either the entire conference or just this session.
The deadline for hotel reservation is September 21, 2004.
3WINs and the Workforce Development System: Building Capacity, Producing Results
JFF has prepared a brochure summarizing how WINs—Workforce
Innovation Networks—builds the capacity of local and state
workforce systems. Launched in 1997,WINs is a partnership of the
Center for Workforce Preparation of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
the Center for Workforce Success of the National Association of
Manufacturers, and Jobs for the Future.
WINs is improving the ability of a network of local and state
employer associations and other employer-led organizations to
be effective workforce intermediaries and achieve a dual goal:
meeting the needs of employers for qualified employees and improving
the economic prospects of disadvantaged job seekers and workers.
Currently, WINs is yielding concrete benefits for employers and
employees in 21 communities, as well as through three statewide
efforts. In the fall of 2004, WINS may establish additional high-value
partnerships among employer-led workforce intermediaries, Workforce
Investment Boards, and other workforce development system partners.
4Rewarding Results: The MetLife Foundation Community College Excellence Award
Writing in the May/June 2004 Community
College Journal, JFF’s Anne Newton and Richard Kazis
describe the winners of the 2004 MetLife Foundation Community
College Excellence Award. The award honors excellence in promoting
educational and economic advancement for young people and adults
who do not traditionally have access to higher education.
5The Education Pipeline: Blending Youth Development and Education
The September/October Forum Focus,
published by the Forum for Youth Investment, documents the emergence
of an array of alternative programs and systems that blend youth
development and education goals and strategies on behalf of youth
who have dropped out of the pipeline or are at risk of doing so.
"Research Update" reflects on the extent of the problem
and its roots. "On the Ground," co-authored by Lili
Allen of JFF and Francine Joselowsky of the Forum, looks at the
early college high school model and innovative work in Portland,
Oregon. In "Voices from the Fields," Eliot Washor and
Mary Jane Clancy of the Big Picture Company discuss the Alternative
High Schools Initiative, which supports the improvement and creation
of alternative schools by youth development organizations.
The July/August Forum Focus,
entitled "Countering Structural Racism," is also of
special note. It explores the value of youth activism as a tool
for increasing both personal development and collective engagement
around the issues of race and racism.
6 Preparing Urban Teachers: A Community Curriculum
Now available from JFF and the Urban Teacher
Training Collaborative is the video component of Preparing
Urban Teachers: A Community Curriculum for Interns and New Teachers.
The UTTC is an innovative school-university, school-based, Master
of Arts in Teaching program developed by Tufts University in conjunction
with three small Boston Public Schools (the Boston Arts Academy,
Fenway High School, and Mission Hill School).Preparing Urban Teachers, by Eileen Shakespear of Fenway
High, Linda Beardsley of Tufts, and Anne Newton of JFF, documents
a series of UTTC seminars to acquaint pre-service teachers or
teachers new to urban secondary schools with the diverse communities
and cultures from which their students come. Prepared with funding
from MetLife Foundation, the curriculum is a joint publication
of JFF and the UTTC.
In August, JFF CEO and Co-founder Hilary Pennington
participated in a panel discussion on "Creating Higher-Skill,
Higher-Wage Jobs." Joining her on the panel were Gov. Edward
Rendell of Pennsylvania, Robert D. Atkinson of the Progressive
Policy Institute, U.S. Rep. Robert Bob Menendez of New Jersey,
Rosabeth Moss Kanter of Harvard Business School, Michael Goldstein
of Match Public Charter School, and Nancy Mills of the AFL-CIO
Working for America Institute.
The panel was part of a Democratic Leadership
Council forum, "How a 21st Century Party Can Promote 21st
Century Jobs." Speaking from a non-partisan perspective,
Pennington explored what policymakers should and should not do
to help create new and better jobs.
CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS HONORS INITIATIVE: On September 10, the 34th Annual Legislative Conference of the
Congressional Black Caucus honored the partners in the Early College
High School Initiative, along with the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation. The occasion was a set of events entitled “No
Community Left Behind: Constructing Equitable Futures.”
Organized by CBC’s Education Brain Trust, the program consisted
of two issue forums, related exhibits, and an evening awards ceremony. http://www.cbcfinc.org
NO RIM, ALL HOOP: Donna Rodrigues gave the opening
speech at “Exceeding Expectations,” a gathering of
some 300 educators, representing 50 early college high schools
and their postsecondary partners, to share strategies and lessons
learned over the first two years of the Early College High School
Initiative. Now a program director at JFF, Rodrigues draws on
her experience as founder of the University Park Campus School
to discuss this work from a practitioner’s point of view. Download No Rim, All Hoop
EARLY AND MIDDLE COLLEGE HIGH SCHOOLS: CONNECTING
HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE FOR AT-RISK YOUTH: This American Youth
Policy Forum addressed the need for early and middle college high
schools, along with education policies that would better support
their promising approaches to reaching young people who have traditionally
been underrepresented in postsecondary education. Middle college
high schools collaborate with postsecondary institutions to offer
students the opportunity to earn college credit at the same time
as they earn a high school diploma. Building on the success of
these schools, the Early College High School Initiative is an
investment of over $60 million in the creation of 150 new schools
that blend high school and college study so that students earn
both a high school diploma and a full two years of college credit
within five years. The panelists were Nancy Hoffman, director
of the initiative at JFF; Cecilia Cunningham, director of Middle
College National Consortium; and Aaron Listhaus, principal of
the Middle College High School at LaGuardia Community College. http://www.aypf.org/forumbriefs/2004/fb050704.htm
NOTEWORTHY NEW BOOKS FROM RUSSELL SAGE: The Russell
Sage Foundation consistently publishes provocative, high-quality
books of interest to Newswire readers. In The
New Division of Labor, Frank Levy and Richard Murnane show
how computers are changing the employment landscape and argue
for greater efforts to prepare youth and adults for the growing
number of high-skill, high-wage jobs. Eileen Appelbaum is lead
editor of Low-Wage America: How Employers
Are Reshaping Opportunity in America, a collection of thoughtful
analyses of what is happening to jobs in particular industries—and
how policymakers can respond. Two important new collections are Social Inequality, edited by
Kathryn Neckerman, and Imprisoning America:
The Social Effects of Mass Incarceration, edited by Mary
Pattillo, David Weiman, and Bruce Western. Series on immigration
and immigrants, trust and distrust, and race and inequality are
all worth a close look. http://www.russellsage.org
KEEPING AMERICA’S PROMISE: THE FUTURE
OF THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE: While community colleges are affordable
and effective, they are often undervalued and underfunded, says
this report from Education Commission of the States and the League
for Innovation in the Community College. Edited by Katherine Boswell
and Cynthia Wilson, it covers the changing characteristics of
the community college student population, the escalating demand
for postsecondary education, and other topics. http://www.league.org/league/projects/promise/download.html
NEW PERIODICAL FROM WORKFORCE STRATEGIES INITIATIVE:
Entitled Update, this new publication
will devote each issue to an in-depth look at a single workforce-related
topic. The first
issue is devoted to a subject of concern to many workforce
programs: how to build better relationships with employers.
ENCOURAGING JOB ADVANCEMENT AMONG LOW-WAGE WORKERS:
A NEW APPROACH: In this Brookings
Institution brief, Harry J. Holzer suggests that policymakers
encourage better job placements for low earners, targeted training
integrated with these placements, and policies to support the
creation of higher-wage jobs for the unskilled. He also notes
the important roles that private labor market intermediaries can
play.
HELPING LATINO YOUTH FINISH COLLEGE: The gap
in the number of Latino and white college students who graduate
with a Bachelor's degree is even wider than the substantial differences
in high school completion. Richard Fry of the Pew Hispanic Center
assesses the gap's dimensions, along with factors that contribute
to it. http://www.pewhispanic.org
LOCATING THE DROPOUT CRISIS: Robert Balfanz
and Nettie Legters of the Center for Social Organization of Schools
at the Johns Hopkins University identify 2,000 "dropout factories"—public
high schools where graduation is hardly a given for freshmen.
Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics,
the authors measured the "promoting power" of 10,000
regular and vocational high schools that enroll more than 300
students. http://www.csos.jhu.edu/news.htm
Big Buildings, Small Schools: A Strategy for High School Reform
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