A Commitment to Equity:
What Matters About the Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965?
Economic Benefits for States that
Raise High School Graduation Rates
Career Academy Standards
of Practice
To Reach the First Rung
and Higher:
Building Healthcare Career Ladder Opportunities for Low-Skilled Disadvantaged Adults
Using Resources Effectively:
Funding for Workforce Development Initiatives
Skilled Workers, Strong Economy:
Preparing for Jobs With a Future in South Central Wisconsin
Sector Skills Academy Announces Marano Fellows
1Opportunities and Resources for Community Colleges
Breaking Through: Opportunities to Participate in the Initiative
Jobs for the Future and the National Council for Workforce Education
are seeking qualified community and technical colleges to participate
in their joint initiative, BREAKING THROUGH: BUILDING EFFECTIVE
PATHWAYS TO COLLEGE DEGREES. This multi-year initiative, funded
by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, seeks to connect low-skilled
adults to occupational and technical degree programs in community/technical
colleges. Click here for more information on BREAKING THROUGH, or go to: http://www.ncwe.org/jff_project/breakingthrough_web_notice.htm
Applicants Sought for MetLife Community College Excellence Award
Community colleges from across the nation are invited to apply
for the 2006 METLIFE FOUNDATION COMMUNITY COLLEGE EXCELLENCE AWARD,
administered by JFF. Two community colleges will be honored for
their institution-wide commitment to and achievement in helping
low-income students, first-generation college-goers, and working
adults enter and succeed in postsecondary education. Each winning
college will receive a $30,000 award and national recognition. Download the Application for the 2006 METLIFE
AWARD
ACHIEVING
THE DREAM, I:
Jff Launches State Policy Newsletter for Achieving the Dream
This quarterly newsletter is designed to help Achieving the Dream
colleges, partners, state-level stakeholders, and other interested
individuals stay abreast of developments in the initiative. Each
issue will contain updates from the ATD states, resources on student
success in community colleges, and a focus on a single policy
topic of concern to ATD colleges and state teams. Click here to download Issue #1 of the ACHIEVING THE DREAM State Policy Newsletter (May 2005) and to sign up to receive
future issues by email.
ACHIEVING THE DREAM,
II:
State Systems of Performance Accountability For Community Colleges:: Impacts and Lessons for Policymakers
In this ATD policy brief, Kevin J. Dougherty and Esther Hong examine
questions about state performance accountability systems in higher
education, focusing on community college systems. They find that
these systems have had moderate impact on community colleges,
but the ultimate impact on student outcomes is still unclear.
In addition, some unintended impacts are problematic, particularly
the ways in which they can encourage institutions to restrict
their broader missions. Download State Systems of Performance
Accountability
ACHIEVING THE DREAM:
COMMUNITY COLLEGES COUNT is a national initiative that
promotes change to improve student success at community colleges.
The initiative works on multiple fronts—including efforts
at community colleges and in research, public Engagement, and
public policy—and emphasizes the use of data to drive change.
ACHIEVING THE DREAM is funded by Lumina Foundation for Education.
JFF, one of nine national partners, coordinates the initiative’s
effort to improve state policies in Florida, New Mexico, North
Carolina, Texas, and Virginia.
2 Engaging Employers to Benefit Low-Income Job Seekers: Lessons from the Initiative
Employers make choices that are key to the ability of low-income
people to get and keep jobs and to advance in the workforce. Given
this important role, Engaging Employers
to Benefit Low-Income Job Seekers asks: What kinds of employers
are likely to be open to doing business with workforce intermediaries
that seek to connect low-wage workers with employers? It also
looks at the extent to which employers will support low-income
workers—for example, by modifying human resources policies—and
the factors that promote employer practices and policies favorable
to the hiring, retention, and advancement of low-income workers.
JFF’s Judith Combes Taylor and Jerry Rubin reflect on
the experiences of employers in the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s
Jobs Initiative, a nine-year, six-site, $30 million effort to
reform local labor markets and help connect low-income people
to good jobs. The research base includes interviews with and surveys
of JI employers conducted by Jobs for the Future and Abt Associates.
Available from the Casey Foundation are two new reports about
the Jobs Initiative:
Workforce Intermediaries: Powering Regional Economies in the New Centuryassesses lessons
learned from three key workforce intermediaries that support both
employers and workers. http://www.aecf.org/initiatives/fes/
The Road to Good Employment Retention: Three Successful Programs from the Jobs Initaitiveexamines
the success of projects in St. Louis and Seattle. http://www.aecf.org/initiatives/fes/
3Investing in Our Future: Affordability, Quality, Jobs
This report from the Massachusetts Senate’s
Task Force on Public Higher Education calls for strengthening
public higher education in order to increase the skills and build
the credentials of the state workforce. With insight into the
relationship between workforce training and higher education,
the report identifies five specific challenges: building quality
and capacity, restoring stability and sound planning, fueling
the state’s economic engine, opening doors to families,
and securing investments.
The report draws heavily on findings and recommendations
from a team assembled by the Reach Higher Initiative, coordinated
by Commonwealth Corporation. That team, led by Jane C. Edmonds,
the state director of workforce development, included JFF’s
Geri Scott, Judy Taylor, and Jack Mills.
4Building a Portfolio of High Schools: A Strategic Investment Toolkit
Educators have come to realize that helping all
high school students achieve a common result—the skills,
knowledge, and personal qualities to succeed in postsecondary
education—can best be achieved through offering a variety
of educational options, all of which feature a rigorous college
preparatory curriculum, strong and supportive relationships with
teachers and among peers, and a curriculum that is transparent
in its relevance to hopes, dreams, and future success.
Written by JFF’s Lili Allen, Cheryl Almeida,
Lucretia Murphy, and Adria Steinberg, this toolkit is designed
to take district reform leaders and their partners through the
process of planning a portfolio of excellent schools, thinking
through the relationship of the district to potential partners
who could become additional engines of reform, and developing
strategies for actually launching and sustaining new schools for
the developing portfolio.
5A Call to Action: Transforming High School for All Youth
The National High School Alliance has released A Call to Action: Transforming High
School for All Youth, a framework of six core principles
and recommended strategies for guiding leaders at all levels in
the complex process of transforming the traditional, comprehensive
high school. The Call to Action represents the collective knowledge of the Alliance’s 43
partner organizations, including JFF.
The core principles are: personalized learning
environments; academic engagement of all students; empowered educators;
accountable leaders; engaged community and youth; and integrated
systems of high standards, curriculum, instruction, assessments,
and academic supports beyond the school day.
6Honors for University Park Campus School: Spreading Innovation in the Early College High School Initiative
University Park Campus School has received much national recognition
for its astounding results. The students at this Worcester, MA
public school may fit the mold of young people who are “not
supposed” to succeed, but their story is quite different.
And Newsweekjust ranked UPCS
as the 68th best high school in the country. UPCS has the highest
percentage of students receiving subsidized lunches among the
top 200 schools on the list, and it is the only one in Massachusetts
among the top 100.
UPCS was founded and led for six years by Donna Rodrigues, now
a program director at JFF. For the EARLY COLLEGE HIGH SCHOOL INITIATIVE,
she is assisting the efforts of schools and districts to increase
high school graduation and college-readiness rates, particularly
among minority and low-income youth. As the early college high
school network grows—to over 170 schools by 2008—UPCS
serves as a “learning laboratory” for educators. Training
institutes introduce school leaders and teachers to the curricular,
teaching, leadership, and partnership practices responsible for
UPCS’s academic accomplishments.
7Shaking Up the Status Quo: The Movement to Transform High School
EdSource, whose mission is to clarify complex education issues
and promote thoughtful decisions about public school improvement,
held a day-long forum focused on the need for change. The event
painted a somewhat grim picture of high schools in both California
and the nation.
But the speakers, who included Tom Vander Ark of the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation, Ref Rodrigues of the California Academy for Liberal
Studies Early College High School, and JFF’s Nancy Hoffman, also spoke
about exciting alternatives to the traditional high school—and they
offered views on how to implement change.
On June 15, an Edweek on-line chat addressed the topic of “Life After High School: Preparing
High School Students for Postsecondary Success.” Hilary Pennington,
vice chairman, co-founder, and senior advisor on education at Jobs for
the Future; Christin Driscoll, senior director of public policy at the
Association for Career and Technical Education; and Ross Wiener,
principal partner at The Education Trust, discussed high school reform
efforts that promote success for students after they graduate.
To read the transcript of Life After
High School, go to: http://www.edweek.org/chat/transcript_06-15-2005.html
A COMMITMENT TO EQUITY:
WHAT MATTERS ABOUT THE ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY ACT OF 1965? Writing in Edweek, Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, a JFF board member and a professor and
former dean at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, reflects
on what has changed and what has remained the same in the 40 years
since the passage of the landmark Elementary and Secondary Education
Act. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2005/04/13/31lagemann.h24.html
ECONOMIC BENEFITS FOR STATES THAT
RAISE HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION RATES Improving high school graduation
rates could produce significant wage increases, resulting in a
healthier state economy, according to the Alliance for Excellent
Education. The Alliance has prepared a state-by-state chart of
earnings increases based on cutting in half the percentage of
students who do not finish high school in four years. http://www.all4ed.org/press/pr_040405.html#Chart
CAREER ACADEMY STANDARDS OF PRACTICE Developed by an informal consortium
of career academy organizations, the Career Academy National Standards
of Practice are framed around ten key elements of successful implementation,
drawn from many years of research and experience from all parts
of the country. JFF is a partner the National High School Alliance,
which issued the standards. http://www.hsalliance.org/resources/resource.asp?id=85
TO REACH THE FIRST RUNG AND HIGHER:
BUILDING HEALTHCARE CAREER LADDER OPPORTUNITIES FOR LOW-SKILLED
DISADVANTAGED ADULTS Forrest P. Chisman and Gail Spangenberg
of the Council for Advancement of Adult Literacy profile six exemplary
career ladder programs offered in various institutional settings:
a union, a hospital, a community-based organization, and three
community colleges in partnership with an array of medical centers.
They offer ideas and suggestions for institutions that may want
to create a new healthcare career program for low-skilled, disadvantaged
workers or improve existing programs. http://www.caalusa.org/occasionalpapers.html#anchor308275
USING RESOURCES EFFECTIVELY: AN OVERVIEW
OF FUNDING RESOURCES FOR WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES The Workforce Strategy Center has
prepared this catalog of funding options for
multi-partner workforce development initiatives. http://www.workforcestrategy.org/6_1.html
SKILLED WORKERS, STRONG ECONOMY:
PREPARING FOR JOBS WITH A FUTURE IN SOUTH CENTRAL WISCONSIN For ten years, the Center on Wisconsin
Strategy (COWS) has worked with employers and public-sector institutions
to keep the region’s workforce development system running
smoothly for businesses and job seekers alike. Here’s how
the collaboration—Jobs With a Future—started, the
innovative practices it has developed, and what the future holds. www.cows.org
SECTOR SKILLS ACADEMY ANNOUNCES MARANO
FELLOWS The Aspen Institute’s Workforce
Strategies Initiative, the National Network of Sector Partners,
and Public/Private Ventures have announced the first Marano Fellows
of the Sector Skills Academy. With support from the C.S. Mott
Foundation, the academy will help fellows and their organizations
improve economic opportunities for low-income workers. The term
“Marano Fellow” honors Cindy Marano, who led NNSP
until her death on April 28, 2005. She played an integral role
in the design of the academy. http://www.sectorskillsacademy.org
Opportunities and Resources for Community Colleges
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