Metlife Grants in Community College
Connection Program
Snapshots of Workforce
Advocacy
Moving Beyond Icebreakers
Kids Count Data Book
Memo on Reconnecting Our Youth
Small Schools
Staffing High-Need Schools
1Family Notes: JFF Welcomes Al Andino
Al Andino has joined JFF as Vice President,
Strategy and Development. He comes to JFF after serving as Deputy
Vice President at the National Council of La Raza’s Center
for Community Educational Excellence, where he oversaw the development
and implementation of NCLR’s community charter school development
initiative and Early College High School demonstration project.
Mr. Andino also has
developed and implemented a billion-dollar gift from the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation to establish the Gates Millennium
Scholars initiative, administered by the United Negro College
Fund. His leadership and management of the initiative helped increase
the number of low-income Hispanic Americans, African Americans,
Native Americans, and Asian Pacific Islanders enrolling in and
completing undergraduate and graduate degree programs.
2Head Start on College: Dual Enrollment and Underserved Students
In Head
Start on College, JFF’s Nancy Hoffman
and Amy Robins explore the potential of dual enrollment programs
for expanding the pipeline of traditionally underserved students
who enter higher education institutions in New England. While
advanced placement usually benefits students bound for selective
colleges, dual enrollment is more likely to serve lower-income
and minority students.
Prepared for the
Nellie Mae Education Foundation, this report also profiles a number
of dual enrollment partnerships. Head
Start on College was released at
a forum that brought together higher education leaders to explore
the degree to which New England secondary and postsecondary institutions
are implementing dual enrollment.
Nationally, over 30 percent of students do not complete high school in a timely way. In some inner-city neighborhoods, the odds of graduating are 50-50. In response to this crisis, the Youth Transition Funders Group launched The Strategic Assessment Initiative to support struggling students and out-of-school youth. This national effort enables communities to build systemic strategies and cross-sector partnerships that reduce high school dropout rates and reconnect students not on track for graduation with educational opportunities.
In June, JFF, the national intermediary for the initiative, organized a Learning Institute for the five participating cities. The meeting enabled the initiative sites--Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Portland (OR), and San Jose--to share and acquire strategies related to four focus areas: using data; increasing the supply and deepening the quality of learning environments; assessing and addressing policy and funding conditions; and building support among key stakeholders.
JFF will produce a final report in January 2006 that looks at lessons learned and documents ongoing barriers at the conclusion of the first phase of the Youth Transition Funders Group investment. The report will include recommendations and tools for improving options for struggling students and out-of-school youth.
For related resources, including an Action Agenda for Improving America’s High Schools, prepared by the National Governors Association and Achieve, go to: www.achieve.org
Fall 2005 School Openings
This school year, 21 new early college high schools are opening.
This brings the total in operation to 67, enrolling over 12, 000
students. Early college high schools are small schools designed
so that high school students can earn both a high school diploma
and an Associate’s degree or up to two years of credit toward
a Bachelor’s degree. By 2008, the 12 partner organizations
in the Early College High School Initiative will create or redesign
more than 170 pioneering small high schools. JFF coordinates the
initiative and provides support to the partners and to the effort
as a whole.
Student Information Systems
JFF has developed the Student Information System for the Early
College High School Initiative. The SIS is a tool for initiative
partners—including schools, intermediaries, funders, and
other stakeholders—to use in supporting continuous school
development and improvement. It also will provide help in measuring
long-term outcomes, including the attainment by ECHS graduates
of four-year college degrees.
University Park Hosts Learning Institutes
University Park Campus School, founded and led for six years by
Donna Rodrigues, now a program director at JFF, is assisting the
efforts of schools and districts to increase high school graduation
and college-readiness rates, particularly among minority and low-income
youth. In August, the Education
Innovator, published by the U.S.
Department of Education, featured UPCS and the professional development
institutes that the school, Clark University, and JFF present
for early college high schools teams from across the country.
Lessons Learned in School Creation
In June, the American Youth Policy Forum featured Dayton Early
College Academy and the Early College High School Initiative.
Presenters were Tom Lasley, Dean of University of Dayton’s School
of Education and Allied Professions; DECA principal Judy Hennessy;
and JFF’s Joel Vargas.
And Speaking of Joel
The July 15 Chronicle of Higher
Education featured “A New Generation
of Higher-Education Thinkers.” Among the 10 young leaders
profiled is JFF’s Joel Vargas, who “pushes higher-education
officials to have a louder voice in the conversation about high-school reform.”
5Breaking Through: Building Effective Pathways to College Degrees
This summer, 80 colleges applied to participate
in BREAKING THROUGH, a collaboration of JFF and the National Council
for Workforce Education. 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. Six community colleges will receive funding and technical
support to expand and institutionalize their demonstrated capacity
for and commitment to serving low-literacy students. Ten additional
colleges that have begun to restructure their offerings to support
the advancement of low-literacy students to degree programs will
benefit from peer learning opportunities and technical assistance.
BREAKING THROUGH will be launched at Creating
Pathways for Success, this year’s
National Council for Workforce Education national conference.
The conference will offer a vital learning experience on such
topics as accelerating changes in higher education, the reauthorization
of the Perkins act, advancement of career clusters, demands for
increasing accountability and agility, changing workplaces, and
shifting classroom demographics. The conference will be held October
22-25, in San Antonio, Texas.
6News from SkillWorks: Partners for a Productive Workforce
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has
awarded SkillWorks nearly $1.7 million to improve advancement
opportunities for Boston’s community health workforce. The
funds, which will span 4.5 years, will enable SkillWorks to expand
its activities that target the broader health care field.
SkillWorks, the single largest public/private
investment in workforce development in Boston’s history,
seeks to change the way employers hire and promote entry-level
workers from Boston’s neighborhoods. JFF plans and manages
the overall initiative and its Public Policy Advocacy component.
Over 3,100 workforce investment professionals
attended Workforce Innovations 2005, sponsored by the U.S. Department
of Labor and co-sponsored by the American Society for Training
& Development. Workforce Innovation Networks (WINs)—the
partnership of the National Association of Manufacturers’
Center for Workforce Success, JFF, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s
Center for Workforce Preparation—presented a “Super
Workshop”: “Workforce System Brokers: Effectively
Partnering with Employer Collaboratives.” This interactive
session highlighted successful models of employer-led, demand-driven
relationships of business associations with Workforce Investment
Boards and One-Stops.
Also at Workforce Innovations, JFF’s Jerry
Rubin participated in a panel on “Leveraging Foundation
Resources.” In five cities,Investing
in Workforce Intermediaries, a collaboration of the Annie
E. Casey Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation,
and other national and local foundations, seeks to improve the
capacity of workforce intermediaries to serve low-skilled, low-income
residents and employers. This session reviewed what has been learned
about how the workforce investment system can better advance low-skilled,
low-income individuals to higher skills and better paying jobs
by addressing local skill shortages.
Preliminary findings are available from the REACH
HIGHER INITIATIVE, created by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
to improve the connections of working adults to postsecondary
education and to ensure that those connections result in skills
valued by employers and jobs that pay family-supporting wages.
The report’s Action Agenda is designed around a single goal:
policymakers and leaders at all levels hold each other and themselves
accountable for improving the knowledge, skills, abilities, and
credentials of the people of Massachusetts.
REACH HIGHER is a collaboration of the Massachusetts
Department of Workforce Development and Commonwealth Corporation
with approximately 40 public, private, and nonprofit organizations,
including JFF.
To download Reach Higher Initiative:
Preliminary Findings, go to: http://www.commcorp.org/cwi/programs/reach/
Frontline Workforce Development:
Promoting Partnerships and Emerging Practices in Health Care In September, the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation is sponsoring one-day informational workshops to share
new research and innovative practices for advancement of the frontline
workforce in health and health care. JFF will make a presentation
at one forum on “Frontline Workforce Development: An Overview
of the Field,” based on our recent research on health care
occupations. Registration is free, but space is limited and pre-registration
is required. http://www.rwjf.org/newsroom/featureDetail.jsp?featureID=899
MetLlife Grants in Community College Connection Program MetLife Foundation has announced
grants totaling $500,000 to support community colleges in meeting
the educational needs of their communities. The goal is to stimulate
novel, interesting, and creative approaches to education on and
off the community college campus and to build bridges to educational
opportunity. Click
here for more information.
Snapshots of Workforce Advocacy
The Workforce Alliance’s Summer Edition
of Notes from the Field is now available online. It features local organizing on “The
Power of Letters: Maximizing Human Capital in Advocacy,” “Television:
An Underutilized Medium,” and “The Final Frontier: A
Web-Based Advocacy Community.” http://www.workforcealliance.org/network/alliances.shtm
Moving Beyond Icebreakers: An Innovative Approach to Group Facilitation, Learning, and Action
This new book by Stanley Pollack, with Mary Fusoni, is a resource
for teachers, community organizers, or anyone who runs meetings,
large or small, with participants of any age or demographic makeup.
It includes ideas about building community, engaging students
in learning, and making meetings work.
Kids Count Data Book
The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 16th annual Kids
Count Data Book is available online,
with enhanced interactive features. This important resource for
people working to improve the well-being of children in America
provides a state-by-state statistical portrait of the health,
educational, social, and economic condition of American children.
The 2005 DATA BOOK focuses on “Helping Our Most Vulnerable
Families Overcome Barriers to Work and Achieve Financial Success.” http://www.aecf.org/kidscount/sld/databook.jsp
Memo on Reconnecting our Youth A coalition of more than 250 organizations, including JFF, has
sent to the President a set of policy solutions to improve outcomes
for disconnected youth. A coordinated effort is advancing these
recommendations with the Administration, Congress, governors,
and federal agencies. http://www.clasp.org/CampaignForYouth/
Small Schools
A special issue of Rethinking
Schools looks at “the hottest
trend in the all-too-trendy world of education reform: small schools.”
Reports and analysis from various locations and vantage points
provide multiple perspectives on a strategy that has the potential
to be a step toward educational justice or another wrong turn
for education policy. http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/curriss.shtml
Staffing High-Need Schools: A Shared Responsibility
This “Framework for Action” offers a systemic set
of actions for addressing a long-standing problem: our most vulnerable
students, those in high-poverty, low-performing schools, are far
less likely than their wealthier peers to attend schools with
the most qualified teachers, administrators, and other school
staff.http://www.learningfirst.org/publications/staffing/
Family Notes: JFF Welcomes Al Andino
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