In From the Prison Track to the College Track, JFF reports on
four types of new school programs that effectively move low-income,
out-of-school youth, ages 16-24, toward completing high school
and postsecondary education and training, and gaining access to
real employment opportunities. The programs make school success
possible for young people whom the traditional system has failed.
“As a society and as a nation, we must
make a commitment to these youth, using the best tools possible
to connect them with education and future employment,” said
JFF CEO Hilary Pennington. “A more positive future is important
for them, but it’s also important for us all, because these
young adults are a big part of our future workforce. We cannot
squander their energies and their talents.”
The report notes that for every 100 students
who enter 9th grade, only 67 graduate from high school; just 38
go on to college; and only 18 of the original 100 wind up getting
an Associate’s or Bachelor’s degree. JFF calls for
focused national investments in strategies—like those it
highlights—that effectively address the nation’s high
school and college dropout problems and other such “leaks”
in the school-to-employment pipeline.
Pennington said what distinguishes the most
successful programs is an acute sense of the “lessons”
most out-of-school youth have taken away from school. “Many
have come to see secondary school as irrelevant, available jobs
as demeaning, and their prospects and choices as diminishing,”
she said. “Programs that successfully connect with these
young people have to start by understanding that reality.”
The report says that high school dropouts face
an extraordinarily bleak future in today’s economy, which
demands an increasingly educated and highly trained workforce.
In fact, colleges want first-year students to have the same skills
that employers seek in entry-level workers—skills such as
literacy and the ability to work in a team and communicate well.
Yet the education pipeline fails to provide that preparation for
vast numbers of youth, the report states. Some young people, the
report notes, especially minority and low-income youth, face a
greater chance of ending up in a pipeline to prison than to college.
To identify programs and schools that are helping
to change the odds, JFF turned to national experts in the fields
of education, youth development, and youth employment, asking
them to suggest learning environments that are unusually effective
with low-income, urban youth. Based on the over 100 programs nominated
for further study, the report profiles schools in Dayton, Ohio;
Portland, Oregon; Washington, DC; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
that typify four different “best practice” approaches.
In Oregon, Portland Community College’s
PCC Prep represents an institutional blend between
high school and college, providing a comprehensive program
that rapidly and intensively prepares dropouts for entry into
college-level work. It immerses students in an adult environment
while they complete a high school diploma and take college credit
courses. Three out of five students entering PCC Prep in 2001-02
completed college prep requirements and enrolled in college studies.
“High school dropouts who never saw themselves
as being able to do well in school, or to go to and succeed in
college are doing both,” explains Linda Huddle, Director
of Alternative Programs at PCC Prep. “Now they see themselves
as succeeding in school, going way beyond a high school diploma
academically and having a place and value in the world.”
ISUS Trade and Technology Prep in Dayton, Ohio, blends education and employment training
for out-of-school youth ages 16 to 22. ISUS students earn
a high school diploma and college credits while making progress
toward nationally recognized certification in either the construction
or computer industries. ISUS, a charter school, partnered with
a community college to offer college credits to its students.
Sixty percent of students complete the rigorous ISUS graduation
requirements in two years.
“Not all of our students are court-involved,”
says ISUS founder and executive director Ann Higdon. “In
fact, most are very bright and test at postsecondary levels when
they arrive here. What they have in common is that to succeed
they need a different approach to education. The systems they
were in before didn’t work for them, but ISUS does.”
In Philadelphia,Youth VOICES builds on cutting-edge, after-school programs for older youth,
linking them through community research projects supervised by
Temple University students to an experience of the university
as a center for dynamic and pragmatic community development work.
VOICES has served more than 150 low-income youth of color, with
84 percent completing the program.
In Washington, DC, Maya Angelou Public
Charter School, an example of a reinvented high school,
uses curriculum, staff, resources, and time in radically different
ways to address students’ developmental and intellectual
needs. Maya Angelou takes on highly vulnerable youth, sets rigorous
academic standards, and commits to providing students with whatever
supports they need to overcome obstacles. The school’s seniors
maintain a 92% attendance rate, and three-quarters of its graduates
go on to college.
According to JFF, these programs demonstrate
that out-of-school youth can succeed, and even thrive, if educators
design learning environments at different levels of intensity,
available in a variety of locations, and delivered through different
institutional arrangements.
“The programs profiled here offer a promising
foundation for a more effective system,” Pennington said.
“Many have been nurtured outside our schools, on the margins
of traditional educational programs, through new partnerships
that blur the boundaries between high schools and community-based
organizations, secondary and postsecondary institutions, and educational
and employment organizations. It’s time to bring what we
have learned out from the margins and into the mainstream of educational
practice.”
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