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Rachel Pleasants McDonnell

Monday March 18, 2013

Design Matters: Lessons from Accelerating Opportunity

by Rachel Pleasants McDonnell
Accelerating Opportunity, Jobs for the Future’s multistate initiative to redesign Adult Basic Education (ABE), is entering its second year of implementation. Drawing on the findings of the Accelerating Opportunity evaluators (the Urban Institute) and our own experiences as the managing partner, we can reflect back on the design phase, from...

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Wednesday September 12, 2012

Adult Literacy: Making the Connection

by Rachel Pleasants McDonnell
This week is National Adult Education and Family Literacy Week. JFF applauds its organizer, the National Coalition for Literacy, for drawing the connection between adult literacy and economic stability. We too are committed to helping adults gain the education they need to achieve financial independence and support their families and are staunch...

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Thursday March 22, 2012

Ensuring that Good Programs Make a Strong Impact (Part 3 of 3)

by Rachel Pleasants McDonnell
(Part 3 of a three-part blog entry) Getting to scale is a major goal of most initiatives both at JFF and across the country, but most of us still struggle with figuring out how to scale up what works and create real, sustainable, high-impact change. At the Achieving the Dream State Policy Meeting in Seattle, Washington on February 1st, Barbara...

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