HOW STATE POLICY CAN HELP REDUCE DROPOUT RATES

Across the nation, many states have taken steps to improve high school graduation rates and stem the dropout crisis. However, as you will see in this issue of Newswire, two new JFF reports suggest the distance all states have yet to travel to meet the challenge in public policy.

The JFF reports are based on state-by-state “scans” of whether and how quickly states are adopting model policy elements for dropout prevention and recovery, as well as policies that would drive the reinvention of alternative education into a pathway to college for struggling students.

To find out what your state has done in the past decade to adopt these model policies, I invite you to explore two online, interactive tools that JFF has created:

Dropout Prevention & Recovery

Reinventing Alternative Education

Today’s off-track students are tomorrow’s out-of-school youth. Some of these young people will benefit from planned improvements now underway in traditional high schools, but others will require creative alternatives in significantly different settings. With the right policies in place, states can create pathways to postsecondary education for all.

—Marlene B. Seltzer, President and CEO, Jobs for the Future

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COLLEGE READY

REDUCING DROPOUT RATES: SIX PILLARS OF EFFECTIVE DROPOUT PREVENTION AND RECOVERY

“We have two populations that generally lack college-ready skills: the 1.2 million who drop out of high school each year, and many more who struggle to earn a diploma with little chance of achieving more,” says Adria Steinberg, who leads JFF’s efforts to improve the options for and prospects of young people who have disengaged from the educational system. “Many policies concerning these populations predate the national recognition of the critical importance of a college degree for earning a family-supporting wage. These policies must change.”

Six Pillars of Dropout Prevention and Recovery, by JFF staff Steinberg, Cheryl Almeida, Janet Santos, and Cecilia Le, identifies the elements of model policies for dropout prevention and recovery. It also assesses the extent to which recent state policies align with those elements.

IMPROVING COLLEGE-READY GRADUATION RATES: REINVENTING ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION

Promising evidence is emerging that efforts to redesign alternative education contribute to rising graduation rates, and several large cities have made considerable progress toward developing effective education pathways for former dropouts to postsecondary learning and success. In Reinventing Alternative Education, Almeida, Le, and Steinberg, with assistance from Roy Cervantes, identify the elements of model alternative education policies.

BACK ON TRACK TO COLLEGE: LEVERAGING TEXAS STATE POLICY

To envision the success that can come from supportive state policies, look at the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Independent School District in south Texas. Over the last two years, the tri-city district has put over 600 former dropouts on a clear pathway to college.

Just a few years ago, weak graduation rates and struggling high schools characterized this predominantly Hispanic, low-income community. Since then, entrepreneurial leadership and strategic improvement have resulted in a plummeting dropout rate and a steadily rising graduation rate. The district’s new College, Career, and Technology Academy, launched with South Texas College, is designed to reengage dropouts and enroll them in college courses while they work to earn high school diplomas. In Back on Track to College, Lili Allen and Rebecca E. Wolfe spotlight how the district has leveraged Texas policies and conditions to achieve extraordinary outcomes.

PROFILE: CECILIA LE

Cecilia Le, coauthor of the dropout and alternative education reports highlighted in this Newswire, brought to the task a journalist’s eye for what matters: before coming to JFF, she spent four years as an education reporter for newspapers in upstate New York and Wilmington, Delaware. Her work in journalism took her to many schools and into the center of education policy debates both local and national.

Cecilia’s growing interest in education reform and equity brought her to the MATCH Charter Public High School in Boston, where she helped prepare students for college through an intensive yearlong tutoring program. While at JFF, Cecilia has remained involved with MATCH and her wonderful former students by tutoring SAT math and directing a program in which high schoolers tutor elementary students. Cecilia relies on her journalistic background to capture the strategies and approaches JFF and its partners use to create better educational pathways for young people.

PROFILE: JANET SANTOS

Janet Santos arrived at JFF in 2007, bringing five years of experience in research and writing support and project management to help teachers, districts, and state administrators throughout the Northeast implement effective instructional and curricular practices for English language learners. At JFF, Janet researches and identifies state policies enabling the development of school designs and pathways that blend K-12 and postsecondary education: comprehensive dual enrollment programs, early college high schools, and Back on Track models that reengage off-track and out-of-school youth.

Janet has co-authored several publications identifying recent national trends in education and educational policies. They include Graduating America: Meeting the Challenge of Low Graduation-Rate High Schools and this month’s featured release, Six Pillars of Effective Dropout Prevention and Recovery and the accompanying Web-based tool on state policies.

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COLLEGE SUCCESS

TAKING THE NEXT STEP: INTERMEDIATE MEASURES TOWARD COLLEGE GOALS

As educators have embraced the goal of dramatically increasing college success, they have come to understand the need for better data—at the institutional and state levels—on how students are progressing to their educational and career goals. Data on final student outcomes like degree completion are too little, too late if the ultimate goal is improved student persistence and completion. Good data on intermediate steps along the way to earning postsecondary credentials are critical—and a variety of different approaches to defining and using intermediate measures are emerging nationally.

In Taking the Next Step, Jeremy Offenstein and Nancy Shulock of the Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Policy assess the field of defining, measuring, reporting, and rewarding student progress toward achieving intermediate measures of success designed to encourage consistency and alignment across these new efforts. Offenstein and Shulock conclude with clear advice for the next generation of initiatives to collect and report data on intermediate measures. Their report is a product of JFF’s participation in the Achieving the Dream initiative and our Time to Completion productivity work.

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CAREER ADVANCEMENT

THE GREENFORCE INITIATIVE: ADVANCING GREENER CAREERS AND CAMPUSES

JFF has joined with the National Wildlife Federation to launch The Greenforce Initiative: Advancing Greener Careers and Campuses. This two-year effort is designed to spur green-jobs education, innovation, and training at U.S. community colleges, with funding from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. For more information, please visit the Greenforce Initiative Web site: www.greenforceinitiative.org.

JOBS TO CAREERS IN COMMUNITY-BASED CARE

A project in Oregon to improve the work of elder caregivers in community-based settings is a timely response to an aging population, growing demand for alternatives to nursing homes, and other pressing factors. This case study details the development and impact of Jobs to Careers in Community-Based Care, a collaboration among Portland Community College, five Portland-area assisted living facilities, and two health care industry associations. The project is one of seventeen in Jobs to Careers, a national initiative that is creating ways to support the career development of frontline health care workers by blending education and work.

THE KEY TO PROSPERITY: THE SKILLS OF THE AMERICAN WORKER

The same strategies that will put millions to work quickly can also lay a foundation for a sustainable thriving economy. In communities across the nation, a wide variety of innovative projects show the way forward. On Labor Day, JFF highlighted some of these efforts, drawing on three national initiatives: Breaking Through; Jobs to Careers; and the National Fund for Workforce Solutions.

HARNESSING PHILANTHROPY IN A NEW WORKFORCE MODEL

Also on Labor Day, National Fund for Workforce Solutions Executive Director Fred Dedrick observed that “these challenging times . . . present a real opportunity for philanthropy to help strengthen how we support the American worker.” Writing in the Council of Foundations’ RE: Philanthropy! blog, Dedrick described the philosophy guiding the work of the National Fund. “Philanthropy, both national and local, can and should partner with employers and workers to develop talent development programs that create a direct link between what we are training workers to do and the skills businesses need to compete.”

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Jobs for the Future develops, implements, and promotes new education and workforce strategies that help communities, states, and the nation compete in a global economy. In 200 communities in 41 states, JFF improves the pathways leading from high school to college to family-sustaining careers.

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