Top Five List of Great Things Happening for Youth

Investing to make sure all youth are connected by 25

We just wrapped up the annual YTFG meeting. It was just chock full of ideas to push our thinking about how we can improve our work together. It was also chock full of great things happening around the country.

1. Reengagement Centers: Cities and districts around the country are recruiting students to stay in school and re-enroll with reengagement centers that try to find a helpful place for students. Bringing together cross-system partners, they also help districts put together plans that provide support. We heard from TEEMGateway of New Jersey, where the model is spreading with Newark, Camden and Trenton. The D2 Center (Directions.Diploma.) in Omaha have opened their door in a mall with the support of the SherwoodFoundation.

Starting Off the School Year Right

Starting off the school year right— 

For high school students across the country, Labor Day’s passing signals the end of summer and the start of the school year. For many, the first few weeks back are filled with anticipation and newness. Ninth graders entering a big high school, twelfth graders thinking about one more year before they’re “done” and off to pursue their dreams at college or work. It’s a new year—a time to start fresh. 

But for the kids we focus on here at the Center—kids locked up in secure facilities—it’s often a time of regret, of anger, and of missed opportunities. And for many of these kids, there’s nothing new about school in September. It’s just part of their everyday existence in a place that never allows them to forget they are not free. 

Conversation Among Funders - 2012 YTFG Meeting

Shawn Wilson (CC BY-SA 1.0)

I’m off to Detroit for the annual YouthTransition Funders Group meeting. It promises to be jam-packed with ideas and conversation to push our thinking and inform our grantmaking. Here are just a few of the highlights:

We start off at Henry Ford Academy School for Creative Studies. This academy, Detroit's art and design middle and high school, is built on the idea that learning needs to be hands-on, connected to the real world, and should develop not only students' academic knowledge and skills, but also their potential as creative thinkers and innovative problem solvers. (Check out Sir Kenneth Robertson’s fascinating (and very funny) talk about the importance of creativity, and his animated lecture on Changing Education Parameters.)

Then we stop by Plymouth Educational Center Preparatory High School. PEC distinguishes itself by catering to the diverse learning needs of its students. Its curriculum is anchored in the belief that students can and will demonstrate mastery over challenging subjects, with individualized attention and guidance from caring, supportive teachers. (We are hearing a lot about mastery-based education in Michigan. The new LEA, the Education Achievement Authority, is managing school turnaround with a strong focus on mastery-based.)

Get Involved! October is National Youth Justice Awareness Month (YJAM)

October is National Youth Justice Awareness month! The purpose of National Youth Justice Awareness Month (YJAM) is to raise awareness about youth in the juvenile and criminal justice systems.  YJAM was launched by Tracy McClard, a mother in Jackson, Missouri, whose teenage son Jonathan took his life in an adult prison.  Tracy organized a 5k run in her community of Cape Girardeau, Missouri in 2008, and since then, YJAM has expanded to states all over the country!  This year, events are scheduled throughout the country such as 5k run/walks, film screenings, art exhibits and poetry readings! For a list of events and ways to get involved, visit:

 http://www.campaignforyouthjustice.org/national-youth-justice-awareness-month.html.

Juvenile Justice Reform: In Praise of the Squeaky Wheel

Abby Anderson   

By Abby Anderson

I want to take a moment to advocate for a group of people who don’t often get the attention they deserve. Misunderstood, frequently marginalized — yet essential to reforming our juvenile justice system to make it smaller, fairer, age-appropriate, and more cost-effective.

Yes: I’m advocating for advocates. My colleagues.

Now, when I say “advocate,” I’m referring to folks who are usually outside the conventional power structure. Sometimes they’re paid, sometimes not; regardless, it’s their job to rock the boat. To carp, criticize, and say, “There’s a better way.”

ON is Turning On Tomorrow

Ramean Clowney

Wow – It’s amazing who Opportunity Nation (ON) is pulling around a very large table tomorrow to put opportunity and mobility solidly in the public agenda. Check out the list of folks – I sure do love seeing the mix-up of leadership from Governor Deval Patrick to Ramean Clowney a graduate of One Bright Ray Community High School and a member of the National Council of Young Leaders. ON has done a nice job of respecting perspectives and leadership across our nation.

Wish I could be there – and I can be because they are streaming.

I still wish they had placed completing a high school diploma front and center in the policy agenda. I think it is going to get lost in the heavy emphasis on jobs and training. It’s an antiquated policy framework that thinks young people can make a transition to adulthood without a meaningful diploma or certificate.

Nonetheless, this is a fantastic opportunity. So let’s talk the talk – opportunity and mobility, opportunity and mobility, opportunity and mobility. And let's put our young people back front and center on the national agenda.

Community Solutions!

I just heard that Steve Patrick, a very creative program officer (before the Gates Foundation, he worked at the NM Community Foundation) has been appointed the Executive Director of the newly formed Aspen Forum for Community Solutions.

The Aspen Forum is a direct outgrowth from the recent White House Council for Community Solutions. The Forum is Chaired by Melody Barnes. One of the priority areas of focus for the AFCS will be the establishment of the Opportunity Youth Incentive Fund – a funding collaborative focused on supporting communities that come together to collaborate across systems to better support low income youth (16-24) who are out of school and out of work…

Way to go Steve!

Opportunity to Build on Opportunity Nation

From Tow Foundation web

I just heard that Opportunity Nation is going to have at least two sessions focused on "disconnected youth" at the September 19th Summit.

For the panel discussing how employers can be involved in ensuring our young people have a path into the labor market, ON has recruited Angela Cobb from New Options, Gail Gershon from Gap Inc., a representative from CGI and a Year Up alum.

On the discussion on how the collective impact process can be applied to the challenges facing our young people, Steve Patrick from the Gates Foundation, Yazeed Moore, from the Mott Foundation will be joined by Shelley Waters Boots from the New America Foundation and Fay Hanleybrown from FSG.  Emily Tow Jackson from the Tow Foundation will be there as well to provide insights from a regional foundation.

This is a great opportunity for all of us to write letters to our editors about opportunity and mobility!

Student Learning Objectives: A Model for Student Growth for Alternative Schools?

There is no perfect accountability system – we know that.  For alternative education providers, for anyone serving students with significant academic gaps or that are under-age, under-credited, know this more than anyone. This includes online providers as well as community-based alternative schools. States and districts are trying to apply a policy built on the factory model to schools that are designed around personalization.  I even heard that DC has told one provider either be assessed under the traditional accountability system or use an alternative accountability method but they’ll have to give up Title 1 funds. Let’s face it – this may not be intentional, but this is a backlash against the progress we have made over the past decade. Students are being harmed by policymakers hammering the square peg into the round hole.

So what to do?  Some states offer schools a number of indicators to select from. One idea put forth by Ernie Silva is the At Promise Cohort cohort organized around students that reengage in a dropout recovery school for at least an academic year.  In learning about Student Learning Objectives (SLO) promoted by the Community Training and Assistance Center, I started wondering if we could use them as a way of creating a meaningful growth model for accountability.

The Summer of our Disconnect

The following written by Gary Kaplan is a revision of a post published at JFY Networks on September 1, 2012.

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The absence of anything readable about the Red Sox left a summer news vacuum that was filled by … education studies.  Or, more precisely, studies on the connection between education and employment.

No fewer than 5 —count ‘em, five —studies appeared between Memorial Day and Labor Day.  They came from the National Bureau of Economic Research,  Georgetown University, Rutgers University, the Brookings Institution and the National Employment Law Project. They all said that getting a job depends on having post-secondary education.  Read that sentence closely: it doesn’t say “getting a good job, or a decent job, or a high-paying job. It says getting a job. Any job.