Finally, Some Resources on Multiple Pathways to Graduation

In addition to the materials you can find at Youth Transition Funders Group you can now get the materials from the US Department of Labor's Learning Exchange.

Is MPG paying enough attention to ELL?

The article below that indicates NYC one of the cities taking graduation rate increases really seriously not making progress with students that are english language learners. If this trend is the same for other cities we need to pay attention to it by:

a) increasing a focus on language and literacy in high schools, especially those efforts to help students stay on-track thru the transition to 9th grade
b) develop more international high schools designed to help ELL students graduate in the mix of the portfolio of schools
c) ensure that there are adequate number of transfer/alternative schools that have expertise in language and literacy to help ELL students pass exit exams and graduate.

ENGLISH-ONLY RISE IN NEW YORK CITY HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION RATES
BY Meredith Kolodner
Daily News
February 23, 2009

Exclusive - High school graduation rates have increased under Mayor Bloomberg - except for students not fluent in English.

While the general graduation rate climbed to 52.2% in 2007 from 46.5% in 2005, the rate for students learning English (called English language learners, or ELLs) dropped from 28.5% to 23.5% over the same period.

Advocates say some city efforts that have improved achievement in general missed the mark when it comes to English language learners.

"We support high standards," said Deycy Avitia, education advocacy coordinator at the New York Immigration Coalition, "but what we need is the increased resources and strategies to make sure they can meet the higher standards."

As an example, she noted that for one of the mayor's biggest initiatives, the creation of new, small schools, the city allowed the exclusion of nonfluent students.

English language learners are also overrepresented in some of the system's worst schools, accounting for one in five students at the 15 failing schools that were shuttered this year. ELLs made up more than a quarter of the student body at the two high schools that were closed.

Two years ago, advocates successfully fought for increased funding for these students, but say more is needed. Among their suggestions are a longer school day, reduced class size and access to full-day pre-K and kindergarten. They warn that the coming change in graduation standards, requiring all students to pass all five Regents exams, will only make things worse. Currently, only about 10% of English language learners meet that standard.

But there are programs that work, the advocates say.

Flushing International High School in Queens, where students speak 18 languages, boasts a 2% dropout rate and a 92% college attendance rate.

Bronx International High School, which has 40 languages spoken in its hallways, has a similar record.

An Education Department spokeswoman acknowledged that four-year graduation rates remain a concern, but said overall academic performance had improved.

Progress is easier when students are younger, say experts, and, by some measures, there has been improvement.

The percentage of English language learners in the third through eighth grades able to read English at grade level jumped to 22.6% in 2008 from 11% in 2006, according to state tests. Those who were proficient in math grew to 59% from 36% over the same period.

On national achievement tests, however, there was no progress in reading shown by the system's fourth- or eighth-graders. The same was true for eighth-graders in math, though the fourth-graders made some improvement.

"These are problems that have been accruing for some time," said Maria Torres-Guzman, professor of bilingual studies at Columbia University's Teachers College.

"It's too easy to ignore, because it's a population that's not going to make a lot of noise in the political world."

Implications for Youth and Education in the Stimulus Bill

Although this hasn't been verified, this is the latest I have heard about the opportunities in the stimulus bill.

The bill provides $789 billion over two years, but $70 billion of this amount extends provisions of the Alternative Minimum Tax that would have been enacted anyway: thus, relative to baseline spending, the actual fiscal stimulus is closer to $730 billion.

The bill provides about $100b for education, including:
· $250 million for data systems.

· $54 billion for a “fiscal stabilization fund,” most of which must be used for education. Charter schools are eligible to receive this funding.

· $4.6 billion for early childhood programs

· $13 billion for Title 1, of which $3b is for the school improvement fund.

· $11.7 billion for IDEA

· $200 million for the teacher incentive fund

· $15.6 billion for Pell Grants (it appears that the award will increase $400-500 next year)

· $5.17 billion for job training, including $200m national emergency grants, $250m for community training (through community colleges), $250m for Job Corps, $1.52 billion for dislocated workers, $1.2 billion for youth training, $540m for vocational rehabilitation, and $50m for Youthbuild.

The bill also provides low-income families with tax relief that should lift an estimated 2.5 million people out of poverty:
· The earned income tax credit is expanded to provide, for the first time, a larger credit to families with more than two children.

· The earnings requirement for the child care tax credit is lowered from $8,500 to $3,000, which will expand the credit received by the families of 13 million children.

· The Administration’s refundable “making work pay” tax credit is set at $400 for individuals and $800 for families.

· The HOPE tax credit is renamed the American Opportunity tax credit and is for the first time made partially refundable, thus finally making the credit useful to low-income students. The refundable portion would provide up to $1000 per year for tuition and books. On the spending side, the bill also will increase Pell grants by $400-500 per year.

Other provisions of help to low- and moderate-income families:
· A 20-30% increase in the monthly food stamp benefits for the lowest income families (this increase will phase out over time).

· A federally-funded increase of $25 per month in state unemployment insurance benefits. In addition, the bill provides fiscal incentives for states to make part-time workers eligible for UI (especially important for working mothers).

· Several billion for TANF, with changes in federal law that would encourage states to help more families when unemployment increases.

· $4 billion for capital improvements to public housing

· $1.5b for homelessness prevention

The bill also provides states with $87 billion through a temporary increase in the Federal share of Medicaid costs (this funding comes with a temporary prohibition on state action to restrict Medicaid eligibility).

Green Schools

With the discussions on the economic recovery bill, there has been increased interest in "green schools". Here are some resources to get you started:

• Green Schools Conference coming up: http://asumag.com/green_virtual_conference/main/?cid=gsupromo
• Green Schools www.greenschools.net -- I think this organizations stands out as they expand their understanding to include healthy eating with gardens integrated as part of the curriculum. Given the empty lots in Detroit, you might be able to turn what is often perceived as a deficit into an asset.
• US Green Building Council: http://www.usgbc.org/.

• Public Architecture www.publicarchitecture.org.

• American Architectural Foundation (www.archfoundation.org has a Great Schools by Design program (http://archfoundation.org/aaf/gsbd/index.htm). Great Schools by Design hosted a convening on green schools in December 2007, in association with the Congressional Green Schools Caucus. The forum was sponsored by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC), which has since launched this: http://www.buildgreenschools.org/

• Lois DeBacker at Kresge. They are investing in green building. lrdebacker@kresge.org.Firms

• John Weekes, principal of Dull Olson Weekes Architects (http://www.dowa.com/). He and his firm designed the 45,000 sq ft Rosa Parks School in Portland, which has been hailed as a model for green building. You can find the school on his site under Experience -> Projects -> Learn.
• Peter Calthorpe http://www.calthorpe.com/
• Koning Eisenberg Architecture http://www.kearch.com/ (J. Sturges)
• Daly Genik Architects http://www.dalygenik.com/ (J. Sturges)
• William McDonough redesigned the Ford plant in River Rouge about 10 years ago. http://www.mcdonough.com/
• Designshare (Designshare.com) is the firm that worked with Bingler in NOLA to create a new school Gaylaird Christopher is contact. 626-356-4080 gchristopher@architecture4e.com
• Regenisis Group in santa fe. Joel Glanzberg is contact. joelgla@yahoo.com
  

Schools

• Sidwell Friends in DC is a LEED platinum school facility with a wide variety of sustainable features, including a revolutionary new lighting system. See description at http://www.lutron.com/cms400/assets/0/609/2617/2625/3DAF397F-5A81-4E5E-9F82-DE429B8B5AE7.pdf

• The new Ann Arbor public libraries were built with an environmentally sustainable approach. Luckenbach|Ziegelman Architects ofAnn Arbor. The library at Mallets Creek Library won a sustainable design architecture award. http://www.aadl.org/buildings

• Ann Arbor Skyline High School was built with a green orientation. TMP Associates, Inc. (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.), along with Mitchell and Mouat (Ann Arbor, Mich.) are the architects for the new school.

Alternative High School Initiative Developing Place-Based Approach

The group of school developers that make up AHSI have been working developer to make it easier for mayors and superintendents to expand their portfolio of schools for students that are off-track to graduation. This saves time and energy on the part of the cities/districts and the school developers.

The latest partnership is with Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Superintendent Clifford Janey

From the AHSI newsletter:

Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker and Newark Public Schools Superintendent Clifford Janey recently announced a new partnership to reduce local dropout rates by developing a portfolio of innovative, student-centered alternative high schools. Over the next two years, the partnership will open a total of nine schools and programs that feature a rigorous and relevant curriculum, project-based learning, close student-teacher relationships, and youth voice.

Along with Indianapolis and Nashville, Newark is one of three pilot cities in which the Alternative High School Initiative (AHSI) has established a "place-based partnership." AHSI is a network of 12 youth development organizations that have developed innovative alternative school models. The network is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and co-convened by the YEF Institute and Big Picture Learning. Over the next two years, the City of Newark will collaborate with AHSI members such as Gateway to College, Communities in Schools of New Jersey, DiplomaPlus, Big Picture Learning, as well as local partners such as Newark Public Schools, the Nicholson Foundation, Rutgers University, Newark Alliance, and Essex County College in opening new schools for students who struggle in traditional high school settings.

The question is: shouldn't the districts be doing the segmentation analysis to understand their off-track population before selecting school models?

Federal Office of Multiple Pathways to Graduation

Accelerating Integration of Multiple Pathways to Graduation into College Readiness Agendas

Given that a number of cities have developed a data-driven approach to improving high schools AND better serving the student that are off-track to graduation (who without whelp will become dropouts), what can we do to accelerate the number of districts that are actively embracing policies and strategies to address the dropout crisis? One thing to do is establish an Office Of Multiple Pathways to Graduation within federal and state Departments of Education.

Background

On November 13-15, I attended the Multiple Education Pathways Learning Exchange sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL). As you know, the USDOL invested $2,950,000 in funding to six cities to expand upon the methodology referred to as Multiple Pathways to Graduation to stem the tide of young people that leave school without their high school diploma as developed by Boston, Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia and Portland, OR. Nearly 300 community leaders from over 40 cities – school district, business, higher education, community organizations – committed the time and money to come to the Learning Exchange to learn from the cities that are forging ahead.

Furthermore, the Alternative High School Initiative funded by the Gates Foundation is getting increasing interest from cities to expand the number of alternative schools such as Diploma Plus and Communities in School’s Performance Learning Centers. As cities begin to confront their low graduation rates they are trying to expand the number of transfer or alternative schools designed to help students get back on track to graduation. This is a critical step as most cities have less than 10% of the necessary slots to serve the number of students that are over-age and under-credit.

Given the enormous appetite for a strategic approach to address the dropout crisis, the following is a strategy to accelerate the process of district adaptation of the Multiple Pathways to Graduation framework to stem the tide of students leaving school unprepared for the 21st century workforce.

Rationale for Investing in the Multiple Pathways to Graduation Framework

• Cost-effective use of increasingly scarce resources: The Multiple Pathways to Graduation framework is the only data-driven approach to addressing the dropout crisis. Without the framework in place along with the baseline segmentation analysis, schools and cities are left throwing services at children without any way of knowing if it is making a difference. A representative from Brockton Public Schools drew out this point by describing how they found that of all the students on the early warning list not one of them was receiving services through the primary mentoring program.

• Without intervention, the challenge of disconnected youth will swamp cities and lead to a generation of young families without attachment to education and work. The challenges of the disconnected youth population are only going to get larger under the economic crisis. Even before the crisis, the absolute numbers of young people without a diploma or the skills to connect effectively with the labor market were growing. The only way to stop a whole new generation of young families grow up in poverty is to dramatically increase the number of students completing their high school education and building the fundamental skills that will allow them to succeed in the 21st century economy.

Establish Office of Multiple Pathways to Graduation in Federal and State Department’s of Education

Establishing and Office of Multiple Pathways to Graduation in Federal and State Departments of Education can play three critical roles as described below. There is significant opportunity to structure a federal Office of Multiple Pathways to Graduation as a public/private partnership assuming that the office is established within the Department of Education.

• Signal that increasing graduation rates is equally important as increasing achievement. It is critical that the efforts to increase college readiness be balanced and bolstered by explicit strategies to increase graduation rates. Currently the overall policies toward high school reform are based on system alignment rather than system analysis. Although at first glance this appears to be a sound approach, it is built on the assumption that all students will follow a linear path to graduation. System alignment efforts also fail to address the issue of what happens to children when they fall off –track to graduation.


• Establish incentives for districts to establish data-driven efforts to keep more students on-track and help off-track students get their diploma. Minimal levels of funding can act as incentives for districts to complete the data analysis, establish early warning systems and refine accountability systems to create incentives for schools to continue educating students that are off-track. The US DOL has demonstrated that with less than $250,000 per year cities and districts will take on the overhaul of their education systems and re-organize resources around students that are off-track to graduation.

• Create incentives for districts to expand the number and type of transfer (alternative) schools to reach 20% of students that are off-track to graduation. Evidence from leading cities suggest that at most 10% of the need for schools are available to support students off-track to graduation. In many states, there are financial disincentives for districts to expand the number of transfer schools. Federal and state policy incentives can be established as well as philanthropic dollars to establish low-interest revolving loans to establish more schools. Finally, greater innovation will be needed to address the needs of students that are dropping out of school with elementary level literacy skills.


• Broker relationships to support peer-to-peer networking among districts and communities to accelerate learning and encourage innovations. By using social network theory and effective practices of knowledge transfer, Offices of Multple Pathways to Graduation can help districts learn from each other, offer critical resources on-line, while simultaneously building up a cadre of new leaders with abilities to support systemic reforms.

In conclusion, it is critical that the leadership of efforts related to Multiple Pathways to Graduation is centered in Departments of Education, otherwise school districts will not heed the importance of this work. Yet, it is equally important that formal partnerships are established with efforts within Departments of Labor and if possible, those departments overseeing mental health, child welfare and juvenile justice.