SPOTLIGHT

JFF ON THE PRESIDENT’S STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS

JFF applauds the President’s goals of training and putting two million more skilled Americans to work to boost our economy. We also believe it can be done—if college is made affordable and accessible for all Americans. Therefore, we also support the President’s call for continued low interest rates on student loans and an extension of college-related tax credits, as well as the Administration’s efforts to increase Pell Grant awards.

Still, if we eliminate adults' financial barriers to education, an estimated 93 million Americans lack the basic skills necessary to succeed in postsecondary education and the workplace. And that number goes up as 1.3 million drop out of high school each year. For these individuals, JFF and others are developing and scaling up programs that help dropouts and low-skilled adults earn a GED and college-ready skills. There are also more than 230 early college high schools nationwide that help students traditionally underrepresented in higher education to stay engaged in school and even earn up to two years of free college credit along with their high school diploma. READ MORE.

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ED REFORM

DON’T “WAIVER” ON GRAD RATE ACCOUNTABILITY

Graduation rate accountability and multiple measures of success are two hot topics in the debate on the “No Child Left Behind” law. Both are essential to successful education reform, and both are at issue as 11 states have asked the U.S. Department of Education for exemptions from parts of NCLB.

In a recent blog, JFF’s Cassius Johnson and Kathryn Young commend the Department and states for their commitment to college and career readiness—but they also call for making graduation rate improvement a top priority.

Johnson and Young highlight three recommendations on how states should update their waiver applications to help increase students’ graduation and college readiness rates.

PHILADELPHIA SCHOOLS TAKE THE “PATHWAY TO RECOVERY”

Tierre Welton and Jerry Graham used to hang out with bad crowds at school. Leilanni Basco and Rebecca York just felt unmotivated, lost in a sea of students. Now all four teenagers—and hundreds more—are on a clear path to college success thanks to the Excel Academy North and Excel Academy South in Philadelphia, alternative schools for over-age and undercredited youth. “Here, the teachers get to know you and stay after school to help you,” Basco told the city’s Northeast Times Star. Welton said she’ll graduate two years faster at Excel than she would have at her former charter school.

In just one year, more than two-thirds of Excel students advanced their English and/or math skills by two years or more, as JFF’s Cecilia Le and Lili Allen detailed in a recent report. The key to success—besides the students’ own motivation—is their schools’ use of JFF’s Common Instructional Framework, a set of classroom practices that other schools and districts nationwide are beginning to use. Both Excel schools are operated by Camelot, an education management organization focusing on students who have not succeeded in traditional classrooms.

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CAREER ADVANCEMENT

GOOD NEWS ON THE JOBS FRONT

January brought some good news on the job front, even if the nation has a long way to go before we can really celebrate. In his latest blog, John Dorrer asks a critical question: How can we reconnect the millions of Americans who are experiencing the hardship of job loss with the emerging opportunities?

Looking nationally, Dorrer counts down the six most in-demand skills and occupations and explains how “real-time” data on local labor markets can reveal what specific good jobs are available in a particular region or city. Dorrer leads Credentials that Work, an initiative that uses real-time labor tools to help community colleges determine what jobs are available in their region and adjust their program offerings to prepare students specifically for those jobs.

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IN THE NEWS

• The New York Times, 1/12/12: “Efforts Are Under Way to Tie College to Job Needs”—how JFF helps colleges and their students job search in the 21st century
• Fast Company, 1/12/12: “Resources for the 4-year career”—JFF named a top innovator for pushing aggregated, real-time labor market information to community colleges
• Scholastic Administr@tor, January 2012: “Dropouts: How three districts are solving education’s biggest problem”
• Education Week, 1/12/12: “Even with educated workforce, U.S. college, career issues loom”— with comments by JFF’s Nancy Hoffman on international efforts to prepare youth for the workforce

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ON THE ROAD

• Feb. 18, the AASA National Conference on Education: LaVonne Sheffield on how school districts can enable every child to complete college courses in high school
• Mar. 4-6, League for Innovation in the Community College: Richard Kazis and Gretchen Schmidt on the latest in performance funding policies and developmental ed reform; John Dorrer on how colleges use real-time labor market info
• Mar. 10-12, NAWB Forum 2012: Maria Flynn on how the workforce system can promote a multistate effort to reform Adult Basic Ed; Geri Scott on new ways to prepare apprentices for green jobs; John Dorrer on tools for gathering real-time labor market info

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