Project GRAD — Graduation Really Achieves Dreams:
A Multi-Intervention Approach in Urban Schools Shows Success
A Forum — October 6, 2000
Project GRAD (Graduation Really Achieves Dreams) is a promising reform that provides a "pipeline" of academic support for feeder patterns of elementary, middle and high schools. Founded in Houston in 1993 by James Ketelsen, retired Chairman of Tenneco Inc., Project GRAD combines a number of proven or promising reforms together with the goals of increasing reading and math achievement scores, reducing dropout rates, and increasing student enrollment in postsecondary institutions. Project GRAD currently operates in four feeder patterns in Houston, representing 63 schools and 46,000 students. It has been adopted by five other school districts, including Newark, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Nashville, and Columbus, for a total of 119 schools representing over 81,000 students.
Forum presenter Robert Rivera, Associate Director of Project GRAD Houston, described how the effort had evolved at Jefferson Davis High School, the lowest performing high school in the city. Prior to Project GRAD, there were only 20 students identified as planning to attend college. Tenneco began providing college scholarships for Davis graduates along with access to a variety of academic and social services. But in 1992, only 199 of the 600 students who were ninth graders four years earlier graduated, with just 83 of them going to college. Furthermore, it was apparent that these students were not staying in college. It was determined that a more comprehensive effort reaching all aspects of students’ lives was necessary.
The components of Project GRAD include: Success for All--a nationally recognized reading program that promotes comprehensive restructuring of most school resources to provide concentrated reading time to bring students to grade level by the third grade; Move It Math, a K-6 program that teaches algebraic concepts in early grades through the use of manipulatives; and Consistency Management and Cooperative Discipline, a classroom management and discipline program. At the high school level, students are required to take an academic program, attend college campus-based summer academic institutes, participate in career exploration activities, and they can earn scholarships for college. The scholarship program is available to all graduates with 2.5 GPA. The initiative also includes Communities in Schools, which brings additional support (volunteers and social service programs) directly into schools.
Rivera described the steps in implementation, including the importance of setting up an independent 501(c)(3) organization; recruiting schools and teachers committed to continue the effort beyond changes of superintendents, including on-going efforts to sustain faculty buy-in; creating a series of strong alliances among funders, the school district, and local colleges; implementing the five components fully; building a parent constituency; developing principal leadership in the feeder system; and instilling expectations of college going beginning at the pre-kindergarten level.
The results of Project GRAD are becoming evident in the participating high schools. In 1986, Davis High School had less than five students scoring above 900 on the SAT. By 1999, that number has risen to 57 with some students scoring in the 1300 range. Jack Yates High School has experienced increasing numbers of graduates entering college. Of 258 graduates in 1998, 40 percent entered college; of 320 graduates in 2000, 119 entered college.
Tycene Hicks-Edd of Lucent Technologies spoke of the company’s partnership with Project GRAD Newark. The company was challenged by the Ford Foundation to help support implementation of the model in another urban environment. Lucent representatives, along with the Newark superintendent, visited Houston and conducted a year of research before the committing to the five-year, $15 million venture between Ford and Lucent Technologies. This was a timely move in light of the New Jersey State takeover of the school district. Also, Project GRAD was viewed as a movement to change the culture of schools and the community, providing hope where 80 percent of children live in poverty, 44 percent live with only one biological parent, there is a high student mobility rate, and high incidence of illegal drug use and HIV infection. Project GRAD Newark presently serves 8,000 students in two high schools and 13 feeder schools.
According to Hicks-Edd, the effort has exceeded all its implementation goals including management consistency of the component elements, and increased instructional time and faculty/staff professional development. Among the remaining challenges are: convincing the community that the effort will be sustained—that Project GRAD will not abandon them—and having the patience to stay the course; engaging the trust of school district "insiders"; raising expectations of teachers, parents and students by providing tools to help them create a vision of success; helping students to achieve academic success; building an environment of student enrichment to facilitate reaching their academic potential; and successfully engaging other corporations and foundations to embrace Project GRAD Newark through financial support and employee engagement. Among the ongoing resource needs are funds for scholarships of $1,000 for the first year of college, and $2,000 for each subsequent year.
Fred Doolittle, Vice President and Deputy Director at the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC) and Research Manager for the Project GRAD Evaluation listed the benefits of the comprehensive effort as: addressing the issue of scale through the feeder pattern approach, providing capacity and infrastructure of proven programs through the component models, and developing a partnership of the school district, non-profits and funders. To date, the Houston research has found increases in student test scores, graduation from high school and college going.
Among lessons learned: community and faculty buy-in is critical—teachers vote to embrace and participate, and information is shared with families and communities early-on; it is critical to set aside time for teachers to plan and reflect; teacher engagement in reform is more difficult when the school clientele is poor; effective curriculum reforms are needed in the secondary grades; and mechanisms are needed to create systems that rely on the implementation of multiple programs.
This brief is from an American Youth Policy Forum held on October 6, 2000 on Capitol Hill as reported by Glenda Partee.
The American Youth Policy Forum is a non-profit, nonpartisan professional development organization for professionals working on youth policy issues at the national, state and local levels. AYPF attempts to present various perspectives on issues that bridge youth policy, practice and research. The opinions of our forum speakers are not necessarily those of AYPF.
AYPF’s events and policy reports are made possible by the support of a consortium of philanthropic foundations: Ford Foundation, Ford Motor Company Fund, General Electric Fund, William T. Grant Foundation, George Gund Foundation, Walter S. Johnson Foundation, W. K. Kellogg Foundation, McKnight Foundation, Charles S. Mott Foundation, NEC Foundation of America, Wallace-Reader’s Digest Funds and others.