UPCOMING AYPF EVENTS
AYPF EVENT DETAILS
Webinar – Predictors of Postsecondary Success: Understanding the Value of Workforce Data, Thursday, June 26th, 2:00-3:30pm EDT 
As part of our series co-sponsored with the CCRS Center which builds on their brief, Predictors of Postsecondary Success, which summarizes research that identifies student skills, behaviors, and other characteristics that predict future academic and workplace success, this webinar will provide an overview of workforce data and its utility from WDQC’s report, Making Workforce Data Work. Presenters will discuss the opportunities and trends related to workforce data as well as the feasibility of building connection to education data. Presenters include Rachel Zinn, Director, Workforce Data Quality Campaign; Josh Hawley, Director of the Ohio Education Research Center; and Bill Hurwitch, Director, Statewide Longitudinal Data System, Maine Department of Education.
AYPF STAFF HIGHLIGHTS
New Voices in Public Policy, George Mason University Zero Tolerance, Zero Benefits: The Discipline Gap in American Public K-12 Education
Erin Russ, a program associate at AYPF, recently authored “Zero Tolerance, Zero Benefits: The Discipline Gap in American Public K-12 Education”, which appeared in New Voices in Public Policy, a journal published by George Mason University. Russ examines the problems associated with the overuse of zero tolerance discipline in public schools and highlights a policy framework to minimize the use of exclusionary discipline while encouraging positive interventions.
AYPF PUBLICATIONS AND RESOURCES
Ready for Success Blog
The Ready for Success Blog, operated by College and Career Readiness and Success Center at the American Institutes of Research, provides practitioners and policymakers with many posts related to college and career readiness. Topics span the field of strategies which help prepare students for postsecondary education and beyond, including accelerated learning; dropout prevention and recovery; increased learning time; and federal, state, and local policy initiatives to name a few.
Webinar Recording: Predictors of Postsecondary Success: Tools focused on Postsecondary Enrollment and Completion Building on the brief, Predictors of Postsecondary Success, which summarizes research that identifies student skills, behaviors, and other characteristics that predict future academic and workplace success, this webinar explored the development and use of the National College Access Network’sCommon Measures. Presenters included Becky Smerdon, Deputy Director, College and Career Readiness and Success Center at AIR,MorraLee Keller, Director of Technical Assistance, National College Access Network, Bill DeBaun, Program Analyst, National College Access Network, and June Giddings, Post-Secondary Coach & GCPASS Program Coordinator, Houston A+ Challenge.
Webinar Recording: Promoting Partnerships Between K-12 and Expanded Learning through Competency-based Approaches This webinar articulated why expanded learning should be seen as an important contributor to a student-centered and competency-based learning environment. It described the role of competency-based expanded learning that can go as far as leading to high school credit, and identified what conditions must exist to promote this work. It also provided examples of communities that are developing such initiatives. Presenters includedKim Carter, Executive Director, QED Foundation, Beth Colby, Senior Program Associate with the Innovation Lab Network, Council of Chief State School Officers, Alexis Menten, Executive Director of Afterschool and Youth Leadership Initiatives, and Jennifer Portillo, Denver Center for International Studies.
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RECOMMENDED READING AND RESOURCES
Check these out – recommended reading from the AYPF staff:
Community College Resource Center (CCRC) Developmental Education Aligned to the Common Core State Standards: Insights and Illustrations
The Common Core State Standards (CCSS), implemented in 44 states and the District of Columbia, are pegged to a set of college and career readiness standards, creating a potential opportunity to improve the alignment between the secondary and postsecondary sectors. In the current exploratory study, the authors draw on interview data to examine whether faculty and college leaders are considering or undertaking reforms of developmental education informed by the CCSS. The study reveals a spectrum of awareness about, and interest in, incorporating the CCSS into developmental education.
MDRC Reading Partners: The Implementation and Effectiveness of a One-on-One Tutoring Program Delivered by Community Volunteers
This policy brief tells the story of Reading Partners, a successful one-on-one volunteer tutoring program that serves struggling readers in low-income elementary schools and that has already been taken to a large scale. In the years since its inception, Reading Partners has grown to serve more than 7,000 students in over 130 schools throughout California, Colorado, New York, Oklahoma, Maryland, South Carolina, Texas, and Washington, DC. This policy brief summarizes the early results of that evaluation, which was conducted during the 2012-2013 school year in 19 schools in three states, and which involved 1,265 students. The evaluation finds positive impacts of the program on three different measures of reading proficiency. These encouraging results demonstrate that Reading Partners, when delivered on a large scale and implemented with fidelity, can be an effective tool for improving reading proficiency.
The College and Career Readiness and Success Center (CCRS) The College and Career Readiness and Success Organizer
The Organizer is a graphic that displays a consolidated overview of the many elements that impact a learner’s ability to succeed in college and careers at both the institutional and individual levels. Originally created by the National High School Center, the revised Organizer incorporates feedback and insights provided by content-area experts representing diverse stakeholder communities, including workforce, early childhood education, career and technical education, community colleges, education nonprofits, and out-of-school time. The Organizer is intended to be a comprehensive and visual representation of the complexities of the college and career readiness and success universe. It can be used to facilitate discussions and inform collaboration within and across various stakeholder communities. Furthermore, it can contribute to strategic planning, conceptualization and decision-making as well as alignment of strategies and initiatives to ensure that all learners achieve college and career readiness and success.
Harvard Family Research Project Newsletter Expanding Opportunity: The Potential of Anywhere, Anytime Learning
In this issue, M. Elena Lopez and Margaret Caspe take us on a deep dive into the research base for anywhere, anytime learning and challenge us to broaden our notion of family engagement and of learning beyond school. First, we join Cool Culture for a tour of New York City’s cultural institutions and learn how they are providing income-eligible families with opportunities for shared inquiry and discovery. Next, we go down to Maryland and hear from Nathan Driskell about how the Maryland Library Partnerships program is linking families to essential resources and supports to help them promote their children’s literacy. We then sit down with the research-practice partners Susan Leger Ferraro and Fran Hurley for an exciting Q & A about an innovative museum and play space, Imagine That. We end our adventure in our own backyard and join Meghan White in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In a short video clip, she discusses the importance of providing families with information about quality afterschool programming as they navigate the transition to kindergarten. Lastly, we are excited to share with you an article by Heidi Rosenberg, Shani Wilkes, and Erin Harris on what learning-centered family engagement looks like in out-of-school time programs.
ACT The Condition of College & Career Readiness 2013: Hispanic Students
The report addresses a number of critical questions. Are Hispanic high school graduates prepared for college and career? Are younger Hispanic students on target for college and career? Are enough Hispanic students taking core courses? Are Hispanic students who are ready for college and career actually succeeding? The report provides a national snapshot of academic performance among Hispanic students in the high school graduating class of 2013 who took the ACT® college readiness assessment.
EdSource “Student-centered” practices boost achievement in 4 Calif. schools
Four California schools that have adopted “student-centered” practices, such as personalized instruction, high expectations, hands-on activities and group learning, report improved achievement, graduation rates and college preparedness, according to a recent report. The report found that the practices may be especially beneficial for certain student populations, including low-income.
The American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF), a nonprofit, nonpartisan professional development organization based in Washington, DC, provides learning opportunities for policymakers, practitioners, and researchers working on youth and education issues at the national, state, and local levels.
AYPF events and publications are made possible by a consortium of philanthropic foundations: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, The Wallace Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and others.
