Overview
Providing youth from historically disadvantaged backgrounds with the resources they need to succeed is challenging. Educators and policymakers are increasingly paying attention to out-of-school-time programs as a way of providing academic supports to help close the achievement gap, especially for students as they transition from elementary to middle grades.
Higher Achievement, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit, is one of these programs. The program not only provides youth with a rigorous afterschool and summer academic experience, but also targets youth as they transition to middle school—a particularly daunting transition point where even strong students can fall behind—and serves them throughout the middle school years. The program also explicitly helps students apply to competitive high schools. Students in the after-school program engage in sessions that include homework help, dinner, an arts or recreation elective, a “community gathering,” and 75 minutes of small-group academic instruction using a structured curriculum. In addition, students participate in monthly field trips, career shadowing days, community service projects, and college visits.
The report discussed at this webinar summarized the encouraging interim results of a groundbreaking study. Public/Private Ventures and Dr. Leigh Linden from the University of Texas at Austin completed the 24-month component of the larger evaluation (which will follow youth for 48 months) with positive initial findings. Panelists provided an overview of Higher Achievement, examined the research findings, showcased one of the program sites, and addressed implications for policy and practice.
Speaker Biographies
Dr. Carla Herrera is a Senior Research Fellow for Public/Private Ventures. Dr. Herrera has extensive experience and expertise in youth programming, publishing numerous P/PV reports and articles on mentoring and OST programs over the past 14 years. These studies have helped inform the field of youth’s experiences in these programs, how youth benefit and how program practices may shape these experiences and benefits. She is one of the principal investigators on the Higher Achievement evaluation and recently directed P/PV’s national impact study of the Big Brothers Big Sisters School-Based Mentoring Program. She is currently directing an impact study of mentoring programs in Washington State and Oregon, examining whether and how higher-risk youth benefit from mentoring. Prior to her work at P/PV, she published studies on the development of children’s conflict management skills, child cognition and perception, and the effects of abuse on children’s friendships. She received her B.A. from Stanford University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of Michigan.
Lynsey Wood Jeffries is the Executive Director for Higher Achievement DC Metro. After five years as a Higher Achievement volunteer mentor, Ms. Jeffries joined the professional staff in 2005. During her tenure, the organization has expanded from serving 350 middle-school scholars to more than 500 with rigorous after-school and summer academic enrichment programming. Accordingly, the weekly volunteer mentor pool grew from 250 to 400, and revenues grew from $1 million to more than $2.5 million. Higher Achievement is a 2009 winner of the Coming Up Taller award, given by the First Lady of the United States, and the 2005 winner of the Washington Post Excellence in Nonprofit Management Award, but the most important award is the success of scholars – 93% of whom graduate from college.
Prior to joining Higher Achievement, Ms. Jeffries was a program officer for the Fannie Mae Foundation, specializing in financial education for lower income families. Previously, Ms. Jeffries served as a congressional liaison and special assistant to the CEO at Neighborworks, a Congressionally-chartered national affordable housing nonprofit intermediary.
Ms. Jeffries holds a BA from wake forest university, where she majored in English and Sociology. She earned a Master’s degree in public administration from the University of Pittsburgh, with a concentration in nonprofit management. In 2010, Lynsey was named by the Independent sector to be an American Express NGen fellow, one of 12 nonprofit leaders under age 40 in the country. She is a member of the Leadership Greater Washington Class of 2011 and A Founding Board Member of Mundo Verde Public Charter School in DC.
Richard Anthony Tagle is the Chief Executive Officer of Higher Achievement, a year-round rigorous academic enrichment program serving middle school students grades five through eight. He has more than 25 years of experience as a program manager, fundraiser and policy analyst that enable him to address the issues that are at the center of his core passion: the social and academic achievement of all children. Prior to joining Higher Achievement, Richard held several senior level positions at the Public Education Network (PEN), most recently Chief of Staff. His responsibilities included management of key activities in the areas of finance, administration, communications, and development. In addition to significant accomplishments in securing financial support for PEN, Richard was instrumental in a number of initiatives aimed at improving the lives of students, from gender and racial equality, to access to adequate healthcare coverage, to academic enrichment programs. He also led national initiatives focusing on minority health issues at the United States Conference of Mayors.
He is an active member of a number of boards. He currently chairs the boards of the National Center for Summer Learning Association and DC VOICE. He also sits on the board of the Nonprofit Roundtable. He has authored a wide range of articles on the quality and future of the nation’s public schools and education for underserved populations. Richard graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts from American University and went on to receive a Master of Arts from the same institution.
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Presenter Information
Lynsey Jeffries
Chief Executive Officer
1701 K Street, NW
Suite 625
Washington, DC 20006
(202) 861-7755
Richard Tagle
Principal
High Think
Carla Herrera
Senior Research Fellow
2000 Market Street
Suite 550
Philadelphia, PA 19103
(215) 557-4400
