E-Bulletin: July 2019

E-Bulletin: July 2019

AYPF will be taking a well-deserved break during August,
so we will not be publishing the E-Bulletin or Blogs in August.

Happy summer and look for us in September!

PRESS RELEASE:

Betsy Brand, Executive Director of AYPF, is retiring, & the position description is posted.

UPCOMING EVENT

Webinar: Strengthening the Education-to-Workforce Pipeline for Students With Disabilities (Wednesday, July 17, 2019, from 2:00pm – 3:15pm, EDT)
Aligning labor market demand for high-value jobs with the education pipeline is essential for providing all students, including students and youth with disabilities, with the academic, technical, and employability skills necessary for post school employment success. This webinar, organized by the College and Career Readiness and Success Center at AIR, shares the updated resource Developing a College- and Career-Ready Workforce: An Analysis of ESSA, Perkins V, IDEA, and WIOA, which can help state and local agencies identify opportunities to align and leverage policies, programs, and funding across the four laws to support the education-to-workforce pipeline. The addition of IDEA to the education-to-workforce pipeline brief ensures that strategies to develop skills and transition plans for students with disabilities are an integral part of a state’s college and career-ready goals.

AYPF RESOURCES AND PUBLICATIONS

Report: Persistence to Graduation
The Kentucky Department of Education has released a publication entitled Persistence to Graduation, co-written by Samaura Stone, Senior Policy Associate at AYPF, and Nancy Martin, consultant. The publication consists of a full report and four individual practice briefs in the areas of Alternative EducationCommunity Partnerships,Culture and Climate, and Student Transitions and Reengagement. The briefs highlight successful schools and programs throughout the Commonwealth of Kentucky that promote high school graduation.

Report: Alternative Education in ESSA State Plans: A Review of 38 States
AYPF conducted a review of 38 ESSA state plans to better understand how states are approaching federal accountability for alternative settings. The review focused on five key areas: 1) Inclusion of alternative settings in accountability systems and potential modifications to those systems; 2) Measures used in accountability systems; 3) N-size and school size; 4) Where alternative education is mentioned in state plans; and 5) Descriptions of future plans or inquiry related to alternative education.

Webinar: How States Use Professional Networks to Spread Deeper Learning (Thursday, June 27, 2019)
Following a recent AYPF study tour on Deeper Learning, many participants wanted to know more about how states are using professional networks to scale deeper learning efforts. This webinar highlighted the work being done in Kentucky, Arkansas, and Idaho. We invited leaders from these states to share their lessons learned with colleagues across the country. Panelists included Kristina Catanese, Office of Continuous Improvement, Kentucky Department of Education; Denise Airola, Director of Innovation for Education, University of Arkansas;Crystal Beshears, Learning Design and Innovation Leader, Office of Innovation for Education, University of Arkansas; and Kelly Brady, Director of Mastery Education, Idaho State Department of Education. Access the webinar recording by clicking here. Please also see the blog post written by Ben Pults, AYPF Intern, that provides a summary of the webinar.

Video: Informing State Leaders through AYPF Study Tours
AYPF has conducted over a hundred study tours, or first-person experiences of innovative schools and their practices, for state policy leaders. This video describes what study tour participants learn and encounter, what ideas and strategies they take back to their state, and what makes AYPF study tours unique. To learn more about AYPF’s study tours, click here to view the short video and contact us for more information.

Discussion Group: Surveying the Field: Mapping a Path Towards Better Outcomes for Systems-Involved Youth (March 29, 2019)
The landmark Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) and the Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention Act (JJDPA) reauthorization provide new opportunities to strengthen support services for systems-involved youth through the use of evidence-based programs and practices. This discussion group convened government and nonprofit organizations to strategically map and identify resources that are currently available and being used, as well as identify new tools that are needed to help promote better outcomes for systems-involved youth.

Deeper Learning Resource Hub

Alternative Education Resource Hub

Foster, Juvenile Justice, and Crossover Youth Resource Hub 

To view all AYPF publications

To view all AYPF information hubs

Please visit our YouTube channel at
http://www.youtube.com/amyouthpolicyforum
for video clips of events, interviews and more.

FORUM FOR THOUGHT BLOG

Having Their Say: States Share Challenges and Suggestions for Building Research Offices
By: Rebecca Lavinson and Bridget Brown
This blog offers a recap of a convening in which state leaders shared their thoughts about establishing and re-designing research offices to inform the evidence-based provisions of the Every Student Succeeds Act.

Colorado’s Efforts to Align Education and Workforce Needs in Rural Communities
By: Dr. Loretta Goodwin
This blog provides information about the promising efforts underway in Colorado to align education and workforce opportunities for students and describes steps the Career Technical Education Facility in the Peyton School District and the Manufacturing Industry Learning Lab in the Widefield School District are taking to create partnerships and provide workforce development opportunities to their students.

RECOMMENDED READINGS AND RESOURCES

Check these out – top five recommended readings from the AYPF staff:

AdvanceCTE: Making Good on the Promise: Expanding Access to Opportunity
This brief, the fourth in a series focused on equity in Career Technical Education (CTE), examines strategies state leaders can use to expand CTE opportunities for each learner, including low-income learners, learners of color, learners with disabilities, females, and other historically marginalized populations. The brief also examines promising strategies that states are using to dismantle barriers that prevent learners from accessing high-quality CTE.

Andrus Family Fund: Knowledge to Share Webpage
The Andrus Family Fund (AFF) announced the launch of the Knowledge to Share webpage. This new interactive tool allows grantee partners and the broader social justice and philanthropic community to easily search for AFF resources such as podcasts, videos, reports, and blog posts.

Center on Education and the Workforce, Georgetown University: Born to Win, Schooled to Lose
The American Dream promises that individual talent will be rewarded, regardless of where one comes from or who one’s parents are. But the reality of what transpires along America’s K-12-to-career pipeline reveals a sorting of America’s most talented youth by affluence, not merit. Among the affluent, a kindergartner with test scores in the bottom half has a 7 in 10 chance of reaching high socio-economic status among his or her peers as a young adult, while a disadvantaged kindergartner with top-half test scores only has a 3 in 10 chance.

National Academy of Sciences: Monitoring Educational Equity
This report from the Board on Testing and Assessment and the Committee on National Statistics at the National Academy of Sciences calls for a centralized, consistently reported system of indicators of educational equity to shed light on disparities in the U.S. education system. Indicators – measures used to track performance and monitor change over time – can help convey why disparities arise, identify groups most affected by them, and inform policy and practice decisions to improve equity in pre-K through 12th grade education. The report discusses differences based on gender, race and ethnicity, English-language fluency, family income, and disability status.

The Wallace Foundation: Summer – A Time for Learning: Five Lessons from School Districts and their Partners About Running Successful Programs
This report summarizes takeaways from the National Summer Learning Project, a multi-year Wallace initiative to support the summer learning efforts of five school districts and their partner organizations in Boston, Dallas, Duval County (Jacksonville), Fla., Pittsburgh, and Rochester, N.Y. It draws on insights from a wide-ranging, multi-volume study of the initiative by the RAND Corporation, as well as interviews with the summer organizers and participants, from district administrators and out-of-school-time providers to teachers, parents, and children. The report highlights five key lessons for those interested in introducing or enhancing summer learning programs managed by districts and their community partners.