NLC to Help Nashville, Newark Expand High School Options
by Andrew Moore and Marjorie Cohen
 Striving to help cities reduce dropout rates and improve students’ educational outcomes, NLC’s Institute for Youth, Education, and Families (YEF Institute), along with its partners in the Alternative High School Initiative (AHSI) network, has selected the cities of Nashville, Tenn., and Newark, N.J., to receive technical assistance in developing options and alternatives for students who struggle in traditional high school settings. The technical assistance initiative is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Through a highly competitive process, Nashville and Newark were selected to join Indianapolis in a leading edge cohort of cities that are launching “place-based partnerships” with the AHSI network to establish several new innovation-model high schools. The YEF Institute will work intensively to bring high-quality alternative school models, such as those of The Big Picture Company, Gateway to College, YouthBuild USA, Diploma Plus, Communities in Schools, the National Association of Street Schools and other AHSI network members, to Indianapolis, Nashville and Newark.
By adding new schools or significantly overhauling existing schools, all three cities seek to achieve the scale and breadth of options necessary to help each student prepare for college and career success, including struggling students, those at risk of dropping out and those who may already be out of school.
“The City of Newark has remained committed to widening the avenues of opportunity for our young people, particularly with regard to education,” said Newark Mayor Cory Booker. “The partnerships that the city is building with the National League of Cities, AHSI and local partners, such as Newark Public Schools and The Nicholson Foundation, will expand and strengthen our efforts to reach our zero-dropouts goal and will ensure the continued success of our students, inside the classroom and beyond.” Newark is already home to a YouthBuild program that is due to expand.
In addition, Newark is establishing its first Performance Learning
Center with Communities in Schools and is in conversation with other
school developers.
Nashville Mayor Karl Dean heralded his city’s selection in the May 13 "State of Metro" address.
“Education is my top priority,” said Mayor Dean. “It’s the top priority for the Metro Council. It’s the governor’s top priority. We have a community — from nonprofits, to the business sector, to the many universities that call Nashville home — ready to step up and make our schools a model of innovation and reform. Because of that community support, Nashville has been selected to partner with the National League of Cities’ Institute for Youth, Education and Families and a consortium of youth development organizations to bring a network of high school alternatives to our school system.”
“This process will allow local government and metro schools to work in cooperation with community groups to develop creative learning environments that allow students to succeed,” said Nashville Vice Mayor Diane Neighbors, immediate past chair of NLC’s Human Development Committee. “It has taken a lot of work by a lot of partners to get to this point and we look forward to the coming year.”
Nashville recently launched a Big Picture school that emphasizes project-based learning, and plans to add several other high schools over the next two to three years.
“This partnership will bring additional smaller learning communities to our district, like the Big Picture School that started this year,” said Mayor Dean. “It means we will be taking a positive step toward meeting more of our students’ needs.”
Partnerships in each city involve municipal leaders, school districts, community-based and intermediary organizations, postsecondary institutions and funders, along with the AHSI network organizations.
The AHSI Place-Based Partnership technical assistance initiative builds directly on the YEF Institute’s prior work identifying the policy conditions needed for large-scale success of alternatives. Through the AHSI project, the YEF Institute will help these cities adapt AHSI models, facilitate and support the development of strong local partnerships, and identify opportunities for and barriers to the expansion of high school alternatives created by state, federal and school district policies.
The YEF Institute will also create tools and document processes for addressing the dropout crisis through the development of multiple pathways to graduation. As these three project cities become learning laboratories closely observed by the education field, the institute will draw lessons for other cities across the nation seeking to reduce high school dropout rates.
Details: To learn more about city efforts to expand alternatives for high school, visit www.nlc.org/iyef to download the YEF Institute’s Setting the Stage report, which outlines leadership keys for mayors and other municipal leaders, or contact Marjorie Cohen at (202) 626-3052 or cohen@nlc.org.
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