City Education Leaders Learn Student Reengagement Strategies in Philadelphia

The nine participating cities — Denver, Grand Rapids, Mich., Indianapolis, Nashville, Newark, Omaha, St. Louis, Spokane, Wash., and Washington, D.C. — are at varying stages of efforts to broaden their portfolio of alternative schools through mayoral leadership and close cooperation with school districts and other stakeholders. These strategies aim to keep more students in school and provide better options for those who have dropped out, fallen behind or been truant to complete their high school education and prepare for college and career success. 

By taking a close look at efforts ranging from the Project U-Turn public engagement campaign to the Gateway to College dual enrollment program for former dropouts at a local community college, the city teams gathered ideas to adapt and apply at home.

NLC’s Institute for Youth, Education, and Families (YEF) worked with the American Youth Policy Forum and the Philadelphia Youth Network to arrange the trip, with support from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation also provided support through the Alternative High School Initiative Place-Based Partnership project.

Promising Practices
Dr. Lori Shorr, chief education officer to Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, welcomed participants by outlining Mayor Nutter’s key education goals — halving the dropout rate and doubling the college completion rate — and describing steps he has taken in the first year of his term.

These steps included convening college and university presidents to enlist their support, conducting an “Education Week” during the first week of school (see Nation’s Cities Weekly, September 22, 2008), making a major education policy address, realigning city afterschool funding to target young people most at risk of dropping out and providing input into the final selection of a new school superintendent.

Staff from the school district and the Philadelphia Youth Network (PYN), a local intermediary, led visitors in intensive discussions of the Project U-Turn cross-systems approach to reducing the dropout rate, as well as the district’s own efforts to create multiple pathways to graduation.

In cooperation with city and nonprofit agencies, the district is building infrastructure that will increase by four times the number of students in dropout and credit recovery school options. Later in the site visit, other Project U-Turn leaders described the messaging strategies Philadelphia has used to reach youth, parents and business and civic leaders.

Moving into several city neighborhoods, the site visit provided opportunities to discuss promising practices with students and administrators at Fair Hill Community High School, which offers project-based learning for students who are two or more years behind in credits. Participants also visited one of the city’s five Education-Employment-Empower Centers offering GED and remedial literacy courses as well as the Gateway to College program at Community College of Philadelphia, where students earn high school and college credit simultaneously.

The city team members were particularly interested in hearing directly from students in each program. A panel of Gateway to College students talked about the importance of having their independence affirmed by being on a college campus and having a strong support network of adults who know and care about them.

One student told the assembled group that “high school is high school. Here I have real choices … and support. I know someone can and will help me, no matter what I need help with.” Her classmate, in answering a question about how she would describe herself at the school, said proudly, “I would tell them that I was a high school dropout who was given a second chance.”

Next Steps
Several participating cities plan to look more closely at the scale and dynamics of their local dropout issues, and to explore sharing data among the education, child welfare and juvenile justice systems to support stronger case management with individual children and families.

Cities also noted the need to create, designate or build capacity in a local agency or nonprofit organization to fulfill key intermediary functions similar to the role PYN plays in Philadelphia, such as convening, assembling and channeling funds and developing and implementing strategy.

Details: To learn more about the YEF Institute’s efforts to help cities reengage struggling students, visit www.nlc.org/iyef or contact Andrew Moore at (215) 848-6910 or moore@nlc.org. To learn about Project U-Turn, visit www.projectuturn.net.