Issue Brief

This brief summarizes research about employment and postsecondary success, and features examples of employers and institutions that have found creative ways to both support student persistence and advance their bottom lines by creating “college-friendly” jobs.

The principles can be implemented in a wide range of organizations, including schools, youth organizations or community centers that want to strengthen their commitment to youth leadership, or community-change focused organzations or coalitions that want to strengthen their commitment to youth involvement.

In this column, Pittman calls for the youth development field to improve their use of data. She says "changing the odds for young people requires us to not only be passionate in our commitment to providing high-quality supports and opportunities to all youth, but precise in measuring how well we and they are doing, so that we can make real time adjustments."

This brief provides an overview of four guiding principles to stakeholder engagement: be intentional about who to involve; be specific about what you ask the group to get involved in; think about how and how much you want people involved; and think about when you need the group to be engaged.

Children's cabinets and councils have the potential to systematically coordinate the fragmented funding and services that often occur at the state level. Children's cabinets are typically made up of heads of government agencies with child and youth serving programs, who meet on a regular basis with the collective goal of coordinating services, developing a common set of outcomes and collaboratively deciding upon and implementing plans to foster the well-being of young people.

The case studies described in this report underscore the critical role that community-based organizations can play both in developing young people’s leadership abilities and driving positive community change. Specifically, the authors push beyond principles, identifying effective organizational and management practices that can help any organization committed to meaningful youth engagement advance their efforts in concrete ways. Additionally, the outcomes they identify present a useful impact framework for much-needed future program evaluation and research efforts.

School districts and municipalities throughout the U.S. are under intense pressure to reform schools, raise graduation rates, and better prepare American youth for a workforce that must compete globally. Improving America’s educational system so that all students have access to a quality education is important but focusing on that system alone will not ensure the educational success of our nation’s young people.

By Ellen Goldring and Mark Berends

Goldring and Berends are authors of the AASA book Leading with Data: A Path to School Improvement, published by Corwin Press.

The anchor for school improvement efforts is a schoolwide focus on teaching and learning. Toward that end, successful school leaders attend to school effectiveness indicators that are rooted in leading with data, including: