While there are pockets of innovation and excellence, it’s time for big changes. The city should commit to a bold and ambitious goal: By 2022, 90 percent of District youth will earn a post-secondary credential and obtain full-time work by the age of 24. A shared, visionary goal will have a cascading effect, forcing a range of partners in the public, private and nonprofit sectors to rethink and reorient their standard operating procedures.
Working together, we can leverage the city’s considerable assets to ensure that youth and young adults achieve the following milestones:
●Finish high school or earn an alternative credential.
●Earn a two- or four-year college degree or a certificate with value in the labor market.
●Gain work experiences through internships, apprenticeships, service corps, part-time jobs or entry-level jobs.
There’s a lot to do. Starting with the big picture, let’s broaden our definition of educational success so that it does not only include the high school college-prep program leading to a four-year college degree. We should see equal worth and dignity in high school and post-secondary programs that include apprenticeships, occupational skills and contextual learning, and not rely solely on the bachelor’s degree as a sign of skill mastery.
Let’s reinvigorate career and technical education in the public schools by creating career academies, small learning communities with career themes for academic and occupational curricula and strong employer partnerships. Research has shown that career academies can have a long-term payoff in the labor market, and don’t come at the expense of post-secondary enrollment and completion. Results are especially promising for young men of color.
We should continue efforts to strengthen the District’s community college as it builds more and stronger links with employers, high schools and nonprofit organizations. And we should strengthen youth service corps, internship programs and apprenticeships.
But creating more slots in existing programs in existing silos is insufficient. Programs should more tightly link secondary and post-secondary education and integrate education, training, work-readiness and youth development principles in order to equip young people with the academic, occupational and personal skills they need to succeed. The blend of these elements and the setting should vary based on the age, academic and developmental levels of the youth in question: more school-based and educationally focused programs for younger youth and more community-based and career-focused programs for older youth.
Programs serving young people with disadvantages or difficulties with school and employment will need to incorporate case management and other supportive services. While some programs in the city do use these approaches, it is not happening at the necessary scale and as a result too many young people who do not succeed in traditional K-12 settings fall by the wayside.
And lastly, we need to foster a culture that supports quality improvement and the use of data to measure performance. The government and other funders should support programs in using the quality standards developed by the National Youth Employment Coalition to guide improvement efforts. Then, we need to be ready to make tough decisions about shutting programs down that do not demonstrate effectiveness.
Assuming we’re willing to make these kinds of serious, positive and necessarily disruptive changes, we can end the cycle of low expectations, low achievement and limited employment prospects for young people stemming from the current educational and employment landscape.
Martha Ross is a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program.
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