Reinvesting in Youth
Reinvesting in Youth (RIY) is a county-wide multi-organization effort to find and implement best practices to reduce the youth school drop-out rate.
Initially, RIY worked with the King County juvenile justice system to move to a coordinated, community-based system of cost-effective crime prevention and early intervention. With the realization that the majority of students involved in the juvenile justice system are high school dropouts (or have earned so few credits that they are unlikely to graduate), RIY is focusing on dropout prevention, intervention and retrieval strategies that are most likely to increase graduation rates.
RIY will work with district leaders to develop a comprehensive dropout prevention action plan that includes the best research-based school practices and programs and will provide technical assistance, resources and support to help with implementation and evaluation. Plans will involve staff, students, parents and community in a comprehensive effort. RIY is also working with legislators and education stakeholders on policy reform and potential incentives to address the dropout challenge. RIY is supported through funds from the City of Seattle, King County, suburban cities, United Way, and the Bill & Melinda Gates, Paul G. Allen, and Norcliffe Foundations.
Mission
Reinvesting in Youth seeks to reduce by half the dropout rates of Native-American, Hispanic, African American, Limited English and foster care students in King County by 2014 and to increase for all students enrollment in post secondary education or jobs that pay a living wage.
The Dropout Challenge in King County
Almost 3,200 high school students dropped out of King County high schools in 2004-05. Approximately 25% of all youth and 45% of African-American, Native American and Latino boys fail to finish high school. Approximately 74% of foster care youth drop out, and 60% of the youth in King County juvenile detention are dropouts or lack sufficient credits to graduate. 70% of adult prisoners in the United States are high school dropouts. Dropouts who stay out of trouble and find work still only earn 70% of what a dropout earned 35 years ago. These numbers measure enormous losses in the lives of dropouts, their families and their communities. They measure a fundamental discrepancy between the American promise and reality.
Reinvesting in Youth’s Comprehensive Strategy
RIY has produced an in-depth study that reviews national research and best practice, assesses the dropout problem in King County and Washington State and provides comprehensive recommendations for a dropout strategy at state and local levels. Its principal components are:
School Districts and Classrooms
Strategies:
- Assist 4-6 districts to conduct internal self-assessments of school district policies, systems, structures and programs to determine and make changes needed for alignment with best practices.
- Provide support to these districts to develop and implement comprehensive plans to reduce dropouts.
- Provide district-wide system capacity building technical assistance, school based professional development, improved linkages to community and family support and early warning system development to identify and intervene with students showing signs of dropping out.
- Implement or enhance research-based school practices and programs to reduce the achievement gap, reduce dropouts and improve overall achievement.
Community Programs and Practices
Strategies
- Strengthen coordination and collaboration between schools and community-based programs.
- Provide research-based community and family focused programs for dropout prevention, intervention and retrieval.
- Participate in the Building Bridges Program (formerly called PathNet) to develop a coordinated dropout retrieval program in King County.
State Policy Reform
Strategies
- Set accountability standards for each population group for current official state goals for graduation rates; provide incentives to districts with greatest need to inspire commitment and change; require annual public reporting by state and districts; increase resources to meet accountability requirements.
- Increase the knowledge/skill at state level about effective approaches to reducing the achievement gap, reducing the dropout rate, reconnecting students who leave school, increasing the graduation rate, and increasing the rate of students involved in post-secondary education.
- Modify the current state student data system so that it can more fully support integrated early warning systems at the district level.
- Maximize use of existing resources through realignment; create mechanisms to allow state basic and special education dollars to follow the students.
- Demonstrate opportunity for cost-savings at various levels of systems (education, juvenile justice, criminal justice, etc.) and advocate for implementation of savings reinvestment mechanism.
Evaluation and Dissemination of Lessons Learned
Strategies
- Provide formative data to guide adjustments and improve implementation of comprehensive strategy and district action plans.
- Implement outcome and lessons learned evaluation after 4 to 6 years; share evaluation results to increase the field knowledge and increase capacity at all levels of the system.
Reinvesting in Youth as Multidisciplinary Catalyst
Strategy:
- Leverage the leadership of the Reinvesting in Youth Steering Committee; formulate the ‘case’ and engage leaders across systems (e.g. juvenile justice, human services, city, county) and at the state, regional and local levels; convene high-level leaders and seek aligned actions or coordination on issues of common interest.
Reinvesting in Youth: A Successful Partnership
The Reinvesting in Youth Steering Committee includes representatives from suburban cities, the City of Seattle, King County, United Way, the Casey Family Program, OSPI, school districts, the State legislature and community based organizations. It is chaired by State Supreme Court Justice Bobbe Bridge.
RIY has worked successfully over the last five years to bring about juvenile justice system reform and to strengthen programs serving juvenile justice involved kids and families throughout King County. It has:
- Obtained more than $2.5 million in funding from eight different foundations to support juvenile justice –prevention programs;
- Provided technical assistance to strengthen the capacity of 21 community-based non-profits throughout King County to serve at risk youth;
- Obtained the passage of state “Reinvesting in Youth” funding reform legislation that will bring $2.6 million in new state funding to King County youth programs over the next four years;
- Strengthened regional collaboration and fostered systems integration (juvenile justice, foster care, mental health and other youth services). These juvenile justice activities will continue.
RIY’s track record is evidence that support for this regional partnership will leverage much greater amounts of foundation and state dollars and will make possible essential system reforms at the state, regional and local level. It will contribute to dropout reduction in every city and school district in King County and across the state.
Documents
Progress Reports
Resources
America's Promise Alliance, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, recently commissioned Grad Nation (PDF), a new tool comprising the best evidence-based practices for keeping young people in school paired with suggestions for effectively preparing them for life after high school. It has many of the same objectives as RIY’s Guidebook work to date, and provides additional information including 30 specific “tools” that can help districts and their community partners implement dropout prevention strategies.
GradNation provides a road map to help communities tackle the dropout crisis. It is designed to help communities develop tailored plans for keeping students on track to graduate from high school, prepared for college, work and life. Grad Nation is a natural outgrowth of our local summit work to ensure that solutions are developed to put our youth on a path to success.
Grad Nation also includes ready-to-print tools and links to additional online resources, in addition to research-based guidance. It provides information and tools for developing and implementing a customized program that’s right for individual communities.At the end of the guidebook, the user will find a list of organizations that can provide additional assistance.
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