A National Campaign to Put All Students on the Path to High School Graduation At John H. Liechty Middle School in Los Angeles, sixth grader Megan was the smartest girl in class but was failing every subject and in constant trouble. Even though she was only 12, Megan was fast on her way toward becoming another sorry statistic: another of the one million kids who drop out of high school every year in the United States. Fortunately, Liechty, like 24 other schools nationwide, has a partnership with Diplomas Now, an effective model that helps the toughest middle and high schools in America s largest cities ensure that students graduate ready for college or careers. A team of Megan s teachers, two young City Year mentors, and a social worker from Communities In Schools met with Megan regularly to get her back on track. The social worker put Megan in a program to help adjust to middle school, referred her to a mental health agency, and counseled her. A City Year member tutored her and helped her set goals. As a social worker, I was there to help her, says Gaudencio Marquez, the CIS site coordinator who worked with Megan for a year. Her dad was out of the picture, and a lot of what she was doing was to get Mom s attention. We helped Mom understand that her involvement in Megan s education was critical. Once we established consistency between her home and school life, Megan felt more supported. City Year corps member Christina Lee spent a lot of time building a close relationship with Megan. Our efforts are making a difference, says Lee. Megan now turns in most of her homework. Her behavior is improving every day, and she has As and Bs in math and English! Megan needs needs people in her life who will not let her fail. Dedicated people are the power of Diplomas Now, which Liechty Principal Joanne Carrillo calls a magic bullet that has helped turn around her inner-city school. The secret, she said, is that Diplomas Now makes the kids feel they matter. Principal Carrillo s simple wish: If every school could have this, we would see a huge change.
The Urgent Need In today s economy, adults without a high school diploma will find few, if any, jobs to support a family. Yet the reality is that more than a million students drop out of public high schools every year. This is an urgent national crisis that not only weakens our nation s competitiveness but also threatens its social fabric. This pressing problem costs society too much money and wastes too many young minds. We Know Who is Dropping Out and Why We must act quickly, and the good news is that we know who is dropping out, where they go to school, and what works to get them back on the graduation path. A small set of high schools drives the nation s dropout crisis. In almost 2,000 high schools, 40 percent or more of the students do not graduate. 1 out of 4 StuDeNtS fail to GrADuAte from HiGH SCHool One or more middle schools feed into these high schools, and in these schools, at least half of the students are falling off the graduation path as early as sixth grade. Until now, there have been no proven, replicable models to turn these failing schools around. The Vision Diplomas Now is powerful enough to change that dismal scenario. Our vision is that: Young people will be able to attend safer schools and graduate with a meaningful diploma. 3 out of 5 low-income, minority StuDeNtS fail to GrADuAte from HiGH SCHool Our Goals Schools will be able to raise achievement scores and graduation rates by providing extra adults to help meet students needs. Communities will see a better-trained workforce, more stabilized neighborhoods, and lower social costs. We want to see high schools that currently graduate only a fraction of their students achieve graduation rates of 80 percent or better. We intend to reduce by two-thirds the number of middle school students sent to high school off-track in attendance, behavior, and course performance. We want to sustain an ongoing, four-year, independent evaluation of Diplomas Now that will provide crucial evidence that will influence the way our nation approaches failing schools. The results of this rigorous study have the potential to leverage millions of federal dollars for this evidence-backed model.
An Innovative Model to Meet the Challenge Diplomas Now is the first fully integrated approach that improves a school s curriculum and instruction while it provides the right students with the right support at the right time. It is based on research showing that a sixth grader with even one of the warning signs of poor attendance, disruptive behavior, or failure in English or math was 75 percent more likely to drop out of high school than other students. Uniting Three National Nonprofits Diplomas Now is unprecedented because it unites three national nonprofits, each with its own evidence of success: Johns Hopkins University s Talent Development Secondary, a school reform model that improves instruction and academic achievement. City Year s near peer AmeriCorps members, who provide full-time academic and behavior support to students in school. Communities In Schools in-school site coordinators provide case management for the neediest students and connect them with community resources. How the Nonprofits Work Together These Diplomas Now partners work collaboratively and seamlessly with each other and the school community so that every student has the support of caring adults, and those adults have the tools to improve student success. Diplomas Now provides: Teacher coaching and a proven curriculum that helps students attain grade level quickly. An early warning system that identifies struggling students quickly so the team can get each student back on track. Small learning communities with more time for math and English. Teacher teams that share students and a common planning time. In addition, a corps of young adults, working full-time in the school, welcomes students as they arrive at school, calls them at home if they don t show up, provides tutoring, and celebrates positive behavior. After school, these near peers help with homework and involve students in service and enrichment programs. Diplomas Now provides case management for the neediest students and connects them with community resources, such as counseling, health care, housing, food, and clothing. StuDeNtS At DiPlomAS NoW SCHoolS Are: 95 PerCeNt minority; NeArly 90 PerCeNt qualify for free or reduced PriCe lunch; 1 in 5 is AN english language learner
Our Results Already, we are seeing early promising results. At numerous schools, Diplomas Now has: Cut chronic absence and discipline problems in half. Decreased course failure by up to 75 percent on average. More than doubled the number of kids on track to graduate. School Snapshots Chicago Talent Development High School: 92 percent of the class of 2013 is on track to graduate, compared to the district average of 64 percent. Philadelphia Middle Schools: Diplomas Now achieved an 82 percent reduction in the number of students failing math or English. Miami Jackson Senior High School: The school saw a 45 percent increase in attendance for ninth graders previously flagged as missing a month or more of school. Detroit Collegiate Prep High School: 76 percent of students passed all their classes and 17 percent failed only one class in a district where roughly 62 percent of students graduated in 2010. Diplomas Now Schools We do a lot of nagging and nurturing, says ricardo martin, principal of Detroit Collegiate Prep, a new Diplomas Now school. my goal is to graduate 85 percent of these students without remediation. Diplomas Now currently partners with schools in 11 cities, from New York to Los Angeles and Miami to Seattle, and we are poised to expand to dozens more schools. Boston McCormack Middle School Burke High School English High School Chicago Chicago Talent Development High School Detroit Detroit Collegiate Prep High School East Baton Rouge, LA Capitol Middle School Broadmoor Middle School Belaire High School Los Angeles Clinton Middle School Liechty Middle School Hollenbeck Middle School Miami Drew Middle School Edison Middle School Booker T. Washington High School Jackson High School New Orleans Reed High School New York City Sheepshead Bay High School Newtown High School Philadelphia Feltonville School of Arts and Sciences Thurgood Marshall K-8 Overbrook High School Seattle Denny Middle School Aki Kurose Middle School Washington, D.C. Browne K-8 Shaw Middle School
Plans and Funds Needed Diplomas Now is an innovative public-private partnership supported by government, nonprofits, and the private sector. In August 2010, the U.S. Department of Education awarded Diplomas Now a highly competitive $30 million Investing in Innovation (i3) grant to validate the model s early promising results. In addition, our founding investor, the PepsiCo Foundation, believes so strongly in Diplomas Now that it has invested $11 million. Local United Way chapters also are supporting Diplomas Now in several major cities, such as Los Angeles and Philadelphia, with more coming on board in the future. A Major Study Underway Diplomas Now, the only secondary school transformation organization to be awarded the prestigious i3 grant, has partnered with MDRC, a leading research organization, to study the impact of Diplomas Now on school attendance, behavior and course performance, and graduation rates in schools grappling with high poverty. This independent evaluation will be a controlled, randomized study of Diplomas Now compared to other reforms, meaning its results will be of the highest standard. The study will involve: 70 persistently low-performing middle and high schools. up to 14 school districts. 57,000 students a year, costing roughly $450 to $700 per student annually. The federal i3 grant does not cover the full cost of expanding to all of the schools and of sustaining the model for the four years of the study. Some school districts are tapping a variety of federal funds to implement Diplomas Now. Diplomas Now seeks to raise an additional $28 million over the coming four years to cover the private-sector cost of implementing the model in 35 schools over the four-year evaluation. The PepsiCo Foundation already has committed $6 million. The Stakes Are High and The Opportunity, Great We believe in the promise of Diplomas Now, and are excited to step up our commitment to help grow a program with a successful track record of improving student achievement and decreasing dropout rates. - Claire Lyons, Manager of Partnerships, Global Citizenship and Sustainability at PepsiCo, Inc. This investment will be the catalyst to fundamentally change the way our nation approaches low-performing schools. Each of the three Diplomas Now nonprofit partners has evidence of its work, and we believe this independent evaluation will validate the early results of the Diplomas Now collaboration. With such solid evidence and high standards, we will be in a strong position to leverage $15 billion annually in federal Title I funds to help hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged students and their schools benefit from integrated approaches to secondary school reform. The stakes have never been higher, nor has the opportunity been greater than the potential of this study.
Funding and Expenses Overview Diplomas Now Average Revenue and Expenses Per School Revenue: $650,000 Expenses: $650,000 The annual cost per student is roughly $450 to $700. * This is one third of City Year s total per school cost. The other two thirds come from private and federal matching funds. Diplomas Now Leaders & Advisory Council Advisory Council Dr. Robert Balfanz leads the Talent Development team and is co-director of the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University. He is one of the nation s leading authorities on the dropout crisis and has conducted the research underpinning the Diplomas Now model. Jim Balfanz is the president of City Year, a nonprofit that unites young people of all backgrounds for a year of service to keep students on track in school. He is an Aspen Institute New Schools Entrepreneurial Leaders for Public Education Fellow. Dan Cardinali is the president of Communities In Schools, the nation s largest and most effective dropout prevention organization. He is a past Annie E. Casey Children and Families Fellow and an America s Promise trustee. William Andrekopoulos, Former Superintendent, Milwaukee Public Schools and member of City Year Milwaukee s Board of Directors Dan A. Domenech, Executive Director, American Association of School Administrators Audrey M. Hutchinson, Program Director of Education and Afterschool Initiatives, National League of Cities (NLC), Institute for Youth, Education, and Families Ed Hatcher, President, The Hatcher Group Wes Moore, Author, Business Leader and Youth Advocate Kathy Havens Payne, Senior Director of Education Leadership at State Farm Stacey Davis Stewart, Executive Vice President, Community Impact at United Way Worldwide F o r m o r e i n f o r m a t i o n, c o n t a c t C h a r l e s H i t e s h e w, C E O o f T a l e n t D e v e l o p m e n t S e c o n d a r y, c h i t e s h e w @ j h u. e d u o r 4 1 0-5 1 6-7 3 2 1 D i p l o m a s N o w. o r g