Why Adult Education Applies to Our Youth Population

Since the Snowstorm that wasn’t closed down District government last week, the Committee on Education’s latest round of performance oversight hearings has been re-scheduled for this Friday, March 15th. DCAYA will be delivering testimony on the performance of the Bullying Prevention Task Force (which our Executive Director Maggie Riden served on), as well as the process for changing DC’s graduation requirements that is currently being undertaken by the State Board of Education (SBOE). Our testimony will also recognize the numerous successes our State education agency, the Office of the State Superintendent for Education, has had in the past year, as well as offer up some guidance as to how operations at OSSE might be further improved.

We bring this up on the blog because we only have three minutes to speak on Friday morning and there is a big chunk of our testimony that focuses on our support for adult education programming, a little known, but very important function of OSSE. At this juncture, one might be wondering why the DC Alliance of YOUTH Advocates is talking about adult education programs. It’s not that we don’t have enough going on in the youth advocacy front- trust us. However, like most things in the youth realm, these two issues should never be considered in isolation.

But why you ask? For starters, we know that a big predictor of student success is a parent’s level of literacy, so we support adult and family education efforts that help to end the intergenerational cycle of poverty. We also want ALL DC residents to have opportunities to lead healthy, productive lives which in today’s economy requires high levels of literacy, numeracy, English proficiency and at the very least a high-school credential such as a diploma or GED. Finally and here is the profoundly self-interested part, the District’s system of “adult education” actually serves a pretty significant portion of (dun dun dunnnnn) YOUTH!

How is this possible? Well, mainly because federal funding streams and program models (which set the tone for many programs) are currently lagging well behind neuroscience research that proves human brains are not fully developed until about age 25. Researchers and front-line workers in the youth field have long considered youth to extend up to this age, however it takes time for things like science to filter into a collective mindset and sometimes even longer to make it into legislation.

That being said, the adult education funds that OSSE oversees are one of the primary funding sources for programs that offer individuals a second chance for success, so it is not especially surprising they serve a large number of youth. OSSE oversees both federal and local funds that support individuals over age 16 in everything from basic literacy and numeracy education (ABE), to English language services (ESOL), to GED preparation and testing services. Needless to say the programs this funding supports serve a pretty wide swath of individuals. In fact, over the last three years, ‘adult learners’ aged 19-24 were the second highest population (twenty two percent of all participants) served by funds granted out through the OSSE Office of Adult and Family Education. An additional six percent of the total, or 201 adult learners served were between the ages of 16 and 18 . While 25-44 year olds were still served in the highest numbers, we cannot dismiss almost 1000 young people being served every year by the “adult” system.



The District also helps to fund a handful of charter schools and the DCPS STAY programs that technically serve “adults”, but really target the youth and young adult population. These include: YouthBuild PCS, The Next Step PCS, the LAYC Career Academy and the Maya Angelou Young Adult Learning Center. Other charter schools like Booker T. Washington and Carlos Rosario also serve young people ages 18-24 in addition to older adults.

Given all these schools/programs it seems pretty obvious that “adult education” plays a large role in providing supplementary education services to young people here in the District, but what is less obvious is that these programs operate with far less District funding than the traditional K-12 system. If schools serve “adult” populations (remember that is anything over age 18) they receive about $3,700 less per student than a traditional high school would. This is an incredibly large burden on programs that operate on a full-time schedule and seek to offer an alternative to the high school experience. Many of the same barriers that prevent young people from graduating high school and earning a diploma still exist when they go back to obtain an alternative credential and students cannot overcome these barriers with far fewer resources.



We testified at the DCPS oversight hearing a few weeks back that DCPS should allocate more resources to the goal of re-engaging individuals who have dropped out and while this is certainly true, we also need to dedicate more resources to the second-chance system of adult education. Friday’s hearing will likely focus on topics like data collection, teacher evaluation and test scores and while these are important we should also remember adult education is a piece of educational reform as well.



This blog post was written by DCAYA Policy Analyst Anne Abbott. You can follow her on twitter at @annieabbott.



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For more information on DCAYA’s work around disconnected youth and educational re-engagement please visit our website dc-aya.org.

Youth Homelessness: A Byproduct of DC Neglect

Recent media coverage of child and family homelessness has expressed a newfound outrage concerning the number of children living in homeless shelters here in the District. Add to this that DCPS counted 2, 453 homeless children/youth in that system and you may think there is something new and terribly wrong going on in the city. However, while it is terribly wrong that thousands of youth and children are homeless, unfortunately this is by no means a new phenomenon. The counts vary from year to year, but these kinds of numbers of homeless youth and children both at the DC General shelter and in DCPS are par for the course - particularly in the last 3 years. DCAYA has frequently discussed who these kids are and how family interventions offer hope for the prevention of youth homelessness. But since this seems to be a hot topic, allow us to turn to some ideas on how we can facilitate a system- wide approach to ameliorating this issue.

First and foremost, we cannot continue to focus on just the shelter issue. Yes, too many individuals and families are in shelter housing at the moment, but overcrowding and horrid conditions at shelters are a symptom of a much larger failure in safety net service provision. If we are going to be embarrassed and outraged by the conditions we force homeless children, individuals and families into, we need to be just as outraged by the lack of affordable housing and comprehensive service provision that would have prevented homelessness in the first place.

Second, we need to acknowledge that regardless of how or where services/interventions occur, homeless children and youth are all “our” kids. This means that we cannot simply pass them off from agency to agency or program to program and think about them as someone else’s problem. Regardless of how a young person comes to be in need, opportunities can lift a young person up from crisis, while a lack of opportunities can further compound and extend problems. Furthermore, homeless young people are in severe need of supports and services to get them back on track. This is exactly where the need for homeless young people to be “our” kids rather than “their” kids is the most crucial.

For example, we know the role of systems of care play in preventing homelessness is a large one. Our data suggests as much as 40% of the homeless youth population has had previous contact with the Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) or the Department of Youth Rehabilitative Services (DYRS). However, we also know that unemployment is another major driver of youth homelessness and it comes as no surprise that homeless youth in DC were typically unemployed (80%) as reported in our 2011 homeless youth survey. It is not too far a jump to assume then, that many of the same youth that exit systems of care also struggle with finding employment. But, when we worry about system involvement and unemployment as two separate issues, we just start passing young people through different systems rather than wrapping supports around them in a comprehensive way. This is a surefire way not to recognize positive outcomes like housing stability and self-sufficiency.

So, where should the city be headed if we really want system-wide reform? What’s needed is for DC to establish a “Central Youth Office” – a coordinating body of some kind that can take whole-hearted responsibility for the realities and demands of this overlapping youth population; to collect and analyze cross-cutting data, develop programs in tandem with other agencies, with clear needs and goals defined for youth and young families. Several cities across the nation have already established such offices and the District should join them and we could also use the model used by our new coordinating entity for education, Raise DC.


It is worth mentioning that numerous District agencies were present at the recent Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH) meeting, and were active participants in a discussion focused on how to improve coordination of services and prevention programming to combat youth homelessness in the District. This is a good start but further coordination could do even more. As we head into this year’s budget and performance oversight hearings, please be sure to take a moment and hit on the importance of cross system supports and coordination. Until we’re working collectively and thinking in terms of prevention and intervention across systems and supports, the root causes that lead to youth homelessness will remain. Council can play a major role in compelling and overseeing cross system collaboration- so implore them on behalf of DC’s most valued asset: children and youth.

This blog was written by DCAYA Policy Analyst Susan Ruether. If you would like to receive more information about youth homelessness in DC please feel free to contact Susan at susan@dc-aya.org or visit the DCAYA website www.dc-aya.org to learn about the issues effecting our Districts youth.

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Youth-Led Talks Youth Employment

The below post is from Debohnei Reed, a participant in the Sasha Bruce YouthLed Program. Youth-Led has been working with DCAYA over the past few months to accomplish their goals around creating more opportunities for young people to gain work experience beyond the Summer Youth Employment Program which only serves young people for six-weeks out of the year.

On February 11, 2013 my colleagues and I attended a meeting with Ward 8 Council Member Marion Barry. Previously Council Member Barry was the Mayor of DC. One of his largest initiatives was the creation of the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP). For this reason we were hoping he would support us and our plan for creating youth jobs.

We prepared for our meeting by doing research on the costs of SYEP. We determined the difference in cost between serving one youth during the summer (at the SYEP wage for 16-21 year olds) and serving one youth year round. We then developed a proposal to support youth in high school and youth who are currently out of school with year round jobs. Our group decided to start with trying to add 50 year round jobs.

Members of Sasha Bruce Youth Led prepare for their
meeting with Council Member Marion Barry.

Because our meeting was on a Monday afternoon, our group went into work on a Sunday to make sure we were as ready as we needed to be to meet with Council Member Barry. Practice occurred throughout the day as we recited what we had to say and asked each other “did I sound good?” which served as a great help.The next day when we  arrived at the Wilson Building, we didn’t get seen as quickly as we thought but that also served as a help because we had more time to practice and even laugh a little. Finally we entered Council Member Barry’s office and introduced ourselves which was followed by a little story telling from the Council Member himself.

After introductions, we described our plan for year round jobs. We picked the issue of year round jobs because our group sees a lot of issues with youth unemployment in the city.We told Council Member Barry that while 14,000 youth in the summer youth employment program could be seen as a good thing,  the negative consequence of such a large number of youth is that some programs are overrun with young people and some are not providing authentic skills for youth. We also spoke on how we felt an evaluation of SYEP was needed because there is no way of knowing if job sites are providing youth workers with real job skills.  Our solution to this issue is to transition a portion of summer youth jobs into year round youth jobs. We told Council Member Barry how it would be beneficial to the community and youth because businesses would have more workers to help therefore making them run more efficiently. It would also save them money because they would not have to pay workers themselves.We also informed him on how we already had businesses that would take youth.

At the end of the meeting Council Member Barry told us that he was a big supporter of efforts to employ more young people and that he was supportive of our proposal.We were pleased with the Council Member’s comments on how he would like to see more money going into year around jobs. He also agreed with us on developing an outside evaluation system for the SYEP. In our eyes the meeting went well and our points were heard. END

Here at DCAYA, we deeply value programs like Youth Led that inspire and empower young people to make their voice heard in local government efforts to support them. Advocating not just for the community based organizations that serve youth but also for young people directly is an essential part of our mission and we welcome partnerships with our member organizations that directly infuse the youth voice into policy making. With performance oversight and the FY'14 budget process upon us this is an especially important time to support young people in this endeavor.

If you or your organization has youth who are interested in testifying before the City Council on an issue please contact our Policy Team ASAP and we are happy to help young people prepare testimony, go over the local oversight and budget process and set up meetings with Council Members.

Succeeding Where Others Have Failed

This week the Raise DC partnership released its baseline report card on the state of the District’s young people.  Through collaborating with a number of organizations and city agencies, the report card outlines how well the city as a whole is preparing young people to become self-sufficient adults. Perhaps not surprisingly, DCAYA was involved with Raise DC since its inception. While the final report card may seem as if the Deputy Mayors for Education and Health and Human Services just collected information for publishing, we can assure you the process was much more in depth and deliberate. Over the past year, the amount of work put in by the Raise DC partners has been truly inspiring for us to witness, as well as take part in. Furthermore, as a coalition of child and youth service providers, DCAYA understands how the mere convening of a group of such diverse stakeholders is a major undertaking.

As the report card authors point out, DC has attempted mass collaborations in the past that have not necessarily yielded results. The educational attainment of our cities young people is still abysmally low, youth unemployment (and adult unemployment in certain areas of the city) is persistently high and we still have far too many families living below the poverty line. This reality begs the question, what makes Raise DC different from past efforts?

For starters, the government offices that organized the Raise DC report card actually acknowledged some past mistakes (as well as successes). This in itself is a good sign. A great concern amongst many entities that serve and care about youth in the District is that past collaborations usually begin well, but often lose steam over time. Past efforts such as the ICSIC and the SCCYF (hey, at least we didn’t use an adjective this time!) are good examples of this pit fall.  Both the ICSIC and the SCCYF began as a large collaboration amongst city entities and community partners to gather city wide indicators of young people’s success, each eventually fizzled out. Obviously, this is bad. At the end of the day we want to help young people achieve a healthy and productive adulthood and when we are not doing that, the city struggles. This is clearly evident in the amount of money the city spends every year to rectify past mistakes, like failing to invest in public education and health services on the front end. Also, unsuccessful efforts like the ICSIC and the SCCYF often affect the partner’s willingness to engage in future city wide collaborations and initiatives, which inevitably affects eventual success.

While Raise DC cannot guarantee loss of momentum and following down the path of its predecessors, there are many encouraging factors to indicate success.  The leadership structure of Raise DC was very intentionally set up by not just including city officials, but business leaders, philanthropic organizations and Executive Directors of prominent community based organizations. This structure not only allows for mass buy in, but also protects Raise DC from the typical life cycle of initiatives and collaborations tied to a specific political administration.

Another reason to think this time may be different from past efforts is that outside investors have already come to the table to aid the city and the partnership in achieving its mission. Also the formation of “cradle to career” partnerships across the country is considered a best practice by both the federal Department of Education and by numerous national and local think tanks and research organizations. These are both very important indicators of the aforementioned mass buy in from stakeholders that is necessary for Raise DC to achieve its mission. These indicators are also an encouraging sign the District may be able to garner even more long term, outside resources for the city. Good news for everyone.

Lastly, Raise DC has the extreme benefit of being guided through its planning and implementation process by one of the foremost collaborative impact organizations in the country, the STRIVE network out of Cincinnati, Ohio. STRIVE has been recognized locally and nationally as a leader in this area, but more importantly has achieved many of the goals it set out for itself through their work in Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky. Raise DC does not look exactly like the STRIVE network , but that does not mean we should be discouraged.  Collaborative efforts should be tailored to the specific needs of the communities and geographic regions they are meant to affect, so of course Raise DC is not a carbon copy of STRIVE.  Furthermore, by having STRIVE guide DC’s efforts we can learn from their five years of experience and make room for our own innovations.

DCAYA is especially proud of two Raise DC accomplishments: the inclusion of a change network (think of these as working groups) dedicated to the disconnected youth (youth who are neither enrolled in school nor working) population in the District and the inclusion of our Workforce Investment Act’s Youth Council into the Youth Employment Change network. While these two things may seem like common sense moves, we cannot overstate the need to eliminate redundancies and streamline the work being done around these issues.

Sir Winston Churchill famously said “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” and we couldn’t agree with him more. That being said there are some very positive signs from the work Raise DC has already engaged in that suggest perhaps the city is finally in a place to build off past endeavors.

This blog post was written by DCAYA Policy Analyst Anne Abbott.  For questions about this post of DCAYA’s involvement with the Raise DC partnership you can email her here or ask her on Twitter!

For more information about the Raise DC partnership please visit the newly launched raisedc.net. The baseline report card is available here.

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Do We Deserve to Be Number One?

This week's blog post center's on two recent news pieces that highlight children and youth in DC. First, Friday's edition of Post Local featured the first article of the season on the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP). Second, if you've been following the news at all, you have probably heard at least SOMETHING about DC's recent ranking by parenting.com as the #1 "Best City for Families". These two articles don't seem to have a ton in common (and one of them isn't even really an article), but from the vantage point of a youth advocate, there is a decent amount of overlap.

For one, Parenting's explanation of why DC is the best city for families seems to center on the easy access the District provides to cultural landmarks and educational opportunities. The blurb their website uses to defend why DC is #1 says "you don't have to be a child to get an amazing education in this city. Our nation's capital is also known for its plenitude of museums—in fact, there are 44,second only to the Big Apple! If your kid enjoys visiting the National Air and Space Museum, imagine fostering his love of airplanes with trips to nearby Gravelly Point Park for front-seat views of the takeoffs and landings at Reagan National Airport."

Now to be totally honest, this statement is mostly true. DC's museums (well, more so, the choice venues that offer free admission) afford everyone in the District, from young children to the elderly, a fantastic opportunity for learning and enrichment. Now, lets snap back to reality for a moment shall we? Instead of the quote from Parenting let's look at a quote from the DC FiscalPolicy Institute "The District of Columbia’s poverty rate is far above the national average and has remained high even in periods of strong economic growth. Some 133,000 residents — nearly one-quarter of the population — are low income, which in 2006-2007 corresponded to an income at or below $24,475 a year for a family of three.[i] DC’s low-income population is so large that it would overflow RFK Stadium and the Nationals’ Ballpark combined. " The high percentage of low-income residents certainly need not preclude DC from being a fine place for families to live, however the high rates of unemployment, propensity for low educational attainment and a shrinking stock of affordable housing that have recently plagued the District beg the question "What kind of family would rate DC at the top of its list?"

Arnsdorf's Post article, despite being anecdotal, provides some evidence about the types of people who may NOT find the District to be the most appealing of cities. Foremost among those are certainly low and middle income youth. Young people need and want jobs for the same reason adults want and need jobs. Often times for young people, the jobs they hold as youth form the foundation of workforce skills that makes them successful in the workplace. Access to jobs and workforce development opportunities is an absolutely key factor in evaluating livable cities. The lack of jobs offered by SYEP, as well as by private providers this summer does not help young people think DC is a city rife with opportunity and this goes for the bulk of DC's adult workforce as well.

Furthermore, parents of children and youth who may disagree with DC's top ranking probably would not be too hard to find. The Post article talked to both youth and parents who were upset by the lack of summer employment opportunities, but parents concerns often go beyond finding their kids a job. DCAYA has called the public attention time and time again to the OVERALL lack of structured opportunities for children and youth this summer. Summer school enrollments are severely limited compared to what they were last year, the Children and Youth Investment Trust, Corporation only had 1 million dollars to grant out for traditional summer programming and the City’s DPR sites were until fairly recently, woefully understaffed. The summer learning loss that will occur this summer will have negative academic impacts on students for years to come. The graph below from the National Summer Learning Association, illustrates the losses economically disadvantaged students experience during the summer months. Notice that these students already start school a few rungs below their middle-class counterparts. By divesting in meaningful and structured programming for DC's children and youth we are literally undoing the educational gains made during the school year.

Unfortunately the outlook for the same children and youth who will be the most negatively affected by the lack of programming this summer does not become much rosier during the school year. One need only look the FY’12 Budget to see evidence of this. Despite a relatively steady education budget, students and their families are not receiving adequate supports. Without stability in our families,communities and yes even in our labor market, economically disadvantaged students will always start their educational lives well below their peers.

DC has the potential to truly be the #1 place for families in the nation, but we as a city only deserve this distinction if we are a good place for ALL families. Being able to take advantage of amenities like museums and cultural landmarks is part of what makes DC great, however it is unfair to the thousands of individuals and families who call the District home to assert the EVERYONE finds DC a great place to learn and thrive.