June 2012

We are happy to announce the launch of our new and improved website at aypf.org. You have come to rely on the American Youth Policy Forum as an unbiased source of information on policy, practice, and research that can improve the lives of young people. We hope that you’ll find our new website an even more powerful tool for accessing information to help you do your work.

Our new web interface will enable you to:

• Perform a dynamic search of all of our resources for materials that fit your needs

• Create a user log-in and password to update your profile and register for AYPF events ONLINE

• Learn more about featured program areas, searchable by popularity and date of resource

• Stream videos and recordings of past AYPF forums and webinars

• Learn about our upcoming events

• Read our latest e-bulletin and peruse our e-bulletin archives

We value your feedback on our new design, and encourage you to let us know how we can continue to improve on our new website. If you have suggestions, please contact us at aypf@aypf.org.

Please also help spread the word! We hope that you inform others about our new website via Facebook, Twitter, and relevant listservs. We’ll see you online!

UPCOMING AYPF EVENTS

Webinar – College and Career Readiness and Students with Disabilities, Tuesday, June 19, 2012, 3:00-4:30 p.m.
Betsy Brand, the Executive Director of the American Youth Policy Forum, and Louis Danielson, Director of Research at the National High School Center and former director of the Research to Practice Division at the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs, will discuss challenges specific to actualizing college and career readiness for students with disabilities and suggest ways in which states and districts can develop frameworks that address the needs and goals of all students. Register now, as registration will close after Friday, June 15, 2012.

Webinar – Aligning Resources, Structures and Supports for Actualizing College and Career Readiness, Tuesday, June 26, 2012, 3:00-4:30 p.m.
​The importance of aligning college and career readiness initiatives—from the common core and career technical education standards, to funding streams like Title I and Perkins, as well as school structural changes like expanded learning time and career academies—is a growing concern in the field. Dr. Joseph Harris, Director of the National High School Center, and Jennifer Brown Lerner, Senior Director of the American Youth Policy Forum, will share recommendations, resources, and challenges from recent discussions with CCR experts and practitioners. Register now, as registration will close after Friday, June 22, 2012.

AYPF PUBLICATIONS AND RESOURCES

Video – Weighing the Evidence: A Conversation with Community College Presidents on Using Research to Support Student Success Outcomes, May 18, 2012

While access to postsecondary education has expanded in recent decades, a large percentage of students entering community college are not adequately prepared for college-level work and must take developmental (remedial) courses in order to catch up. This forum highlighted a portfolio of new research on several promising strategies to help these underprepared students transition to college and ultimately advance to a degree. Presenters includedThomas Bailey, Director, National Center for Postsecondary Research; Evan Weissman, Operations Associate, MDRC; Regina S. Peruggi, President, Kingsborough Community College; and Richard Rhodes, President/CEO, Austin Community College.

Congressional Briefing 1 Powerpoint: The History of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, with Christopher Cross, Chairman, Cross & Joftus, LLC

This briefing provided background and context on how the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) has evolved since its enactment in 1965 and how the federal role in education has changed in those intervening years. It addressed such points as how and why the U.S. Department of Education came into existence; how the Title I program came to emphasize whole school reform; the history behind the development of the federal government’s special education policy; and the justification for the federal role in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

Congressional Briefing 2 Powerpoint and Glossary of Terms: An Overview of Assessment, with Andrew Ho, Assistant Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education

This briefing was exclusively for Congressional staff on the topic of assessment in education. It addressed the various types of assessments and their purposes; descriptions of the most widely used national and international assessments; assessments currently used by states for accountability purposes and to assess student learning; and an introduction to the common assessments to be aligned with the new Common Core State Standards and how the two federally-funded assessment consortia are approaching their development. Included are Dr. Ho’s powerpoint and a glossary of terms related to assessment.

Briefs and trip reports are available online at https://aypf.org/events.

Publications are available online at https://aypf.org/publications

RECOMMENDED READING AND RESOURCES

Check these out – recommended reading from the AYPF staff

Video – College and Career Readiness Symposium: The Role of Technical Assistance in Actualizing College and Career Readiness National High School Center, American Youth Policy Forum, Education Policy Improvement Center

The National High School Center at the American Institutes for Research, in collaboration with the American Youth Policy Forum and the Educational Policy Improvement Center, hosted an invitation-only symposium on college and career readiness in Washington, D.C., on April 24, 2012. This one-day symposium centered around the role of technical assistance (TA) in addressing the challenges faced by regions, states, districts and schools in actualizing college and career readiness (CCR) beyond the common core standards. The symposium promoted collaboration and alignment among TA providers and CCR resource organizations through plenary sessions and facilitated breakout discussions.

Common Core State Standards & Career and Technical Education: Bridging the Divide between College and Career Readiness Achieve, Association of Career and Technical Education, National Association of State Directors of Career and Technical Education Consortium

This paper outlines a set of strategies state and district leaders can leverage to ensure the implementation of Common Core State Standards engages, informs, and benefits from the career and technical education (CTE) community as a partner in the broader college- and career-ready agenda. Strategies highlighted include examples of practices currently employed in states across the nation, such as forming cross-disciplinary teams for planning and implementing the Common Core State Standards, enhancing literacy and math strategies within CTE instruction, and fostering CTE and academic teacher collaboration.

What Matters for Staying On-Track and Graduating in Chicago Public Schools: A Focus on English Language Learners University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research, National High School Center

This report focuses on a cohort of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students who were in ninth grade in 2004-05, and follows them for five years, until 2009, when they should have graduated. It looked at the performance of English Language Learners (ELLs) versus non-ELLs in CPS, and also compared several ELL Hispanic subgroups to each other. The report examines whether ninth-grade early warning indicators that are used to determine if students are on-track to graduate high school – such as absences, grade point average (GPA), and course failures – are as predictive of graduation for high school ELLs as they are for the general student population. The report finds that course performance indicators are more predictive of graduation than other ELL-specific indicators, including English language proficiency level and whether students experienced interruptions in their education.

After-School Data: What Cities Need to Know The Wallace Foundation

Data, smartly employed, can help after-school decision-makers with everything from allocating resources fairly to improving program quality. This resource, developed by the Wallace Foundation, is a new set of six tip sheets to help city agencies, after-school program providers, intermediary organizations, and others make the most of data in after-school programming. Topics include the use of data for accountability purposes, mapping needs, as well as strategies to effectively share data between out-of-school time providers and schools.

The American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF), a nonprofit, nonpartisan professional development organization based in Washington, DC, provides learning opportunities for policymakers, practitioners, and researchers working on youth and education issues at the national, state, and local levels.

AYPF events and publications are made possible by a consortium of philanthropic foundations: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York , State Farm Insurance, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and others.