Alternative pathways to high school graduation

Before making investments in alternative pathways, leaders should ensure this strategy addresses local needs. The Urban Institute and Mathematica have developed indicator frameworks to help local leaders assess conditions related to upward mobility, identify barriers, and guide investments to address these challenges. These indicator frameworks can serve as a starting point for self-assessment, not as a comprehensive evaluation, and should be complemented by other forms of local knowledge.

The Urban Institute's Upward Mobility Framework identifies a set of key local conditions that shape communities’ ability to advance upward mobility. Local leaders can use the Upward Mobility Framework to better understand the factors that improve upward mobility and prioritize areas of focus. Data reports for cities and counties can be created here.

Several indicators in the Upward Mobility Framework may be improved with investments in high-quality alternative pathway programs. To measure these indicators and determine if investments in this strategy could help, examine the following:

• Preparation for college: Share of 19- and 20-year-olds with a high school degree

• Financial security: Share of adults with debt in collections

Mathematica's Education-to-Workforce (E-W) Indicator Framework helps local leaders identify the data that matter most in helping students and young adults succeed. Local leaders can use the E-W framework to better understand education and workforce conditions in their communities and to identify strategies that can improve outcomes in these areas. To measure these indicators and determine if investments in re-engagement and alternative pathways could help, examine the following:

• Consistent attendance: Percentage of students who are enrolled for more than 30 days who demonstrate satisfactory attendance (present for 96 percent or more of enrolled days) and at-risk attendance (present for 91 to 95 percent of enrolled days)

• High school graduation: Adjusted cohort graduation rate (the percentage of first-time 9th graders who graduate with a regular diploma within four, five, and six years of entering high school, regardless of whether they transferred schools)

• Industry-recognized credential: Percentage of students who earn at least one industry-recognized credential

• Participation in work-based learning: Percentage of students who participate in a work-based learning opportunity before graduation

• Clearly defined focal population: Programs focused on re-engaging disconnected youth can sharpen their focus by specifying a target age range, level of education or number of credits attained, or other priority characteristics or experiences driven by local needs. For example, programs might focus on serving young parents, youth experiencing homelessness, youth who have been involved with the justice system, or youth with demonstrated mental or behavioral health needs. The focal population’s unique needs should then inform program design, such as what wraparound supports are offered.

• Referral and recruitment pathways: Once the focal population has been identified, program leaders should establish clear systems and processes to reach and recruit those individuals. This could include using school district data to identify students who have dropped out, using juvenile court data to identify justice-involved youth, or word-of-mouth referrals from community leaders. Local health, housing, and/or child welfare agencies might also provide referrals. Disconnected youth are often difficult to reach, and leveraging credible messengers for recruitment can be an effective strategy. Credible messengers may include individuals who have participated in the program themselves or have experience in similar systems as the focal population, such as the justice system or foster care system.

• Relationships and skill-building: Relationships with caring adults are crucial for effective re-engagement and alternative education programs. Trusted adults who serve as advocates or mentors can help young people define their college or career goals, identify a program that matches those goals, help them enroll (or re-enroll), and support them to persist through program completion. Advocates or mentors can also help youth develop skills such as self-efficacy and emotional regulation. Individuals who have disconnected from traditional systems might be mistrustful of institutions based on past experience, so staff should be prepared to invest time and persistence in their relationships with young people. Programs should also seek to create community among peers: research shows that in-person, cohort-based models help participants develop social connections and persist through program completion.

• Career-connected learning: Students benefit from opportunities to apply their learning in real-world settings. “Work-based learning” or “career-connected learning” refers to a broad range of activities that help students explore career options and prepare for the workforce, including short term experiences like workplace tours and career days and more sustained training like internships and apprenticeships. Paid work-based learning opportunities, or “learn and earn” programs, can be particularly effective ways to support retention and completion among students who must work to meet basic needs. Find more information about effective career-connected learning practices from Pathway2Careers and EdResearch for Action.

• Basic needs supports and connections to services: Non-academic services and supports are essential to help youth overcome challenges that hindered their success in traditional school settings. These can include mental or behavioral health supports, childcare services, legal services, housing, or transportation. Services are often delivered by partners, rather than the program itself, so partnerships and structured referral networks to youth-friendly organizations are key. Program staff can refer students to services (and their dependents or families, in some cases), help students learn how to navigate resources on their own, and help with enrollment paperwork. Programs might also solicit donations to more directly meet participants’ basic needs, such as food, professional clothing, or hygiene items.

• Active, persistent recruitment: Broad marketing, such as through social media or advertisements on television or at bus stops, can help raise awareness about program offerings. However, it can be difficult to reach disconnected young people, and individualized outreach – ideally delivered by credible messengers – is often needed to persuade them to participate and guide them through enrollment processes. This can include door-to-door canvassing, text messages or phone calls, and placing recruitment staff at other social service organizations such as homeless shelters.

• Streamline enrollment processes: Program intake typically involves a series of conversations to help staff understand a young person’s challenges and goals. This can lead to referrals to other services, which often involve additional paperwork and intake processes. Complicated and duplicative administrative processes can hinder program enrollment and completion, especially for young people who lack access to technology (to complete digital forms) or transportation (to reach service centers, when in-person enrollment is required). Young people might also need support obtaining required documentation, such as proof of identity or income. Programs should seek to minimize required paperwork and share information across providers, when possible, so that applicants are not asked to share the same information multiple times.

• Trauma-informed programming: Traumatic experiences such as witnessing or experiencing violence can influence an individual’s decision to drop out of school. Dropping out is also associated with higher rates of victimization: according to an analysis from the University of Chicago, over 90 percent of school-age youth who were victims of gun violence in the city were disconnected from education at the time they were victimized. Communities of color are disproportionately affected by gun violence and experience higher rates of disconnection. Staff should be trained in culturally responsive and trauma-informed practices and be prepared to refer youth to mental or behavioral health services to support healing. Programs should also be aware of potential safety concerns and implement practices that strengthen both real and perceived safety, such as establishing protocols to mitigate and de-escalate potentially violent conflicts.

• Increasing access to career pathways: Research shows that students who participate in structured career and technical education pathways are more likely to graduate high school, offering a promising approach to dropout prevention. However, there are disparities in access to such programs in traditional high school settings, with White students being more likely than Black and Latino students to concentrate in a career and technical education pathway. Alternative education programs can incorporate career-connected learning practices to help build students’ awareness of career opportunities, and individualized support from advocates and mentors can help students identify pathways that match their goals.

Given the breadth of alternative pathway program models, cross-sector partnerships around alternative pathways may be structured in a wide variety of ways. The Reconnecting Youth Compendium of Programs includes a number of reconnection program models focused on high school completion. The Aspen Institute Opportunity Youth Forum Network and the National League of Cities Re-Engagement Network Census also illustrate various approaches to opportunity youth reconnection initiatives more broadly in. Across program models, partners generally include:

• Young people: Successfully getting young people to and through high school graduation or an equivalency program requires them to be committed to their goals and see education as a tool for achieving those goals. Engaging young people in program design and implementation can improve buy-in and support long-term success.

• Community-based organizations: Community-based organizations often lead design and delivery of alternative pathway programs with government and/or philanthropic funding. Community-based organizations can bring local cultural and contextual knowledge that helps them effectively reach and serve young people.

• School districts: Districts may lead re-engagement and/or alternative education programs. Many districts fully or partially fund such initiatives, even if a community-based partner leads program delivery. Districts can provide important information for community-based providers, such as lists of students recently coded as dropouts (“leaver lists”), which can help identify prospective participants, as well as transcripts and individualized education plans. In districts without alternative high schools, leaders should explore ways to reconnect and support young people within traditional school, such as through individualized counseling and support, flexible scheduling, or credit recovery.

• Federal and state governments: State education and workforce agencies can advance alternative pathways programs by elevating reconnection as a policy priority and providing funding for such initiatives. A common source of funding is through the WIOA Youth program, under which states receive funds from the U.S. Department of Labor for education and workforce development geared toward high school completion and supporting out-of-school youth. States might also implement program licensing and expansion and/or accountability requirements for alternative education providers (see the Center for American Progress and Education Northwest for more on this topic).

• Local governments: Like states, local governments can elevate re-engagement as a policy priority and dedicate municipal resources to these efforts. Local leaders can also champion efforts to bring evidence-based national programs to their communities, such as YouthBuild and JobCorps. Mayor’s offices are often particularly well-positioned to play a convening role, bringing together partners across sectors committed to reconnecting youth – for example, the City of San Antonio has dedicated local human services funds toward opportunity youth programs in partnership with local nonprofits and other private funders.

• Researchers: Further research can help strengthen the evidence base for what types of programs work, for whom, and under what conditions. MDRC and Child Trends’ Reconnecting Youth Evidence Gap Map offers a snapshot of what is known about opportunity youth-serving programs and where more research is needed. Publicly accessible research (including summaries for non-technical audiences) can help policymakers, program leaders, and other partners make evidence-based decisions about how to design and implement programs.

• Philanthropy: Local and national philanthropic funders can support efforts to map youth disconnection, pilot or scale youth-serving programs, and conduct research on program effectiveness. Funders should incorporate best practices into grant agreements, such as by providing adequate resources to prevent staff burnout and including incentives for programs to focus on the highest-need populations.

• Center student voice: Programs should establish mechanisms to center students’ needs and goals both in the broad program design and implementation as well as the individualized support they receive. For example, programs might conduct focus groups with youth or ask staff to document students’ feedback about what aspects of the program are and are not working well (see the appendix of this report for a sample focus group protocol that programs can adapt for their own use). Students should be empowered to set their own postsecondary or workforce goals based on their interests and strengths, then receive individualized support to pursue those goals. Programs may also consider establishing youth leadership or advisory councils to formally incorporate participant voice in decision-making.

• Offer flexible schedules: Disconnected youth may have responsibilities outside of school that prohibit their attendance during traditional school hours, such as childcare or working at a job to support their family. Programs should schedule classes at times that are convenient for the population served, which could include evenings or weekends. Programs can also offer remedial education and flexible credit recovery options, noting that face-to-face or hybrid credit recovery approaches support mastery and retention more effectively than fully virtual credit recovery (see EdResearch for Action for more information about effective credit recovery practices).

• Support staff well-being: Staff working for re-engagement or alternative education programs often work long hours and may experience secondary traumatic stress, leading to high rates of staff attrition in youth-serving organizations. Staff development and support is critical to minimize turnover, which can erode young peoples’ trust in the program. Staff should be well-compensated, offered benefits such as mental health services and paid time off, and receive ongoing skill development to help them manage challenging situations and grow as professionals. Programs can protect staff well-being by aiming to maintain reasonable caseloads, establishing clear protocols for how to handle turnover, and having dedicated support to address after-hours and weekend service requests. These practices require programs to be adequately funded, reinforcing the importance of gaining buy-in from state and local leaders who can dedicate resources to such initiatives.

• Support transitions to college and career: Completion of a high school diploma or equivalency credential is an important milestone on the education-to-workforce journey. However, individuals with training or education beyond high school experience better long-term economic outcomes, such as higher wages and greater likelihood of economic mobility over the course of their lifetimes. Programs can support students’ transitions to college or the workforce by helping them with applications, accessing financial aid, and transferring credits or credentials. Some program models, such as Back on Track, also offer active mentorship and coaching through the first year of college or employment.

• Share data while protecting privacy: Data-sharing is an important step toward reducing administrative barriers for program participants. Matching de-identified individual records across K-12, postsecondary, and workforce systems can also help programs understand their graduates’ long-term outcomes. Programs should take care to ensure they are complying with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) for school-age youth and any other state-specific privacy laws that govern data-sharing across agencies or programs. Programs should be transparent with participants and the public about what data they collect and how they use data to strengthen programs. Cities such as San Antonio and Hartford offer examples of jurisdictions that have successfully established data-sharing processes to better support young people moving across systems.

• Local rates of youth disconnection: Measure of America offers online tools to examine rates of youth disconnection by state, metropolitan area, and neighborhood. Local leaders should disaggregate data by student characteristics, such as race/ethnicity and disability status, to understand which groups are most impacted. Local leaders or funders can also sponsor landscape analyses to map existing supports for at-risk and disconnected youth, identify gaps, and guide investments.

• Outreach and enrollment: Programs (including re-engagement centers or programs, alternative high schools, and community-based programs) can assess the effectiveness of their recruitment efforts by measuring the number of prospective enrollees, number of attempted and successful contacts, and rate of uptake among eligible individuals. This information can help programs understand which outreach methods are working well and adjust efforts as needed to reach young people who might be left behind through traditional outreach methods. See this brief from MDRC for additional guidance on using data to inform recruitment efforts.

• Attendance and completion: Programs should track attendance and completion rates to understand how effectively they are serving students. Some states require alternative high schools to report accountability data; in other cases, programs are left to determine their own measures of effectiveness. Publishing or reporting these data can help strengthen transparency and public confidence in alternative models.

• Durable skills: Skills such as self-efficacy, self-management, growth mindset, and critical thinking are essential for success in the workforce and beyond. In particular, research shows that self-efficacy and self-management are linked with academic success in high school and persistence in college. Programs can measure their success cultivating durable skills through surveys, such as the New General Self Efficacy Scale or the Measuring Mindsets, Essential Skills and Habits (MESH) Survey. Supportive personal and professional networks are also important to help young people navigate further education and employment. To this end, programs might consider measuring social capital through student surveys (such as the Developmental Relationships survey or Social Connectedness scale) or staff surveys (such as the Relationship Check or Relationship Mapping tools).

• Justice system involvement: Programs focused on serving justice system-affected youth might want to track violence involvement (including victimization), arrests, and/or recidivism. Arrest and recidivism data can sometimes be gathered through data-sharing agreements with the juvenile justice system, though laws around data privacy vary by state and can restrict access to individual-level information.

• Postsecondary outcomes: Postsecondary enrollment, persistence, and completion data can help programs understand whether their participants are matriculating to and succeeding in further training. This could include metrics such as whether program participants are enrolled in any postsecondary institution, number of semesters enrolled, whether they earn a 2-year or 4-year college degree, and whether they earn a non-degree credential. Alternative pathway programs can gather these metrics through surveys, data-sharing agreements with local colleges and universities, partnerships with state longitudinal data systems, or the National Student Clearinghouse.

• Employment outcomes: Programs should track employment outcomes for participants, including those who did and did not complete the program. Useful metrics can include wages and employment status before and after completing the program (including at multiple intervals, such as six months, one year, and two years after completion). Career-connected learning programs should also track whether individuals are employed in a role or sector aligned with their training, if applicable. Programs can gather these metrics through surveys or through data-sharing agreements with state unemployment insurance and wage data systems.