http://www.mott.org/FundingInterests/Issues/Vulnerable%20Youth.aspxhttp://www.mott.org/~/media/Images/logo_inversed%20jpg.ashxhttp://www.mott.org/FundingInterests/Issues/Vulnerable%20Youth.aspxVulnerable Youthen-usMon, 28 May 2012 15:25:32 GMTMon, 28 May 2012 15:25:32 GMT60http://www.mott.org/news/news/2012/20120214InterviewWithYazeedMoore.aspxFor the past eight years, Yazeed A. Moore has been responsible for grantmaking within the Mott Foundation’s Vulnerable Youth portfolio. A member of the Foundation’s Pathways Out of Poverty team since 2002, Moore recently sat down with Ann Richards, a member of the Foundation’s communications staff, to discuss his portfolio.


Mott: “Vulnerable youth” is a pretty broad label. Can you clarify what it means in terms of the Mott Foundation’s grantmaking?

Yazeed A. Moore

Moore: We use “vulnerable youth” to describe our focus on young people ages 16 through 24 who have dropped out of school or who are at-risk of dropping out. To put it a little differently, our grantmaking targets young people who are over-age and under-credited for their grade level.

Our strategy is to identify and support interventions that will help students who are off-track for graduation re-engage in school and work. We also fund a number of national organizations to examine and advance policies at the federal, state and local level to identify barriers that prevent students from re-entering the school/work pipeline — which then helps in designing and testing these interventions.

Mott: What has the Foundation discovered through its grantmaking to assist over-age, under-credited students?

Moore: We’ve learned a lot over the past several years, but I think the biggest “aha” moment for us was gaining a better understanding about why kids drop out. The field has become a lot smarter about identifying indicators that can predict whether students are on the right path toward eventual graduation — and we know now that it’s not always academic problems that keep them from finishing school. That knowledge has helped us shape better responses and provide a better system of supports to help these students achieve. And it’s important to remember that we’re talking about a lot of kids — of the roughly four million high school students who are supposed to graduate each year, only three million will receive diplomas. That’s a million kids we’re talking about. And the numbers are even greater if we include young people who are a bit older and are not in school or working.

Mott: Since 2008, Mott has supported the development of Schools for the Future, a competency-based, alternative approach to completing high school. What prompted you to grant the R&D funding to create this model?

Moore: Schools for the Future represents a recovery model for young people who have dropped out or are performing significantly below grade level, meaning they’ve been retained two or more times in elementary or middle school. The most exciting part of this model — for me — is that it accelerates learning in a meaningful way by blending a foundation of highly targeted classroom activities with a full range of online and community-based learning opportunities where students learn both inside and outside the classroom. It rewards and emphasizes the mastery of concepts, not time.

Several years ago, the Mott Foundation helped fund the development of Diploma Plus, another alternative education model. Through the years, I stayed in touch with Ephraim Weisstein, who developed that model, because we both have an interest in pushing the envelope — in terms of developing educational strategies that address the very diverse needs of vulnerable kids. Ephraim used Mott funding to take that next step and thankfully, his research resulted in a good product, one that other funders are interested in supporting. Schools for the Future is now being piloted in Jacksonville, Florida, and, next year, in Detroit.

Mott: Tell us a little about your own background and how you landed at Mott.

Moore: I started at the other end of philanthropy — fundraising in higher education. After working in higher education for about three years, I went to graduate school to complete a Masters in Public Affairs at Indiana University. In order to complete my program of study, I needed an internship in the public sector. Being somewhat familiar with the work of foundations in general, I wrote to Mott because its mission really spoke to me. I was lucky they offered me an internship which turned into a job after I graduated.

I grew up in Gary, Indiana, and attended typical urban, inner-city schools from K-12. Again, I was lucky. I had a mother who encouraged me and a guidance counselor who saw something in me and got me involved in the Upward Bound Program. There were countless others who helped me see that a better life was possible through hard work and a little luck.

All through my life, I had the support of different networks — advocates, mentors, counselors. Unfortunately, the kids who are the beneficiaries of the programs Mott funds don’t always have these supports in place. I’m very fortunate to work for an institution that values better educational experiences for students who don’t get the luck of the draw or who just need a second chance.

]]>Pathways Out of PovertyThu, 16 Feb 2012 12:34:27 GMTD1C6ECA0-4A3E-4002-84BC-9E7750D8D329http://www.mott.org/news/news/2012/20120214SchoolsForTheFuture.aspxBy ANN RICHARDS

It takes courage and discipline to go back to high school after you’ve fallen behind or dropped out, but for those students willing to give it another shot, Schools for the Future provides an alternative path — a path that accelerates learning by rewarding competency as opposed to time spent “in the seat.”

Across the country, high schools are failing to graduate students. According to a recent article in The New York Times, only seven of ten ninth graders in the United States today will earn a diploma. And while 80 percent of white and Asian students graduate from high school, only 55 percent of African American and Hispanic students achieve that goal.

In Duval County, Florida, the public school system has taken up the challenge of educating its students most in danger of dropping out, committing $1.7 million in private and public money to pilot Schools for the Future.

To learn more about the Foundation's Vulnerable Youth grantmaking read an interview with Progam Officer Yazeed Moore.

Designed for “over-age and under-credited” urban students, Schools for the Future targets students who are two or more years behind their classmates in age and skill-level, according to Ephraim Weisstein. He developed the model in collaboration with the School & Main Institute at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, with multi-year support totaling $450,000 from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.

Starting in eighth grade — a year earlier than most alternative high school models — Schools for the Future offers instruction through 75-minute blocks of learning. Academic courses are broken down into 30-day modules — “chunk-size bits of learning” — that enable students to move forward at their own rate, based on mastery and not on age or grade.

“What happens in each of those 75-minute blocks is different for every student,” said Weisstein, an education consultant who has worked with at-risk students for more than 30 years.

Schools for the Future builds on Diploma Plus, a program Weisstein designed and piloted in the mid-1990s.

“Most alternative models are based on a two- or three-year period. We start at eighth grade because that gives us the three to five years needed to stage the academic and social supports our students need to graduate and go on to college.”

“The more time we have the better; many of our students are reading at a fifth-grade level when they enter. Many of them arrive with lots of social and emotional issues. There are huge gaps in learning and maturity that need to be attended to,” Weisstein noted.

Schools for the Future also takes advantage of technology, using mobile devices to blend digital curriculum with face-to-face instruction, group and individual study, and coaching.

“Students learn through a mix of activities — seminars, normal classes and online work. At the end of each 30-day period, they are assessed for mastery and either move forward or, if additional practice is needed, assigned additional, supplemental activities,” Weisstein said.

Ultimately, each set of learning modules adds up to a credit-bearing course that will count toward district and state requirements for graduation. Schools for the Future is a college preparatory model, and students are required to pass the same comprehensive assessment tests as their counterparts in more traditional high schools.

“Our goal is to have our students pass the ACT college entrance exam with a score of 21 or higher,” said Weisstein. “We understand that many students who score a 17 or 18 on the ACT will perform well in college, but we want to push the bar higher.

“We’ve used that benchmark to develop our curriculum, working backward from a score of 21 to map the academic steps that need to be taken to meet that goal.”

Because many students who have fallen behind in school also struggle with social and emotional issues, Schools for the Future also works to “accelerate” maturation, says Weisstein.

“We work to build both the cognitive and affective skills of our students. We rely on a positive youth development approach to build students’ social and emotional IQ. It’s the second big piece contributing to the model and it’s the glue that is used to build identity and unity within the school. It’s critical to the school culture.”

According to a recent article in The New York Times, only seven of ten ninth graders in the United States today will earn a diploma.

A positive and supportive school culture is key to academic success, particularly for schools serving at-risk students, says Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future, Inc., a non-partisan, nonprofit think tank created nearly 20 years ago to develop ideas to help transform the state from a factory-based to a knowledge-based economy. Through its high school accelerator program in Detroit — where seven new models are already operating — Michigan Future will open a Schools for the Future pilot in September, 2012. The accelerator has an overall goal of achieving systemic high school education reform through the establishment of 35 new high schools by 2017.

“One of the important lessons we’ve learned over the past 10 years working with urban high schools is that the culture of the school — first among educators and then the kids they teach — trumps everything,” said Glazer.

Michigan Future selected the Schools for the Future model for a couple of reasons, most significantly its focus on at-risk students.

“It’s the only model we’ve reviewed that specifically targets this population,” said Glazer.

Schools for the Future also offers “one of the most comprehensive, innovative approaches to teaching” that Glazer’s group has reviewed.

“They started with a clean sheet — and they worked to discover exactly where urban kids are when they enter high school. They’ve done a lot of thinking about curriculum, about pedagogy, about teaching. Their approach — which uses blended learning, lots of teacher training — is very thorough, very impressive.”

While there are policy challenges to implementing the model, Glazer is confident that the State of Michigan will approve the necessary waivers granting credits based on demonstrated proficiency rather than time spent in the classroom.

“No one is targeting at-risk kids like Schools for the Future,” Glazer said. “It’s a very powerful model.”

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