FosterEd…It’s a great term to capture the cross-sector collaboration that is required for children in the foster care system to succeed in school. In a press release from the National Center for Youth Law,  Santa Cruz is launching FosterEd with a partnership including the Santa Cruz County Human Services Department, Santa Cruz County Office ofRead More

The American Youth Policy Forum was an early advocate for competency education publishing A New Model of Student Assessment for the 21st Century by Camille A. Farrington and Margaret Small over ten years ago.  They’ve highlighted the incredible work happening in New Hampshire including their extended learning opportunities policy. Now that competency education (or mastery-based,Read More

The interest in mental health, trauma, and healing is on the rise.  This discussion was fascinating as it both enriches our understanding of how to think of these issues but also does so by introducing an asset-based approach to it.     This discussion, written by Liz Wu, was originally posted on February 18th onRead More

There is a momentum building. White House Council for Community Solutions. Aspen Institute Opportunity Youth Incentive Fund. The powerful coalition organizing around Opportunity Nation. (Michael Bloomberg, pictured here, is the co-chair of the Leadership Council.) We need to take advantage of every bit of these initiatives to flip our public will about our young people. Read More

I’ve been poking around to better understand the rises in graduation rates. If they are because of changes in policy or practice…well it would be great to know what we are doing well. If it’s the economy…then maybe there is some bright side to the horrendous crisis our young people are facing trying to getRead More

There is a lot of reason to celebrate these days! High School Graduation Rates on the Rise: Grad rates went over 78% according to the report Public School Graduates and Dropouts from the Common Core of Data: School Year 2009–10, from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). We’ll never know exactly what the cause of itRead More

 A new paper today was released by Digital Learning Now, The Shift From Cohorts to Competency that focuses on competency education (Disclaimer: I’m one of the authors).  There is a section in the paper that I wanted to raise to your attention as it is an indicator that the issue of how to support studentsRead More

 Florida has been in the youth news lately with the release of two different reports.  The first is the oddly titled Delinquency in Florida’s Schools: An Eight-Year Study (FY 2004-05 through FY 2011-12) released by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice. In the opening message from Secretary Walters, shares good news “State law requires schoolRead More

By: Sue Badeau   My husband and I are Christian, and yet we have always acknowledged, learned about and shared in spiritual celebrations across many religions and cultures.  In particular, given the inextricably linked heritage in the Old Testament of Christians and Jews, we have always celebrated Jewish holidays in our home.  When one youngRead More

You can hear directly from Boston Day and Evening Academy, a school that has been highlighted in two recent reports Making Mastery Work and Developing Rigorous Competencies for Off-track Youth: A Case Study of Boston Day and Evening Academy by Jobs for the Future in a webinar sponsored by CompetencyWorks on January 31. Register here.Read More