Changing the Odds for Youth: Equity, Opportunity, & Readiness Karen Pittman, President and CEO

1. Changing the Odds for Youth: Equity, Opportunity, & Readiness Karen Pittman, President and CEO The Forum for Youth Investment PromiseNet 2017 Kalamazoo, MI | November, 06 2017

2. Improving Opportunities equality equity The Path to Improved Outcomes Starts with Providing Education and Employment Opportunities powerful enough to literally Change the Odds for disengaged youth access quality completion Improved Outcomes Commitments to equality, access and completion are important steps that can help youth move along the path. More specific commitments to ensure equity, quality and readiness are needed to change the odds.

3. Changing the Odds

4. Beating the Odds vs. Changing the Odds Change the odds

5. The Social Genome Project • Pathways to the Middle Class: Balancing Personal and Public Responsibilities. Sawhill et al, 2012 provides an excellent overview of the project and its major findings. • https://www.brookings.edu/research/pathways-to-the-middle-class-balancing-personal-and-public-responsibilities/

6. Key Determinants of Being “On Track” (Brookings Social Genome Project) Family Formation: • Marriage • Delayed parenthood • Maternal education & employment • Normal birthweight babies Early childhood: • Reading & math skills • Social behavior Middle childhood: • Reading & math skills • Social-emotional skills Adolescence: • High school grad w/ 2.5 GPA • No convictions • No children Young Adults: • Live independently • Post secondary degree or above poverty income

7. On average, about 6 in 10 young people are “on track” in each life stage. (Brookings 2012) Percent of Children Succeeding at Each Life Stage

8. Black and Hispanic children and youth are succeeding at lower rates in every life stage. Disparities grow with age. Percent Succeeding at Each Life Stage by Race/Ethnicity

9. The Movement Behind the Odds • The percentages of children and youth that are “on track” in every developmental stage gives us an overall sense of the odds for success. But the story is much more complex. • At every stage there are young people who are on track who successfully move to the next stage and those who fall off track. • There are also young people who were off track who manage to get back on track. • These dynamics underscore the need for early AND sustained interventions.

10. The Social Genome Project s s s s s

11. Opportunity

12. The Opportunity Gap – quantifies barriers to success https://www.good.is/infographics/infographic-the-opportunity-gap White children (31%) are twice as likely to graduate college as Blacks (18%) & Hispanics (13%) Black *36%) & Hispanic (31%) children are three times more likely to live in poverty than Whites (12%) Hispanic children (15%) are twice as likely as Blacks (8%) & Whites (6%) to have no health insurance.

13. … Link Achievement Gaps in Opportunities to Learn www.afterschoolalliance.org/AA3PM

14. …And Cumulative Opportunity Gaps In Neighborhoods https://www.denvergov.org/content/dam/denvergov/Portals/713/documents/reports/StatusOfDenversChildren.pdf • Denver Mayor’s Office of Children’s Affairs, 2016 Databook

15. Equity

17. x The Journey from Inequality to Equity REALITY 1 REALITY 2

18. We have to make sure we’re providing kids the opportunities they need to really be ready to play in the game. We have to talk about quality. It’s important to acknowledge and reduce all of the barriers to learning. Is Reducing Barriers Enough?

19. Quality Matters…A Lot • Gains in the math proficiency of students participating in high quality summer learning programs were more than 4 times higher than the gains of students in medium or low quality programs. Quality = YPQI scores (defined on next slide) Source: C Smith,et al. Quality-Outcomes for Seattle Public Schools Summer Programs Summer 2015Program Cycle (2015) https://www.seattleschools.org/UserFiles/Servers/Server_543/File/District/Departments/Summer%20School/2015-12-22%20Raikes%20Q-O%20Study_FINAL.pdf

20. Quality is More than Content Features of Positive Developmental Settings • Physical and psychological safety • Appropriate structure • Supportive relationships • Opportunities to Belong • Positive Social Norms • Supports for Efficacy and Mattering • Opportunities for Skill Building • Integration of Family, School and Community Efforts Source: National Research Council,Community Programs that Promote Youth Development, 2002

21. QualityStandards & Improvement Capacity: Prerequisites for Implementing Evidence Based Programs Source: Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality. http://www.cypq.org/about/approach

22. Readiness

23. Readiness is more than a diploma • The 2002 NRC report, Community Programs that Promote Youth Development, identified developmental domains that predict young adult success: • Physical development • good health habits, risk management skills • Intellectual development • school success, critical thinking, decision-making, life skills, vocational skills • Psychological and emotional development • good mental health, positive self-regard, self-regulation, coping skills, autonomy, effective time management • Social development • connectedness,sense of place, attachment to pro-social institutions, ability to navigate cultural contexts, commitment to civic engagement

24. Readiness read·i·ness NOUN • the willingness to do something • the state of being fully preparedfor something COM-B Model read·i·ness NOUN the willingness to do something the state of being fully prepared for something

25. Readiness by Design. http://sparkaction.org/readiness/key-ideas 31

26. Learning New Information is Hard, Especially When It is Designed To Spark Changes In Behavior This is especially true for vulnerable youth who have “hit walls” before and not had the support of adults who had the capacity and motivation to help them get to the other side. (source: http://www.supplyteachingsolutions.co.uk/#!Instilling-a-growth-mindset/c24tn/1)

27. Bringing It All Together to Support PromiseNetYouth

28. The Insulated Education Pipeline Education and Employment Systems are at the core of a complex layering of services, supports and opportunities that need to be *better mapped *better aligned *better resourced *better evaluated

29. Want to Learn More? Sign up for our newsletters: http://www.readyby21.org/news/newsletters Pittman Blogs: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/karen-pittman Twitter: @forumfyi @karenpittman

30. Changing the Odds:Ready Youth = Ready Communities Help young people build the sense of agency they need to not only navigate systems and places that do them harm but change them.