For decades, national service members have been on the front lines of addressing pressing challenges facing our nation. Through their service with AmeriCorps and Senior Corps, dedicated and talented Americans have contributed so much to local communities, improving the lives of their fellow Americans in innumerable ways. Many of these national service members have served as tutors, mentors, teachers, and coaches, helping students to develop the academic and social-emotional skills they need to succeed in school and in life.
Today, half of the funds invested in national service by the federal government through the Corporation for National and Community Service are focused on education. One in 10 public schools, and one in four low-performing public schools, is served by AmeriCorps. For so many students struggling with the effects of poverty, having an AmeriCorps or Senior Corps member offer support and coaching in partnership with teachers and school leaders can mean the difference between graduating ready for college and career or dropping out of school.
More must be done, however, to create a seamless system of supports for our most vulnerable students -- those living in poverty -- that ensures that they progress through their education, gathering momentum for college and career success. Since 2000, the number of people living in concentrated poverty has doubled, reaching a record high of 13.2 million Americans nationwide. In 2014, more than 10 million children lived in areas where at least 40 percent of residents lived in poverty. These areas of concentrated poverty are disproportionately located in certain school districts, where significant numbers of students -- sometimes the majority -- need intensive supports through their education.
Despite substantial improvements in addressing the national dropout crisis in the past decade, one in every five students is still not graduating from high school, and most of them are low-income students. This is even more severe in areas of concentrated poverty, where one in every three students drops out of high school. The results are devastating, both for the young adults and society at large: millions between the ages of 16 and 25 who are not in school, training, or the labor market, ultimately generating less tax dollars and requiring greater social supports.
So what's the solution?
Dr. Robert Balfanz, Director of the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University and the expert on the high school dropout crisis in the United States, writes in a paper released this week that national service at scale can play a key role in providing the people power needed to create a continuum of supports for students at risk of dropping out. Commissioned by Voices for National Service, the paper was made possible with the support of the C.S. Mott Foundation.
Entitled "Creating a Continuum of Care for Children in High Poverty Communities: The Vital Role of National Service in Building a Better Support System," the paper examines why current student support approaches are not working; makes the case for moving toward a continuum of care approach fueled by national service; highlights emerging examples; and explores the challenges of bringing this new approach to scale.
Dr. Balfanz proposes a six-step path toward realizing a system in which low-income students receive the continuum of care they need to emerge from poverty and achieve adult success, including:
- Grow and improve collective impact efforts through collective learning and the sharing of evidence-based practices. Central to this will be developing collective success measures that all programs can work toward to demonstrate student success.
- Develop a rubric to organize local continuum of care efforts. Current student data is rarely organized in a way that illuminates where support is required to ensure student success. Effectively providing a continuum of care for all students will require developing a partnership or collective impact rubric that can map community needs, existing supports, and strengths of various student support service providers.
- Bring new voices to the table, including partners who have a stake in long-term student success but who are not currently influencing solutions to support students throughout their education and development.
- Leverage existing state and city infrastructures. State and local elected officials, including governors and mayors, need to be disrupters of the current student support system, as well as organizers of a new continuum of care approach to providing student supports.
- Change funding structures. Convene government entities and private sector stakeholders committed to funding and incentivizing national service programs and other student support service providers committed to establishing a continuum of care, and encourage these potential funders to strategize regarding scaling this work.
- Increase federal investments in national service. To reach more students and more communities, Congress must scale up the federal investment in the Corporation for National and Community Service and its core programs, including AmeriCorps and Senior Corps.
On this last point, we know we're on solid ground with the American people. A poll conducted by TargetPoint Consulting found that 83 percent of voters across nine presidential battleground states want Congress to maintain or increase federal spending on national service programs. This overwhelming support defies party lines, including 78 percent of Republicans, 84 percent of Independents, and 90 percent of Democrats surveyed.
Ensuring that every student has the opportunity to meet his or her full potential -- especially those dealing with the burdens and complications of living in poverty -- will require creative solutions from all sectors of our society. Young people must have the supports they need to graduate from high school, pursue post-secondary opportunities, and secure a job. National service has a unique role to play in providing these supports. As Dr. Balfanz writes, "We must leverage national service to establish a continuum of care approach that ensures student needs are met at all stages and in all aspects of their education and development."
We look forward to hearing reactions to the paper, and ideas for how we can work together to ensure that every student has the opportunity to succeed.