By DUANE M. ELLING
Creating pathways to economic security, self-sufficiency and adulthood is crucial for young people who have dropped out of school, are struggling to stay in the classroom, or who are disconnected from important supportive services. Yazeed Moore, an associate program officer with Mott’s Pathways Out of Poverty Program, discusses in the following Q&A the various issues and strategies related to helping these vulnerable youth.
Mott: What is Mott's interest in the area of vulnerable youth?
Yazeed Moore (YM): Studies show that only about 70 percent of young people in the U.S. -- and just half of all African-American and Hispanic youth -- graduate from high school. Yet obtaining a quality education, at a minimum through the high school level, is increasingly critical to finding and maintaining a living-wage job.
Mott’s grantmaking reflects our belief that programs and public policies are needed to help vulnerable youth, particularly dropouts and other underserved students, reconnect with educational and life opportunities. Specifically, the Foundation is interested in projects that help these young people earn a high school diploma, access postsecondary education and successfully enter the labor market.
Mott: What are some of the challenges to meeting these students’ needs?
YM: Numerous factors -- academic, emotional, social, environmental -- can influence a young person’s ability or desire to stay engaged in their educations. Yet many districts, particularly in low-income and underserved communities, lack the tools and resources to help youth address such issues; as a result, many students are at increased risk of leaving school before graduating.
The lack of formal, coordinated support systems for drop-outs also presents a major challenge for young people who’ve already left school. Even the most motivated of these kids are likely to have trouble finding and obtaining the services that can help them earn a diploma and develop other life and employment-related skills.
Also problematic is the lack of funding and capacity among the country’s “second chance” or alternative educational programs. Nationally, fewer than 300,000 training and education opportunities are available each year for the 2.4 million low-income youth between the ages of 16 and 24 years who are out of school and out of work.
Mott: In what way does Mott’s grantmaking seek to help these youth?
YM: One area of focus is identifying, strengthening and improving specific programs and policies -- education, public care and workforce -- that lead to successful pathways for all vulnerable youth, including those who have already dropped out of school.
We’re also interested in the development of broad systems at the local and state levels that provide these youth with a range of education and employment opportunities. For example, in recent years we’ve helped support citywide partnerships in Philadelphia, Boston, New York, and Portland that are reconnecting dropouts and out-of-school youth to quality learning and job training options.
Finally, we support projects that demonstrate the great potential -- and equally great challenges -- of the country’s most vulnerable youth. The citywide partnerships I just described are making headway in this area by developing data systems to guide and assess such strategies, and by raising the visibility of the country’s dropout crisis.
Mott: What is the future focus of this grantmaking?
YM: Our strategies will remain geared toward advancing programmatic and policy-based innovations at the local and state levels that ensure that vulnerable youth are prepared for college and careers. That focus is important because much of the necessary work and change needed to increase the percentage of young people earning high school diplomas originates at the state and local levels.
An overarching theme will also continue to be bringing together relevant agencies and stakeholders -- such as schools, employers, local governments, and workforce agencies -- to create a web of services, options, and pathways for dropouts and other underserved students, especially among poor and minority youth.
Mott: What other issues and trends are likely to be explored?
YM: The demands of a new global economy and the impending retirement of many workers of the “baby boomer” generation will spark new opportunities and challenges in the workforce development field. This will undoubtedly shape our future grantmaking as we seek innovations that take a targeted and integrated approach toward building career and employment opportunities for our nation’s most vulnerable youth.