Rb21 Partner Newsletter 10/5 News Section

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Youth Policy Institute #5, Focusing on Southeast States

On Sept 25 & 26, state teams made up of key legislative and executive decision makers from NC, MS, LA, AR, KY and TN traveled to Nashville, TN to participate in the 5th Annual Youth Policy Institute.  Co-organized by NCSL and the Forum, the event engaged a cadre of Ready by 21 National Partners as presenters and facilitators, including The Center, Results Leadership Group, Gallup, The Finance Project, Corporate Voices, and Child Trends.  Each of the teams worked with their facilitator to develop a detailed action plan for young people their state with the help of Ready by 21 tools and knowledge of the capacities of the Ready by 21 technical partners. 

Ready by 21 Quality Counts Initiative Update

In 2007, 7 communities and 5 state were selected to participate in the Ready by 21 Quality Counts Initiative. With technical assistance to sites wrapping up in early 2010, Quality Counts has focused on improving the quality and reach of youth programs and strengthening local and state policies that guide resource allocation, accountability and workforce development. Here are some snapshots of what various Quality Counts sites have done over the past month:

· Georgetown Divide, CA was the recipient of two multi-year grants that will support and sustain the work of their Ready by 21 Coalition. Embedded in both awards is ongoing use of the Youth Program Quality Improvement strategy, which was piloted in the community during this project.

· Indianapolis, IN hosted their "Student Success Summit" in mid-August.  Karen Pittman delivered the keynote presentation. Marion County Council on Youth, the lead organization for Quality Counts, organized the summit and used the opportunity to recognize organizations and individuals that have signed their Compact for Youth.  The compact outlines ways that individuals and organizations throughout the community commit to changing the odds for local youth and is organized around key aspects of the Ready by 21 framework.

· Nashville, TN hosted the Weikert Center for Youth Program Quality's first Training of Consultants, a capacity building workshop designed for individuals who will support groups of sites through the Youth Program Quality Improvement (YPQI) process.  Four other Quality Counts sites (Georgetown Divide, Lexington, Louisville, and St. Louis) participated in the training, and as a result have "home grown" capacity to support ongoing continuous quality improvement.

· Grand Rapids' Extended Learning Opportunities (ELO) network and the Heart of West Michigan United Way officially endorsed the YPQA as the assessment tool of choice in the community, two important milestones that will help ensure the sustainability of the Quality Counts initiative.

· Norman, Oklahoma recently piloted a landscape mapping survey to assess the youth program landscape in the community.  They are currently reflecting on the findings of the survey with participating agencies. 

Corporate Voices for Working Families Attends Fall 2009 Chief Learning Officers Conference

Corporate Voices attended the Fall 2009 Chief Learning Officers Conference in Colorado Springs, Colorado, September 27-30th.  Corporate Voices conducted two focus groups to learn the Chief Learning Officers' perspectives on issues related to the ill-prepared workforce that have presented challenges or barriers to them as well as their company.  CV also gained information about the extent to which their organization is successful in overcoming these barriers and was able to gather examples of workforce training programs to share with other organizations and communities.  Corporate Voices hopes to share their experiences and knowledge gained from the conference and focus groups to the partnership.  For more information on the Chief Learning Officers, please visit www.clomedia.com.

Ready by 21 Executive Committee Meeting Held on September 30

The Mobilization partner members of the executive committee met on September 30th to review the Partnership's progress, take a first look at how individual commitments combine to create a whole, and discuss  current and future funding priorities.  While we did not have all of the information we had hoped to have in place to look at how proposed deliverables match up against our emerging  priorities (e.g. start up in SE cities), all agreed that the format created for reviewing Partner goals and commitments and deliverables was extremely helpful and will be even more helpful when we can assign dollars to tasks. 

Ready by 21 Ad Appears in October Atlantic

Thank you to Altria/Philip Morris USA for a second appearance of the Rb21 ad in a one-page version published in the October issue of The Atlantic.  

Reports and Research

Key Partner Documents Uploaded to Workstation

Every day, more valuable resources are being uploaded to the workstation.  Please visit the partnership pages (Ready by 21 partner tab, then shared documents) frequently as there are many key documents being added, such as the Five Steps, updated Powerful Solutions, Technical Assistance Overview and links to promotional materials.  Please visit

http://www.fyiworkstation.org/wst/fyi/partners/default.aspx.

Hot Topics- 21st Century Skills: Doomed Pedagogical Fad or Key to the Future?

Supporters and critics of the 21st century skills movement agree that students should master analytical skills, technological skills and "soft" skills such as team work and communication.  Furthermore, they agree that the development of these skills is part of a well-rounded education and that obtaining them is an important part of preparing young people for college, work and life.  Critics of the movement part ways on how such skills are best developed. They argue that skills and content knowledge are not independent of one other, citing cognitive science research demonstrating that a base of knowledge must be present to gain deeper knowledge and build skills. Critics further believe the 21st century skills movement erodes opportunities for a well-rounded education and further forces schools that are constrained by NCLB to reduce subject matter options in order to increase 21st century skills classes.  

Supporters contend that they believe in the value of teaching skills and content together. They argue that their main goal is in fact to integrate 21st century skills into core subjects.  However, they also want to set better standards, improve professional and learning environments, increase assessment options, and make core subjects more relevant to students.  Supporters argue that not incorporating these skills and making changes such as increasing academic standards will further stagnate students, particularly low-income students in low performing schools. 

To read more about the debate and key reference articles, please visit the topic summary below.

Human Capital Lab Blog

Thanks to Melissa Hough of CVWF for passing along this interesting link.  Click here to follow some bloggers reflecting on interesting Human Capital topics that may relate to our Ready by 21 work-  http://www.humancapitallab.org/blog/.