The Expanded Success Initiative: Increasing College and Career Readiness for Black and Latino Young Men
Format
Individual Presentation
Location
Sloane
Strand #1
Academic Achievement & School Leadership
Strand #2
Social & Emotional Skills
Relevance
The Expanded Success Initiative is focused on eliminating the achievement gap for Black and Latino young men in New York City Public Schools. A major focus of ESI has been the implementation of operational strategies in three categories essential to moving the needle in improving outcomes for Black and Latino young men: academics, youth development, and school culture. Discussion of ESI and its findings will be most relevant to the “Head”: Academic Achievement & Leadership and “Heart”: Social & Emotional Skills conference strands.
Brief Program Description
The Expanded Success Initiative (ESI) is the nation’s most ambitious effort to tackle the achievement gap and increase the number of Black and Latino young men who graduate college and career ready. Leaders interested in meeting this challenge—on the district, school, and classroom level—will learn about the initiative’s goals, promising strategies, and its preliminary findings.
Summary
Supported by Open Society Foundations, the Expanded Success Initiative (ESI) is an educational component of the New York City Office of the Mayor’s Young Men’s Initiative (YMI). ESI is the nation’s most ambitious effort to tackle the educational achievement gap and increase the number of Black and Latino men who graduate high school prepared to succeed in college and careers. As part of that comprehensive effort, ESI works and conducts research in 40 public high schools that have shown promise in reversing this trend and graduating students of color. 40 ESI high schools were selected for investment and research based on a competitive design challenge, which asked schools to propose strategies that work to raise the bar within three inter-related core areas of school operation: academic rigor, youth development, and school culture. Selected schools began implementing their designs beginning with the entering 9th grade class in Fall 2012. This investment will be felt more broadly as the lessons learned from these schools are translated into systemic reform across the City. The ESI School Design Fellowship, the second key component of the ESI strategy, brought together a diverse cadre of emerging school leaders who brought unique and complementary talents to the school design process. The fellows were all educators with expertise in the fields of youth and community development, education technology and entrepreneurship, as well as school leadership and teaching. Three new NYC public schools have launched as a result of the School Design Fellowship. ESI is setting a higher bar for the long-term educational outcomes of the City’s Black and Latino young men, ensuring they are prepared to graduate high school prepared for college and career pathways. The workshop will explore the need for ESI: from the statistics that underlie the social and moral importance of this work, to ESI’s theory of action, to examples of ESI at work, and the initiative’s early findings. Participants will leave with a clear understanding of the different approaches to meeting this challenge—on the district level, at the school level, and in the classroom.
Evidence
The Expanded Success Initiative is grounded in the use of data to inform its work. Research Alliance, the initiative’s external program evaluator, has released four reports to strengthen the capacity of schools to serve their students and to meet the goals of the initiative. Additionally, schools are provided with frequent data snapshots on the progress of their Black and Latino young men. This presentation will share information about those structures on the district and program level but also preliminary findings and promising strategies from its first two years of implementation.
Biographical Sketch
Paul Forbes is the Director of the Expanded Success Initiative (ESI). A native New Yorker who was born, raised and still lives in Brooklyn (NYC), he has dedicated his professional life to working with students and families from historically underrepresented neighborhoods and communities. After three years in Harlem as a Dean of Discipline, Paul has spent 14 years as a central administrator in various roles; Community Based Organization (CBO) Coordinator, Youth Development Director, Safety Director and Suspension Director. In his current role as the ESI Director, Paul works with and supports 40 NYC high schools that are researching and developing strategies, activities and ideas that will increase the number of Black and Latino young men who graduate from high school prepared to enter, persist and succeed in college and career pathways.
Keyword Descriptors
ESI, Expanded Success Initiative, College, Career, Black, Latino, My Brothers Keeper
Presentation Year
2015
Start Date
3-3-2015 2:45 PM
End Date
3-3-2015 4:00 PM
Recommended Citation
Forbes, Paul, "The Expanded Success Initiative: Increasing College and Career Readiness for Black and Latino Young Men" (2015). National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference. 192.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/nyar_savannah/2015/2015/192
The Expanded Success Initiative: Increasing College and Career Readiness for Black and Latino Young Men
Sloane
The Expanded Success Initiative (ESI) is the nation’s most ambitious effort to tackle the achievement gap and increase the number of Black and Latino young men who graduate college and career ready. Leaders interested in meeting this challenge—on the district, school, and classroom level—will learn about the initiative’s goals, promising strategies, and its preliminary findings.
