Category: Uncategorized

A new documentary streaming on Netflix called The Beginning of Life focuses on the complex lives of babies and seeks to dispel the myth that babies are “empty vessels waiting to be filled with knowledge of the world around them.”

In fact, three decades of research by leading scientists suggests this is “patently untrue,” according to an article about the documentary in The Atlantic. “If more people recognized that fact, the way communities and policymakers think about and invest in the early years of life might be different,” the article says.

The documentary interviews several experts in the field of early childhood development, and the findings echo what many in the early childhood community – including some of Advocacy & Communication Solutions’ clients –  have been saying for years. Key takeaways from the article include:

• The first five years matter. Kids who spend the early years in loving and enriching environments are more likely to stay in school and become productive adults. They are likely to be healthier. But when babies don’t have adults who engage with them, pathways in the brain that form a child’s foundation can disintegrate.
• Learning happens through play. Helping children thrive doesn’t mean providing the best toys or the most expensive gadgets. Learning happens when children create their own play worlds. A child who sees a ruler and a pen and turns them into an airplane is often using more of her imagination and stimulating more of her brain than a child who is handed an already-put-together toy, according to Jack Shonkoff, the director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.
• Self-esteem is important. Children with high self-esteem who feel loved and supported are willing to try new things and to fail a lot in the process, said Andrew Meltzoff, co-director at the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, because they know they’ll be safe. Even preschoolers who shout “no” at tired parents are testing the supportive boundaries of their environments.
• Strong parent-child relationships are critical. The documentary points out that parents who are able to cultivate strong relationships with their children are ultimately helping shape more productive adults. “That love is an important part of the economy,” said the economist James Heckman.

For more than a decade, Advocacy & Communication Solutions, LLC (ACS) has been enmeshed in the creation of early childhood learning systems in states, such as First Things First in Arizona, and in cities, such as Cleveland’s nationally recognized PRE4CLE and many other early childhood efforts across the country.  ACS continues to work in local communities, with state government, national non-profits, and thoughts leaders across the country to encourage a holistic approach to helping our nation’s young children get the best start in life through early childhood programs and policies which address health, nutrition, parent support, social services, as well as high-quality preschool. Learn more about ACS’s successes with First Things First and PRE4CLE here: www.advocacyandcommunication.org/clients

After Advocacy & Communication Solutions, LLC, (ACS) successfully presented Little Rock’s Master Plan for Children, Youth, and Families to the city’s Board of Directors on June 7^th, the 9 city board members unanimously approved the plan. Following this initial approval by the Board of Directors, formal approval in the form of a resolution was passed on June 21th, 2016. The resolution allows for the implementation of the Master Plan, starting immediately.

The Master Plan sets out to create safer and healthier communities for families, and increase educational, employment and wellness opportunities for children and youth.

The three-year Master Plan will serve as a framework for the city to implement the following goals that lay the foundation for city programs and services for the next 10 years:

1. Use data to prioritize programs and services (such as academic assistance, job training, mentorship, counseling, and substance abuse treatment) and work with partners across the city to fulfill unmet needs such as housing and food assistance;
2. Create a set of standards that will increase program quality for children youth and families and create benchmarks and indicators that ensure accountability;
3. Create a plan to increase communication with the community;
4. Fund additional programs that provide employment skills; and
5. Integrate greater youth participation in the decision-making.

ACS was honored to be part of the Master Plan process for the past 16 months, convening and working with local stakeholders in the city to help develop this critical plan for the youth of Little Rock.

Learn more about the Little Rock Youth Master Plan here.

 

How did Massachusetts schools go from the middle of the pack to first place? The answer is school funding.

A recent report from WGBH Boston explored the impact of the state’s 1993 legislation to overhaul how the state pays for its schools. The state poured money into districts that educated low-income kids, districts that historically struggled to raise funds through local property taxes. The funding enabled these disadvantaged districts to hire and keep good teachers, give them better training and improve curriculum in the classroom.

One school district received a $5 million increase in funding annual for a decade. The district used the money to support new teachers, new classes and new standards, eventually implementing new graduation standards, honors programs, and A.P. classes. Math textbooks that had been in place since the 1950s were updated, too. The funding also allowed the district to hire reading coaches and a technology team. Some schools lengthened the school day.

As a result of the changes, student test scores and graduation rates improved. In this specific district, 90% of its high-school graduates further their education after high school, up from 70% before the new funding laws passed.

In the past few years, the state’s funding of schools has slowed, and some districts are working to keep the funding strong because they have seen the benefit to their students. Advocacy & Communication Solutions, LLC (ACS) works with some of Ohio’s largest urban districts through The Ohio 8 Coalition to advocate for equitable funding for the state’s neediest school districts so that all of Ohio’s children have the best possible public education.

Student homelessness is a growing epidemic in the United States, according to a recent report by GradNation. The report showed that more than 1.3 million students in the United States were homeless during the 2013-2014 school year, and that these students are 87 percent more likely to drop out of high school than students from stable homes.

That’s the reason Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and A Way Home America Initiative are aimed at bringing a new focus on the issue of homeless youth and working to both prevent and end this issue.

The Every Students Succeeds Act (ESSA), signed by President Obama in December 2015, is a federal education law that requires performance and graduation rates of homeless children to be reported separately. Advocates of the law hope this will motivate school districts and states to develop new ways to support homeless youth and help them stay on track. In the summer of 2016, the U.S. Department of Education is expected to send school districts guidance, based on student responses to best serve the homeless student population and ensure they graduate high school and go to college or careers.

Also this summer, A Way Home America (AWHA) officially launched. This national initiative aims to prevent and end homelessness by 2020. A team of homeless youth advocates, researcher, government agencies, and philanthropists behind AWHA will present a policy platform to the presidential campaigns to address homeless youth funding and develop best practices across policy areas.. It will also look at ways to reach out to communities who have had a direct impact on reducing the homeless youth population.

Working with Health & Human Services; Housing and Urban Development; Raikes Foundation; and Melville Charitable Trust & Casey Family Programs, AWHA has invited three communities to support national learning through launching a 100-Day Challenge to identify and execute best practices and end youth homelessness.

The GradNation report also set a goal: A 90 percent graduation rate for homeless youth – the same rate set for high school students who have stable housing.  The Every Student Succeeds Act and A Way Home America initiative/100 Day Challenge are the first step towards that goal. ACS’s new client  Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland (Ohio), is helping to bring more awareness to issues of youth homelessness and how Cleveland can support their success. ACS believes that we all must work together to make sure all of our country’s students have what they need to succeed, regardless of their access to stable housing.

 

Teacher evaluations are often used as a way to identify poor performing teachers or areas for improvement. Yet a new study shows that teacher evaluation ratings may not reflect teachers’ true performance. The Washington Post reports that a study from February 2016 shows that despite 19 states having passed teacher evaluation reform measures, the median proportion of teachers deemed below proficient has ticked up from less than 1 percent in a 2009 TNTP study to less than 3 percent.

Researchers from Brown University and Vanderbilt University for the 2016 study surveyed and interviewed 100 principals in an urban district that adopted new evaluations in 2012-2013. The researchers found that on average in the first year, principals estimated that about 28 percent of teachers in their buildings were performing below proficient, but they also predicted that they would assign low ratings to just 24 percent, openly acknowledging that they would inflate some teachers’ scores. At the year’s end, however, it turned out that fewer than 7 percent of teachers actually received ratings below proficient, according to The Washington Post article.

What are the reasons for the discrepancy? Some principals told researchers they felt uncomfortable delivering bad news to teachers. Other principals told the researchers they didn’t have time to work through the documentation and support necessary to give teachers poor ratings. Still others said they were reluctant to give poor reviews to teachers who had potential or were working hard to improve, or they didn’t feel they could find a stronger replacement for the weak teacher in the classroom. Principals also said it was easier to encourage a poor teacher to find a job elsewhere than to go through the paperwork associated with a poor review.

Despite widespread changes to the teacher evaluation metrics across the country, there is evidence that adopting a one-size-fits all approach in teacher evaluations has been ineffective. There are still gaps in the process that prevent fair and objective evaluations across the board. ACS understands the importance of having high-quality teachers in all classrooms settings and helps clients like The Ohio 8 Coalition advocate for evaluation reforms that preserve local control and help districts do what is best for their schools, teachers and students.

Race, place and education all play a role in whether young adults find employment, according to a report released recently by the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program. The report, “Employment and disconnection among teens and young adults: The role of place, race, and education,” analyzes the employment and unemployment rates of teens, young adults, and prime-age workers in the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the United States and provides data on disconnected youth.

The report found that young adults with lower levels of education are still reeling from the effects of the recession and continue to struggle in the labor market.

Nationally, an estimated 3 million young people aged 16-24 (7.6 percent) are disconnected, meaning they are neither working nor in school. The majority of these young people are aged 20-24, suggesting that the problem becomes more acute after young people are of an age to have graduated high school, according to the report.

Other key findings include:

• Race plays an important role. Rates of disconnection vary widely by metropolitan area, and in some places, young African Americans and Latinos are up to 3-to-6 times more likely to be disconnected than young whites.
• Education, or lack thereof, is even more important. According to the report, disparities by educational attainment are larger than disparities by race. People without post-secondary credentials do much worse in the labor market than those with higher levels of education.
• Place is also impacts success. Employment and unemployment rates vary substantially by place; many of the best-performing metro areas are in the Midwest, West, or regions with highly educated residents, including state capitals and university towns, according to the report.

Advocacy & Communication Solutions, LLC, has spent 18 months immersed in the issue in Little Rock, Ark., developing the Little Rock Youth Master Plan, which will guide the city and its community partners on how to provide programs for at-risk youth and appropriately fund those programs. We know there is a need for additional jobs for youth, but there is also a need for a focus on career awareness and preparation, including mentorships, apprenticeships, inventories for skills, and assessments, to help youth understand how to go to college and/or begin a career.

When implemented, the Little Rock Youth Master Plan will have an intentional focus on workforce development, build on existing partnerships with the business community, and increase opportunities for youth to gain valuable experience and skills so that youth are prepared for work and able to lead thriving, sustainable lives.

ACS can help communities develop a strategy to engage partners, and in particular businesses to increase opportunities for youth.

The Heising-Simons Foundation (HSF) is hitting its stride with investments in three major areas and receiving national recognition for it. A June 2016 Inside Philanthropy article highlights the “start-up” mentality of the family foundation, and how giving in three major areas reflect its priorities: education, science, and climate and clean energy.

Advocacy & Communication Solutions, LLC assisted HSF in the early stages of its communication planning in 2015, including:

1. helping the foundation ramp up its communication capacity and hiring its first communication staff;
2. communication planning, including writing core messages about the foundation’s complex giving profile and conducting a website audit; and
3. developing strategy around opportunities to introduce the foundation to the community.

ACS helped HSF successfully take their communication efforts to the next level, boosting HSF’s approach to communication to fellow grantmakers, partners in the community, and grantees.

Excerpt:

“Since donor couple Elizabeth Simons and Mark Heising formalized their philanthropy a few years ago—they started a foundation in 2007 and started hiring professional staff in 2012—the Heising-Simons Foundation has moved fast, building a team of 23, setting up a 10,000-square-foot office in Los Altos, and making a splash in some niche areas.”

Annual giving has nearly doubled to $43 million since taking shape in 2013. In 2015, about half of its grantmaking went to education, a quarter to science, 12 percent to climate and clean energy, and the rest to trustee or other emerging interests.

“We believe there’s going to be continued growth. The family is really committed to the work that we’re doing, they’re committed to the foundation,” says CEO and President Deanna Gomby. 

ACS loves hearing about the successes of current and former clients. If you want to learn more about the capacity building, communication planning, and strategy development services ACS can offer your organization, please contact us!

On June 7^th, Advocacy & Communication Solutions, LLC, (ACS) successfully presented Little Rock’s Master Plan for Children, Youth, and Families to the city’s Board of Directors. For the past 18 months, ACS has helped the city of Little Rock, Ark., develop a Master Plan for Children, Youth, and Families that will guide City departments and its community partners to provide programs for at-risk youth. — That work was highlighted in a recent article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

“It’s important work,” City Manager Bruce Moore was quoted as saying. “I think it’s going to have a significant, positive impact on our city as we go forward.”

To create the new Master Plan for Children, Youth, and Families, the city of Little Rock turned to Advocacy & Communication Solutions, LLC (ACS). ACS joined with local partners, Philander Smith College’s Social Justice Institute and the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, as part of a consultant team to lead national best practice research, facilitation of local stakeholders, robust community outreach, and development of the Master Plan.

The three-year Master Plan for Children, Youth, and Families builds off an investment in positive youth development in the early 1990s by city leaders, called Prevention, Intervention, and Treatment, or “PIT”, funding.

The Master Plan provides the foundation for the next 10 years of programming for children and youth. When implemented, the Master Plan will create services that are more data-driven – paying attention to numbers and program success rates, for example – in meeting the needs of youths, increase the quality of programs, enhance communication about programs and services, focus on the future workforce and skills needed, and prioritize children and youths by giving them a more intentional voice in the programs and city leadership.

As a result of the Master Plan, Little Rock fully expects to create safer and healthier communities for families, and increase educational, employment and wellness opportunities for children and youth. ACS was honored to be part of the Master Plan process for the past 16 months, convening and working with local stakeholders in the city of Little Rock. You can view the Master Plan here.

There is an overwhelming amount of information out there about how to maximize the effectiveness of your email strategy.  Advocacy & Communication Solutions, LLC highlights the best of the best from CoSchedule Blog, Connectivity, and Salsa Labs.

From knowing the best days and times to send emails and how to create an engaging subject line, to increasing your open rate –it is all about raising awareness about your organization through your email with these tips!

1.     How do I get my audience to pay attention to my email?

Although the timing of your email matters, what you write in your email and how your message is delivered will help your audience notice it and take action. Consider the following tips:

• Write a catchy subject line. Your subject line should help your email get noticed so that your audience opens the email.
• State why this email matters to the audience. Relevance, not frequency, is the most influential factor in keeping contacts on your email list. If the content is relevant, your audience will appreciate the email.
• Personalize the email. When the emails address contacts individually by name, it is much more likely to get a response. If you are able to extract information about your contact’s personal preferences, send them emails that are relevant to those preferences. It could double your response rate!
• Remember to include a call to action. Include a next step or encourage a specific response, such as sending a letter to a public official, signing a petition, or reading new research to learn more.
• Use multiple channels to reach your audience and get noticed. Emails should be augmented with corresponding social media activity on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn alerting members to check their inboxes.

2.     Should everyone on my list receive all my emails? Ideally, you should segment your contact list based on audience preferences.

3.     What is the best day of the week to send email?

• Tuesday is the undisputed best day to email to your contacts.
• Thursday is also a good second day if you are sending two emails per week.
• Wednesday is an option if you are not able to finalize your content by Tuesday.

4.     What is the best time of day to send email?

• 10 a.m.-Late-morning send times are overall the most effective for getting your email noticed.
• 8 p.m.-midnight – Catch your audience as they are winding down at the end of the day.
• 2 p.m. – Your email may get noticed during a mid-afternoon break.

5.    How often should I communicate via email? As long as the content is relevant, you can send emails up to 6-10 times a month. Don’t rely on one-shot approaches, like only connecting with your audience to ask for money or to sign a pledge.  Communicate regularly and diversify your email content with your audience.   Be sure to send your updates about your organization, as well as making asks.

Advocacy and Communication Solutions, LLC provides comprehensive advocacy, strategy development, communication, and capacity building services to the non-profit, government, and foundation organizations.  To learn more about how we can help you maximize your communication efforts to meet your organization’s objectives, contact us.

Youngstown Early College (YEC), a Youngstown City School District high school on Youngstown State University’s campus that allows students to simultaneously earn a high school diploma and college credit, boasts a 100% high-school graduation rate, compared to the state’s average graduation rate of 82%. Students enrolled at YEC complete their high-school graduation requirements in two years instead of four, and spend their junior and senior years working toward a two-year associate’s degree from Youngstown State University or Eastern Gateway Community College (up to 60 college semester hours).

This year, 60% of YEC’s graduating class received an associate degree while simultaneously receiving a high-school diploma; this is a 53% increase from 2015. Currently, 56.4% of graduates go onto to receive their four-year degrees; 89% of graduates continue on with their higher education effort after their first year of college.

For the much-watched K-3 literacy measure, Youngstown City schools improved from a previous score of 47.8% to 64.2%, narrowly missing a B rating by 0.7%. All elementary schools improved at least one grade level or sustained their performance of a B or C rating. Paul C. Bunn Elementary earned an A on the K-3 literacy measure, one of only three schools to do so in the Mahoning Valley. Choffin Career & Technical Center earned an A in Technical Skill Attainment Measures.

Youngstown City Schools still has their work cut out for them but these data prove that they are well on their way to even more positive outcomes with this positive upward trajectory.

Advocacy & Communication Solutions, LLC (ACS) continues to work with Youngstown City School District and all of the districts in The Ohio 8 Coalition to advocate for collaborative solutions to improve academic performance, increase graduation rates, and close the achievement gap for urban children throughout Ohio.