Raise DC Baseline Report Card

Raise DC, a “cradle-to-career partnership” recently released a baseline report (PDF download) identifying metrics used to evaluate the success of children moving through the education system. Additionally, the the report,

[...] also establishes a baseline so that the entire community knows precisely where we are and where we want to go as we work together to continuously improve how we support success for young people in the District, from cradle to career. Most importantly, it articulates our public commitment to you, to our children, and to our city.

Raise DC’s five overarching goals are to ensure that every child can:

1. Enter kindergarten meeting expected academic and developmental benchmarks,
2. Graduate from high school within 4 years,
3. Attain a post-secondary educational credential,
4. Reconnect to education/training if they have already dropped out of school, and
5. Engage in job experiences that will prepare them for a career.

So far, baselines have been established for some of the major indicators relating to the above goals, including:
Percentage of students graduating from high school in four years
Baseline: 61%; Target: 75% by 2017
Number of low-income youth ages 16-24 who are not in school and not employed
Baseline: 9,910; Target: 7,000 by 2014
Percentage of UDC-CC students age 24 or younger who complete a certificate program within two years
Baseline: 56%; Target: 60% by 2015
Percentage of DC residents ages 20-24 who are employed full-time
Baseline: 41.6%; Target: 66% by 2017
We’re excited about Raise DC’s goals and baseline report, and look forward to covering its progress in the future.

David Backes writes the Friday news roundup for Reclaiming Futures and contributes articles about juvenile justice reform and adolescent substance abuse treatment to ReclaimingFutures.org. He has a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Santa Clara University. David works as an account executive for Prichard Communications.