Multiple Pathways to Graduation
One of New York City’s more innovative educational programs benefiting youth in and emerging from foster care is Multiple Pathways to Graduation, an initiative designed to expand the options and resources available to youth between 16 and 21 (this informational packet says 15 to 21) who have already demonstrated difficulty in completing high school. These are the students whom the Office of Multiple Pathways to Graduation (OMPG) designates as “overage and undercredited”—those who are at least two years off-track relative to their age and credit accumulation toward a high school diploma. This population includes not only truants, but also students with learning disabilities, English language learners, teen mothers, and of course, foster youth. (The CEO has other programs designed specifically for youth who have fallen into the juvenile justice system.)
Bloomberg’s Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO), whose mission it is to reduce poverty in the city (and which also implemented CUNY ASAP), established Multiple Pathways in close partnership with the DOE (then helmed by Joel Klein). The OMPG has discovered that a staggering 48% of incoming freshmen become overage and undercredited during high school. This is alarming, given that even students who come into high school well-prepared, but who run into problems and fall behind, graduate at lower rates. The following statistics are from 2007: “Only 19% of over-age and under-credited students ultimately receive a high school diploma or GED if they stay in high school; 6% of these graduates receive a Regents diploma, while 20% receive a GED.” The OMPG further estimates that there are “nearly 138,000 young adults between the ages of 16 and 21 in New York City who have dropped out of school or are significantly off-track for graduation. […] Of the 138,000 youth that are over-age and under-credited, 70,000 of them are in school, and 68,000 have already dropped out.” (Appendix B, 116)
As the name suggests, Multiple Pathways offers students, in addition to the option of re-enrolling in their high school of origin, a variety of alternative paths toward either a high school diploma or a GED, along with a career preparation component. The path the student ultimately takes depends on his/her age, credits already accumulated, schedule flexibility, and career goals. The options (especially for the GED programs) are a bit confusing, and they also seem to vary depending where you look for information, but I will summarize what I’ve gleaned so far below: (more…)