CCC Impact

In 2005, Minneapolis public high school graduation rates were seriously low. Budget cuts had decimated high school counseling staffs, with each counselor responsible for an average of 600 students. Only a patchwork of community-based interventions existed to fill that gap. Career and college advising was offered on a limited basis to eligible students, but no funding or infrastructure existed to provide the comprehensive guidance young people need to plan their futures.

Local civic leader Win Wallin, former CEO of Medtronic, understood that our city’s robust economy was a product of strong public schools. He convened a group of stakeholders–including AchieveMpls, the City of Minneapolis, Minneapolis Public Schools, and the Regional Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce—to build an affordable, comprehensive program capable of reaching all MPS students.

In November 2005 the group offered its recommendation: a district-wide network of Career & College Centers. Today AchieveMpls Career & College Centers can be found in all MPS high schools, equipped with a full bank of computers and staffed with a full-time coordinator. Two CCC coordinators work exclusively with six contract alternative schools.

The CCCs have built a powerful system of career and college exploration and readiness activities. In 2010-2011:

  • MPS students visited Career & College Centers over 67,000 times
  • CCC Coordinators provided individual assistance to 13,320 students, hosted 430 visits by college representatives to MPS high schools and organized 49 off-site college visits
  • Over 3,500 volunteer hours were logged by dedicated community members in our CCCs 

CCC_workchart_2011

Program Impact

AchieveMpls Career & College Centers were created to support all MPS students and help raise graduation rates district-wide. For that reason, we evaluate our success in this work in part by tracking rates of graduation and college-going for all MPS students, as well as rates of ACT-taking and college applications. These measures help us gauge whether increasing numbers of students are preparing for college while still in high school.

Since the launch of the CCCs:

  • District-wide graduation rates have risen from 53% to 78%*
  • College enrollment has risen from 48% to 63%
  • The rate of students taking the ACT has risen from 50% to 79%.

We are pleased with the upward trends we are seeing in our core indicators of success. Increasing the graduation rate by 25 points is a significant accomplishment, but 78% is not high enough for our youth, our community or our region’s economy. A 2010 report from the Georgetown Center for Education and the Workforce predicts that by 2018, 70% of all Minnesota jobs will require post-secondary education. In addition, when MPS shifts next year to reporting a new four-year graduation rate rather than the AYP rate currently mandated by federal law, the graduation rate will drop significantly, though the positive trend will remain.

AchieveMpls stands ready to continue and strengthen its commitment to ensuring that our youth get the information, support, and connections they need to meet the needs of the 21st Century economy. We are developing new strategies such as career pipelines to leverage the resources of the Career & College Centers and STEP-UP Achieve. These industry-specific pathways focus on high-wage employment opportunities in fields such as health care, STEM, legal services, financial services, media and communications and public service. They will create new opportunities for employers to collaborate with K-12 and college educators to offer students a year-round matrix of academic preparation, career exposure, mentoring, training, and work experience. This year Boston Scientific is piloting a STEM career pipeline, and a consortium of health care educators and employers is exploring how to provide a broader and deeper exposure to careers in the field.

In addition, the Career and College Centers are participating with Minneapolis Public Schools in the national FAFSA Project, a pilot project to increase FAFSA completion by tracking individual students’ completion rates in real time.  AchieveMpls is also working with the MPS Secondary team to identify more precise college readiness indicators, and we are improving our data collection mechanisms to better track individual student usage of the CCCs and other college and career resources.

Preparing our young people to succeed in school, work and life is the best investment we can make in our city’s health and vitality. We invite you to join us in this vital work as a volunteer, community partner or donor.

* Calculation for graduation rates will be changing in Spring 2012 because of federal mandates, so these numbers will change.

Learn more about AchieveMpls Career & College Center work in 2011 (pdf 1.31 MB)