Newsletter
New Project: Cash for Coloradans
Funded by the Urban Institute’s WorkRise initiative, “Cash for Coloradans” is a program to provide direct cash support to people participating in nonprofit career-readiness programs.
Funded by the Urban Institute’s WorkRise initiative, “Cash for Coloradans” is a program to provide direct cash support to people participating in nonprofit career-readiness programs.
Nationally, COVID-19 has highlighted the instability of relying on a small number of school counselors to guide hundreds of students through academics, prep them for the future and triage increasing mental health challenges.
The Colorado School Counselor Corps Grant Program (SCCGP) is intended to assist local education providers to access effective school counseling in order to increase graduation rates, decrease dropout rates, and increase rates of matriculation into institutions of higher education. SCCGP has shown promising results in achieving all of its stated goals over the past 10 years of implementation. The goal of this project is to develop a plan and prepare to conduct a rigorous evaluation of program effectiveness and measure the program’s ROI.
The successful creation of early care and education workforce data assets in Phase I led to an extension of Colorado Lab’s partnership with the Department of Early Childhood through the Federal Preschool Development Grant. This second phase of work will support the rebuild of the early childhood workforce registry data system and will fill in data gaps including postsecondary pathways of the workforce as well as a comprehensive look at wages and compensation.
As the nation celebrates the class of 2020 and the resilience of graduates during a worldwide pandemic, it can be easy to forget that some students face huge challenges to high school graduation even in “normal” times. Living in foster care can make school feel like a perpetual marathon. In Jefferson County, a program called Fostering Opportunities helps them cross the finish line.
This study is an extension of the Outcomes and Return on Investment of Concurrent Enrollment in Colorado project and addresses the concern that while nearly 75% of jobs in Colorado require some education beyond high school, only 66% of the state’s adult population has such qualifications. Using administrative data from state education agencies, this study informs the state’s understanding of the Concurrent Enrollment program as a driver of on-time credential completion (Associate’s or Bachelor’s degrees) and increased earnings.
Nationally, there is limited information on how many youth formerly in foster care go to college.This generates better data on postsecondary participation and persistence rates and offers insights into how to improve them. This project includes two studies: longintudinal analysis of state administrative data and phenomenological study of lived experiences of youth.
Smart state investments in dropout prevention can be informed by examining the outcomes of prior investments. This project looks back at data from a five-year federal grant called “Colorado Graduation Pathways (CGP)” to inform new state investments made under the Student Re-Engagement Grant Program.
The four-year graduation rate for Colorado students in foster care decreased substantially from the 2015-16 school year to the 2016-17 school year, from 33.2% to 23.6%. This study examines trends in state-level child welfare and education data to uncover possible explanations for this decline.
“Letting a thousand flowers bloom” is a frequently used phrase among funders allowing grantees the flexibility to innovate. However, a diversity of approaches can make it difficult to determine whether the funding has impacted the desired outcomes. This collaboration with the Colorado Department of Higher Education focused on balancing the need for flexibility among recipients of COSI funding with the General Assembly’s need for accountability in improving student outcomes, particularly postsecondary completion rates.