Resources

Equitable Value: Promoting Economic Mobility and Social Justice through Postsecondary Education

The push to improve postsecondary education as a path to opportunity has evolved over the past generation – from a focus on expanding access to expanding access and success and making both more equitable. Now is the time to extend that focus to include value – the returns to students and society.

The Postsecondary Value Commission has tapped newly available data and insights to propose a new approach for measuring the value of education after high school and to recommend actions that college and university leaders, state and federal policymakers, and students and families can take to improve those returns and make them more equitable.

Youth with Autism Benefit from Services that Improve Transitions to Adulthood

Youth with autism face particular challenges as they become adults. New research supported by the Autism Speaks Foundation showed that even though most youth with autism and their families received at least some transition and support services prior to their enrollment in the federal initiative, Promoting Readiness of Minors in Supplemental Security Income (PROMISE), many did not receive key services like case management, employment services, benefits counseling, or financial education. Mathematica’s study of the impact after 18 months of PROMISE on youth with autism include key findings.

The Community Ecocycle in Place-Based Systems Change: A Tool for Funder and Community Reflection and Action

This tool is intended to help funders who have elected to invest in place-based systems change efforts in two ways. First, funders can use this tool to consider the dynamic, natural, and necessary developmental phases through which communities move. Second, the tool can help funders engage with communities to co-design investment approaches that better match communities’ current and future assets and needs based on their developmental phase.

SHSF Public Transit Map

The SHSF Public Transit Map offers a first look at public transportation accessibility at America’s community and technical colleges. Should a student need a car to get to community college? Transit infrastructure is a critical component of community college access and affordability, but the absence of national analysis has hampered support for students.

Through the SHSF Public Transit Map, our team has produced a national analysis of transit accessibility at community and technical colleges. The (in)accessibility of community colleges via public transportation is a key equity issue that cuts across transit, workforce development, and higher education.

20 Years of Youth Power: The 2020 National Youth Organizing Field Scan

Since its inception 20 years ago, the Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing (FCYO) has served to connect youth organizing practitioners, funders, and stakeholders to a wide range of resources designed to strengthen the field of youth organizing. As part of its major contributions, FCYO routinely publishes scans of the youth organizing field. FCYO Field Scans provide a wide-angled view of the youth organizing field at a particular moment in time, contextualized in the field’s history and accompanied by a forecast of where the field’s contributions might lead in coming years.

Your Youngest Learners: Increasing Equity in Early Intervention

Early intervention is the key to setting children with delays and disabilities on a path to long-term success. Yet children of color face barriers to accessing these services.

Early intervention services are funded through a complex blend of federal, state, and local sources, and are part of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). States have to make difficult decisions about how to fund critical IDEA services, including early intervention services, because Congress vastly underfunds IDEA. This often results in stricter eligibility requirements and other cost-saving measures that sometimes lead to a decrease in the number of children receiving services.

There are several strategies states can use to address systemic racial inequities in the health and education systems in which early intervention services take place. In this report, we identify the strengths of state approaches and opportunities for increasing equity in providing early intervention services.