Empowering Futures

E M POW E R I N G F U T U R E S COWEN INSTITUTE AT TULANE UNIVERSITY 2015 IMPACT REPORT

On the cover: Upward Bound students (l to r) Rorey Prevost, Ziniece

Winfield, Sidney Pierre, Brittany Toldson, Jhanae James, and Trellis Powell

E M P O W E R I N G F U T U R E S: This is what drives

our work at the Cowen Institute. Our team is passionate about and committed to ensuring that young people experience success and have vibrant, fulfilling lives. We work to achieve our mission — advancing public education and youth success in New

Orleans and beyond — through conducting policy and research, leading strategic initiatives, and cultivating collaboration.

We EMPOWER FUTURES by encouraging systemic change, which our team leads through research and policy analysis. The topics of our policy briefs are exclusively related to education and youth issues. More than anything, we strive for our publications to be timely, relevant, and unbiased so that we can identify and implement solutions for the issues that are most pressing.

We EMPOWER FUTURES through initiatives such as the Upward Bound program and the Earn and Learn Career Pathways Program.

The inspiring youth who engage in these programs have meaningful experiences that put them on pathways to college and/or familysustaining careers and a trajectory to contribute to a better society.

We believe that we can be successful in our goal to EMPOWER FUTURES by developing strong partnerships across multiple sectors.

That’s why we work in close collaboration with youth service providers,

Warm regards,

schools, advocates, universities, businesses, government agencies, workforce development entities, and community leaders.

I am imbued with hope by the opportunities ahead for the Cowen Institute and for the youth of New Orleans. Your investment

Amanda Kruger Hill

helps to impact the lives of young people in profound ways, and

Executive Director

I am truly grateful.

Cowen Institute, Tulane University coweninstitute.com 3

PATRICK DOBARD, Recovery School District superintendent

In a decentralized and constantly evolving public education system like the one in New Orleans, Recovery School District Superintendent Patrick Dobard relies heavily on the Cowen Institute’s policy briefs and research publications to help inform the public about the critical issues related to the system as a whole, as well as schools and students. For example, the Cowen Institute released policy briefs in 2015 about the ever-evolving structure of school governance and the growth of New Orleans charter management organizations. Both reports provided relevant and timely information in an easily accessible manner; this is exactly what Superintendent Dobard expects from the Cowen Institute.

As an independent third party, the Cowen Institute is known for imparting information that is timely, relevant, and credible.

Superintendent Dobard commends the Cowen Institute’s expanding work to improve college and career readiness in students, such as the College and Career Counseling Collaborative, and says he expects to partner in the future to ready students for life after high school.

F I N D I N G S O LU T I O N S P R O V I D I N G H O P E10 In 2015, the Cowen Institute released

publications on such topics as public education in

New Orleans, Common Core, and apprenticeships.

“The Cowen Institute is a solutions-oriented entity. They

impact our work by being a validator, but also a responsible critic when applicable. They consistently come up

with solutions that help improve our work in the city.”

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SHAKENDRA CHRISTMAS, Earn and Learn Career Pathways Program

graduate, pictured (left) with Tulane mentor David Lauff

When 21-year-old Shakendra Christmas walked into the Cowen Institute in fall 2014, she carried a binder of six certifications proving she had the technical skills for professions in multiple fields. But she still met several obstacles to finding a good job with career prospects.

The Cowen Institute’s Earn and Learn Career Pathways Program gave her an experience that led to a full-time position.

The Earn and Learn Career Pathways Program provides opportunity youth who aren’t employed or enrolled in school, like Shakendra, a chance to work at Tulane, attend college courses, and learn critical life skills. Tulane’s Facilities Services department gave Shakendra on-the-job training, using an apprenticeship-style approach, and her supervisors fit her work hours around her class schedule.

Now, she works as a full-time maintenance engineer at the Hyatt.

It is a job she found after being surrounded by Tulane staff who really cared about her success.

More than

26,000

youth between

16 and 24 years old in the New Orleans area are

classified as opportunity youth, according to the

Cowen Institute’s Reconnecting Opportunity Youth:

2015 Data Reference Guide.

P R OV I D I NG HOPE

“There was always somebody willing to bend over backward for me. I didn’t want to let them down.

I was committed to making a change in my life.”

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B U I L D I N G PA R T N E R S H I PS JENNIFER ROBERTS, vice president of education grants at

Baptist Community Ministries and member of the Cowen Institute’s board of advisors

The Cowen Institute and Baptist Community Ministries have worked closely together to bring hope to New Orleans youth. Baptist Community Ministries (BCM), one of the largest private foundations in Louisiana, has been the anchor funder on much of the Cowen Institute’s policy and research on opportunity youth. Jennifer Roberts says BCM invests in the Cowen Institute because of its strengths as a neutral broker of this important work. Through BCM, Jennifer partnered with the Cowen Institute to conduct a scan of funding available for the opportunity youth population that has been an instrumental resource to the local community. She says that the Cowen Institute’s policy work has proven to be transformative.

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federal funding streams can be used to

serve opportunity youth identified by Accounting for Opportunity, the funding scan completed by

the Cowen Institute in partnership with BCM and the Forum for Youth Investment.

“I feel like we have the right people asking the right questions.”

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SHELDON JONES, associate director of technical support at Tulane University

“There was always somebody willing to bend over Sheldon Jones loves the part of his job that allows him to mentor

backward me. I didn’t to Learn let them I apprentices infor the Cowen Institute’swant Earn and Careerdown.

Pathways

Program.

The Earn Learn program young adults in in my was ready andand committed to places making a change apprenticeships in high-growth industries at Tulane, while also giving them an opportunity to receive technical and academic skills training.

life.”

PROVIDING HOPE

He and his staff take these young adults along when they provide technology support on Tulane’s campuses, whether trouble-shooting a printer or installing a new operating system. For the young people enrolled in the program, seeking a pathway to a stable career in a high-demand field, this hands-on training is crucial.

Sheldon believes that mentoring the Earn and Learn apprentices is good for Tulane — and for New Orleans. “Earn and Learn helps Tulane give back to the community that we serve. If you increase the workforce you also increase the validity of the city when it comes to economic growth, improving education, and reducing crime and poverty.

They are all intertwined.”

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I NSPI RI NG GROWTH Earn and Learn apprentices were served by

the Cowen Institute’s programming in 2015.

“There are a lot of youth out there who want to learn.

They just need the opportunity to be put in the right place with the right employer.”

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E X PA N D I N G H O R I ZO N S OCEION BARROW, high school senior at Warren Easton and

Upward Bound participant

For Oceion Barrow, the opportunity to be involved in the Cowen Institute’s Upward Bound program has opened her eyes to a world of possibilities. The after-school tutoring at Tulane’s uptown campus kept her focused on her future. Tulane undergraduates served as ideal role models, and trips to various colleges around the country showed her how big the world is and how many opportunities are available to her.

Like many of the students in Upward Bound, Oceion will be the first person in her immediate family to attend a four-year college. She hopes to study engineering at Georgia Tech.

In 2015, the Cowen Institute served

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Upward

Bound students. Upward Bound has a 100% high

school graduation rate, 100% college acceptance

rate and 88% college persistence rate, much higher

than the national average.

“I wouldn’t be the person I am without Upward Bound.

I wouldn’t have gotten as far as I’ve gotten.

It opened my horizons.”

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MELISSA EHLINGER, senior vice president for strategy and business

development at the New Orleans Business Alliance

“The Cowen Institute’s work is integral to linking young people to jobs, a necessity for growing the local economy,” says Melissa Ehlinger. She praises Cowen Institute staff members for seeking the guidance of the local business community when designing the Earn and Learn Career Pathways Program and for the policy briefings provided to the public about workforce development. “Doing that research and gathering data before making any decisions ensures that the Cowen Institute aligns its programs with jobs in growing industries.”

Melissa is closely aligned with the EMPLOY Collaborative, a group of organizations led by the Cowen Institute. EMPLOY coordinates education, training, and job placement services for youth, and its member organizations serve 2,000 opportunity youth.

T R A N S FO R M I N G L I V E S The Cowen Institute’s brief on the Workforce

Investment and Opportunity Act sparked an EMPLOY

Collaborative-led conversation about workforce

dollars and influenced the City of the New Orleans

to work more closely with service providers.

“The Cowen Institute provides a backbone role in this collective impact effort. I don’t think the work would come together in the way that it has without them.”

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MELISSA SAWYER, executive director of the Youth Empowerment Project (YEP)

Teens and young adults who aren’t working or enrolled in school can easily slip through the cracks and bounce between bureaucracies. For Melissa Sawyer, who leads the largest provider of alternative education services for opportunity youth in New Orleans, the Cowen Institute’s work documenting the scope of the disconnected youth population and identifying sustainable funding to support them has been invaluable.

The Cowen Institute released the 2012 and 2015 Reconnecting Opportunity Youth: Data Reference Guides, which provided extensive data analyses and examination of the disconnected youth population in the New Orleans area. The publications provided the overall number of opportunity youth who live in the area and placed that number in a national context. The findings were eye-opening: The Cowen Institute’s research highlighted that New Orleans has the third highest rate of opportunity youth of any major metro area in the United States.

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organizations are members of the EMPLOY

Collaborative. As the lead convener, the Cowen

Institute engages the groups across the multiple

PROVIDING HOPE M A K I N G A D I F F E R E NC E

systems, fields, and sectors that intersect with

opportunity youth in New Orleans.

“This has been an invisible population for far too long.

The Cowen Institute has really helped raise awareness of opportunity youth.”

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MONIQUE MILES, deputy director of the Aspen Forum for Community

Solutions at the Aspen Institute and a member of the Cowen Institute’s board of advisors

From her vantage point in Washington, D.C., Monique Miles sees the uniqueness of the Cowen Institute’s demand-driven work to reconnect youth who aren’t working or in school, called opportunity youth.

Through the Aspen Institute’s Opportunity Youth Incentive Fund, Monique partners with the Cowen Institute to implement its collective impact strategy. The Cowen Institute understands the importance of collective impact, bringing together a variety of people — individuals most affected by an issue, those who can change policies and laws, and the ones with resources — to achieve social change. “Each brings different vantage points to solve a problem.”

The Earn and Learn Career Pathways Program, which gives young people apprenticeships at Tulane, is unique because of its dual-customer approach — coming at the issue from the perspective both of the employer and the youth.

C R E AT I N G A V I S I O N 18%

“Because Tulane is so influential as an employer, of 16 to 24 year olds in New Orleans

are opportunity youth — the third highest in the country — according to the Cowen Institute’s

Reconnecting Opportunity Youth: 2015 Data

there is great potential to encourage other anchor

institutions to follow in its footsteps. That has

national implications for learning from the Tulane

Earn and Learn model.”

Reference Guide.

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“Increasing educational and job opportunities

for all young people is a moral imperative and absolutely essential to our future as a country.

The Cowen Institute is dedicated to this cause.”

DR. SCOTT COWEN, president emeritus and distinguished

university professor at Tulane University and chair of the Cowen Institute’s board of advisors

SCOTT S . COWEN INSTITUTE FOR PUB LIC E DUCAT IO N IN IT IAT IV E S

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