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Adult and Community Learning Services

Pathways to Success by 21 (P-21)

Q: What is the mission of P-21? A: P-21 seeks to dramatically improve the future prospects for vulnerable youth across the Commonwealth-those aged 16-24, who are out-of-school, without diplomas, unemployed, or without the necessary skills to access good careers and to become productive citizens. P-21 is designed to:

• Increase the number of vulnerable young people succeeding in secondary school, postsecondary education and training, and the labor market.
• Decrease disparities along key indicators for ethnic minority, low income, foster and court involved youth.
• Re-align state and local resources and programs to more effectively serve youth.
• Create new investments in vulnerable youth from federal and foundation sources.

Q: What's the problem P-21 is trying to address? A: The Commonwealth is "losing" a significant number of its young people. This weakens our future workforce, threatens our economic future, and harms the social and economic health of the local communities in which these youth live.

Q: What has P-21 accomplished thus far? A: Since September 2003, an ad-hoc group of state-level organizations has been meeting to articulate the problem and propose possible solutions. On March 3, 2004, David Driscoll, the Commissioner of Education, and Jane Edmonds, the Director of the Department of Workforce Development convened a meeting of other commissioners and executives of state youth organizations to discuss P-21. The group united around P-21's mission and agreed to kick launch the initiative at a statewide forum in November 2004. In addition, P-21 has:

• commissioned the Center for Labor Market Studies to publish data that give us a snapshot of current youth "outcomes" in education, income, employment, and social measures at the state and regional levels;
• set the stage for negotiating short-term agreements among state agencies to improve coordination of services for vulnerable youth;
• been working with state officials to provide FY05 planning grants to communities committed to improving services for vulnerable youth; and
• met with national foundations about investing in P-21 at the state and community levels.

Q: What are the near-term objectives for P21 given what has been accomplished so far? A: Commonwealth Corporation, as the agency staffing this initiative, is responsible for moving this initiative forward statewide. In addition to holding a statewide P-21 Summit scheduled for November 16, 2004 in Worcester, Commonwealth Corporation intends to accomplish the following objectives between now and June 2005:

• Work with local communities across the state to benchmark and plan for addressing the issues raised by P-21, focusing on small and disconnected efforts across the state that show promise but lack scale.
• Further develop state level and business community commitment to and action in addressing the barriers to success faced by vulnerable youth.
• Identify the state and local level political, legal and operational barriers to successfully working with vulnerable youth and potential solutions to these barriers.
• Begin raising funds for a 3-5 year commitment to redeveloping workforce development and social service systems to work more effectively for vulnerable youth in the Commonwealth.