Corporation for Public Broadcasting

“American Graduate: Let’s Make It Happen” is CPB’s multiplatform, five-year initiative to help communities reduce the number of students who fail to graduate within four years of entering a public high school: more than 1.3 million each year. CPB’s $15 million investment in efforts to address this national crisis could make a significant contribution to revitalizing the economy, reducing crime rates nationwide and enhancing the nation’s competitiveness in the global marketplace. (Unless on-time graduation rates increase, nearly 12 million students will likely drop out during the next decade, resulting—if they never complete high school—in a loss to the nation of $1.5 trillion in earnings over the course of their lifetimes.)

To address the crisis, CPB harnessed the creative energy of 67 stations and more than 800 partner organizations to accomplish two goals: One, raise awareness, both of the crisis and of what people can do about it, by creating national and local media content, both on air and online, about all facets of the issue. Two, engage and empower at-risk students through community collaborations and classroom resources.

Working in tandem with 25 hub stations serving markets with some of the worst graduation rates in the country are 41 additional stations that received National Center for Media Engagement community-engagement grants for outreach or productions customized to the education needs of their own communities. Their efforts include the following:

Local partnerships: Stations have engaged more than 800 national and community-based partners to mobilize community involvement and action.

Local content: Stations have produced, aired and streamed local content and PSAs to increase awareness and understanding.

Local forums: Stations are hosting teacher town halls, community forums and screenings, and business leader meetings to generate dialogue on how to resolve the local dropout crisis. Already, 12 teacher town hall meetings drew more than 1,200 educators to discuss the crisis, the challenges they face and possible solutions. On American Graduate Day—Sept. 22, 2012—participating pubcasters were to bring the discussion to a much wider audience through a live, seven-hour telethon produced by WNET New York Public Media with 20 national partner organizations.

Local volunteerism: Stations are connecting mentors with at risk-students through internships, career fairs and volunteer fairs to help keep them on the path to graduation.

Teacher professional development: Stations are empowering local teachers with professional development and digital classroom resources to help engage at-risk students.

Parental connection: Stations are empowering parents with knowledge and tools to help keep their children on track to graduation.

In collaboration with the initiative, StoryCorps will launch StoryCorps U in several communities with high dropout rates throughout the nation. StoryCorps U is a school-year-long, scalable college-readiness program that uses StoryCorps interview methods and stories to educate, engage and inspire middle school and high school students. The goal is to use StoryCorps interview methods to motivate students to reflect on their own lives, empowering them to develop and communicate personal goals through the creation of media and strengthening their skills and habits—including critical thinking and analysis—that are closely related to college and career success. StoryCorps U will also seek to enhance family involvement in participating students’ educational lives. This project is also intended to develop a model for partnerships between educational institutions and public radio stations serving as public media community hubs across the country. StoryCorps introduced the StoryCorps U curriculum in St. Louis, New York and Washington, D.C., working closely with 18 classes of students during the 2011–2012 school year.