Grad Nation: A Guidebook to Help Communities Tackle The Dropout Crisis
America's Promise Alliance recently commissioned Grad Nation, a new tool comprising the best evidence-based practices for keeping young people in school paired with suggestions for effectively preparing them for life after high school.
With generous support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grad Nation was written by Robert Balfanz, associate professor at Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University; and John Bridgeland, president and CEO, Civic Enterprises.
It is a guidebook that provides a road map to help communities tackle the dropout crisis. It is designed to help communities develop tailored plans for keeping students on track to grade from high school and prepare for college, work and life. The guidebook is a natural outgrowth of our local summit work to ensure that solutions are developed to put our youth on a path to success.
Grad Nation also includes ready-to-print tools and links to additional online resources, in addition to research-based guidance. It provides information and tools for developing and implementing a customized program that’s right for individual communities.
On the left side of each page, the user will find valuable information on the topic being discussed. This is accompanied by “A Deeper Look,” which are references to online resources that provide more information.
On the right side of each page are suggestions for specific action — what you can do — along with links to tools to help get the job done. These tools, identified by a symbol, include:
- informational handouts to build support for community action
- forms and tables to help you organize and analyze local data
- charts to guide your decision making
At the end of the guidebook, the user will find a list of organizations that can provide additional assistance.
Access the Grad Nation guide book
We made the first edition of Grad Nation available in November 2008, and invite initial feedback through the end of the year. The authors will review and consider all submitted comments in early January, in preparation for a hard launch of the revised Grad Nation in early February 2009.
Please use the following form to submit feedback:
Download Grad Nation Feedback Form