When America’s Promise talks about pathways, we’re often talking about the experiences, programs, or initiatives that help prepare young people for life after high school—often while they’re still in it. Since pathways are a key part of our GradNation Action Platform, and because it’s a term we use quite a lot, we think it’s worth exploring a little more.

I’ve spent the last 40 years watching the state I love divest in its future. The cuts to education budgets just kept coming.

In response to the passing of Former First Lady Barbara Bush, John Gomperts, president and CEO of America’s Promise Alliance released the following statement: “Yesterday, America lost a true champion

Adults often complain that kids today don't respect their elders. But what happens when it's the other way around? What if young people are the ones who are not getting the respect and dignity they need to be successful in school and life?

In September 2017, the GradNation campaign released the Acceleration Grant opportunity to fund state- and community-level proposals poised to graduate students who are currently less likely to graduate from high school. Out of 106 applications, we were encouraged to see that communities and states are using these four factors to inform their work.

It’s a common, easy thing to dismiss young people who demand a better world than the one they were born into as arrogant, spoiled, and even naïve. Yet the Parkland students and too many other young people like them have survived extreme trauma and emerged braver, wiser, and more mature than anyone should have to be at their age. That does make them entitled—to share their story, get an education without fearing for their lives, and, one would hope, have adults listen.

Much has been written about the problems with zero-tolerance discipline policies, but there’s another practice in Minnesota that contributes to school pushout without the attention: suspending or expelling students for “discretionary violations.” Under Minnesota Law, educators can dismiss youth if the “willful conduct...significantly disrupts the rights of others to an education.” There are a few major problems with this.

America’s Promise and Milton Hershey School call on schools and other organizations to better collaborate by establishing partnerships that share knowledge, teach essential workplace skills, and create lifelong role models for the young people who make up our next workforce. We all have an obligation to prepare young adults for the competitive global job market they will enter post-graduation.

For those of us who have worked on the GradNation campaign, the Ballou coverage has challenged us to reflect and question our own role in this story. What are the unintended consequences of setting an ambitious goal? How can we do better? What does this story, and the story of other schools now being investigated, mean for the broader story of our national progress?

We must all be willing to take the necessary steps to protect our most valuable and vulnerable resources or risk failing our young people.  

Before the page even finished loading, I felt sick to my stomach. I somehow knew I wouldn’t like what I was about to see. The first words I read were: “Sanah Jivani wears a wig. Let’s guess why.” My heart pounded and my palms began to sweat as so many tears filled my eyes that I could no longer read the screen. What was going on?

What is the biggest issue facing your community and what should be done about it? This is the question select Dunbar High students answered in a two-minute "Project Soapbox" speech in participation with the Mikva Challenge, an organization that develops youth to be empowered, informed, and active citizens. This story is an edited version of 10th grader Zarea Boyde’s speech. Boyde was a finalist at Mikva Challenge D.C.'s citywide Project Soapbox competition in December.