Learn to Earn Dayton: Creating Opportunities and Driving Economic Mobility
In Dayton, Ohio, a transformative movement is underway to create more opportunities for young people. Learn to Earn Dayton, a member of the StriveTogether Cradle to Career Network, is leading the charge by using data, fostering collaboration across the community, and shifting power and resources to achieve better, more equitable outcomes.
Building a Strong Civic Infrastructure
Learn to Earn Dayton has developed the region’s civic infrastructure - the connections between people, organizations, ideas, and initiatives that make transformation possible. This robust foundation has been instrumental in helping the community recover and advance. Leaders from various sectors, including businesses, civic organizations, healthcare, philanthropy, nonprofits, and education, are aligning their work to put more kids on the path to economic mobility.
In 2019, Learn to Earn Dayton, The Dayton Foundation, and the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission (MVRPC) convened partners to align efforts for racial equity, leading to the formation of the Institute for Livable and Equitable Communities at MVRPC. The Institute brings together elected officials, government partners, community organizations, funders, and more, joining forces to address structural racism and promote economic mobility.
Data-Driven Decision Making
Learn to Earn Dayton supports partners in using data to guide their work, track progress, and improve strategies. One such initiative is Preschool Promise, an organization that grew out of work initiated by Learn to Earn Dayton. Preschool Promise works to ensure every child has a strong start. Thanks to this initiative, the kindergarten readiness rate for Dayton and Montgomery County students has improved over gains seen statewide - the county saw a 4.7% increase in readiness for all students, while the state of Ohio saw just a .7% increase.
Preschool Promise’s focus on data is key to its success. The work involves regularly measuring targets to make informed decisions and test new strategies. The Preschool Promise team tracks the number of students enrolled in preschool, with a focus on students in neighborhoods with higher numbers of children of color and children experiencing poverty. Learn to Earn Dayton started the initiative in one district in 2014, and it now is a stand-alone organization with voter-approved public investment to support young learners across the region.
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Qualitative data and the lived experiences of community members also informed a policy that’s breaking down barriers to postsecondary success. This policy addresses “stranded credits” - course credits that a student can’t access because of an unpaid balance to the institution. This obstacle can prevent students with college debt from finishing their education. Learn to Earn Dayton partnered with other cradle-to-career organizations, higher education institutions, and the Ohio Department of Higher Education to build a solution. They developed policy recommendations with insights from a study that shared students’ experiences, including how debt kept them from accessing transcripts, applying for scholarships, or verifying their degrees for employment.
These policy recommendations, driven by data, resulted in the new Ohio College Comeback Compact, which offers debt forgiveness and transcript release for students who re-enroll at participating public colleges and universities in Northeast Ohio. This strategy is designed to reduce the disproportionate debt and lack of college completion among students of color and students experiencing poverty. Learn to Earn Dayton, the Ohio Department of Higher Education, and other regional partners will use what they learn to expand the pilot and present more recommendations for policy changes.
Collaborative Efforts for Equitable Outcomes
Across the Dayton region, partners test new strategies and expand on what works to get more equitable outcomes for kids. During the 2020-2021 academic year, student growth on reading and math scores slowed because of the challenges of remote learning and COVID-19. After examining the data, Dayton Public Schools implemented high-dosage tutoring across elementary schools, placing a second teacher in all classrooms focusing on numeracy and literacy.
The results were clear. In 2021-2022, average kindergarten math scores increased 22 points more than the year before. In second and third grade, scores went up, and average growth was higher than the projected growth based on national norms. Because of this success, the initiative is expanding. In the 2022-2023 academic year, schools added blocks for tutoring fourth, fifth, and sixth graders.
Early education milestones like math and reading are critical for postsecondary success, another focus of Learn to Earn Dayton. The Cradle to Career Network member is part of the Accelerate ED - 13th Year Pathway to Career Success design initiative, supported by an investment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Learn to Earn Dayton’s design team includes the Ohio Department of Education, the Ohio Department of Higher Education, higher education institutions, two school districts, community partners, the Ohio Mayors Alliance, and more. This team worked together over the course of a year to design a career pathways system to expand opportunities, improve connectivity, and accelerate attainment of postsecondary degrees. Student and family empathy interviews were a critical element of the process, with resulting feedback influencing the program design.
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Investing in the Community and Sustaining the Work
Learn to Earn Dayton is securing resources for the community and making sure that staff, partners, and community leaders have the skills and opportunities they need to keep making change. Learn to Earn Dayton and The Dayton Foundation are changing the culture of philanthropy in the region. Through a process called proximate grantmaking, community members took the lead on allocating $1.5 million in grant funding to community-rooted nonprofits in and serving Northwest Dayton. Community members created the request for proposals, reviewed applications, and determined what would be funded. The process has influenced the way local funders are thinking about future funding, transforming local philanthropy and making sure resources are directed by community priorities.
These changes are becoming embedded in the way the region works together. The civic infrastructure built by Learn to Earn Dayton is getting better, more equitable outcomes - meaning more young people have more opportunities to succeed.
BlackRock Foundation's Investment
The BlackRock Foundation announced a $1 million philanthropic commitment to Learn to Earn Dayton, a regional educational partnership focused on advancing student outcomes and driving economic mobility for students in Ohio. The funding will expand access to Learn to Earn Dayton’s PACCE program to eight school districts, providing middle and high school students with an in-school career navigator to support career pathway opportunities.
Learn to Earn Dayton’s PACCE program reaches students who haven’t opted for traditional trade school or clear postsecondary paths. By equipping students with more education and skills, they will be better positioned for long-term financial success.
Summer and Afterschool Collaborative
Understanding that a student’s academic success isn’t solely based on what happens in the classroom, Learn to Earn Dayton launched the Summer and Afterschool Collaborative in 2017. The SASC is pleased to welcome formal and informal out-of-school time program partners and organizations. The SASC serves to provide technical assistance, professional development, and data analysis to out-of-school partners, empowering our member agencies to focus on what they do best-serving students.
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One method is through the use of Learning Circle-a software system Learn to Earn Dayton provides to partner agencies, coordinating training and support. With caregiver permission, out-of-school programs are able to see how their interventions have a positive impact on student academic achievement, attendance, and behavior. Consistently, over the last three years, SASC students were more likely to reach the goal of 90% school attendance compared to the total student body.
STEM Opportunities
DO STEM Near Me is a free, user-friendly resource designed to help you quickly find and engage in various STEM events, projects, and programs in your community or online. The goal is to enable anyone, anywhere to participate in meaningful STEM activities, whether for recreational, educational, or professional purposes. These include events, field trips, camps/clubs, community projects, workshops, internships, professional development, conferences and more.
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