Aiming High

I've been working in the Executive Branch, so I can use that as the excuse for not haven't written at all here about activity in the other two branches of the federal government. However, a bill recently reintroduced in the Senate is too good to be mention. Sadly, it's very unlikely to become law in the foreseeable future (it has died in committee twice before), so it's a little too good to be true.

The Reengaging Americans in Serious Education by Uniting Programs Act (RAISE UP) is a dropout recovery bill that aims to help communities build cross-sector systems to support the 3-5 million disconnected youth across the nation. The Act would authorize the Secretary of Labor to work with the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development as well as the Federal Youth Development Council and the US Attorney General to award competitive grants to entities developing strategies to identify and support disconnected youth, with a particular focus on integration and community involvement.

Leveraging the resources of multiple organizations towards a shared vision has immense opportunity for impact. I'm currently working on a project to determine some of the overlap in federal funding in innovation and collaboration around youth development and school and career readiness. Really exciting programs are funded across a wide spectrum of federal agencies, including ones you might not think of as prioritizing education and youth workforce development. The benefits multiply when combined with local efforts like mayoral efforts through Cities of Service and impact volunteering supported by the Corporation's State Service Commissions. Then, there's the layer of philanthropic funding and non-governmental work from the large enterprises of Living Cities and Ready by 21 to smaller community-based organizations like Chicago's Eden Place Nature Center and Inspiration Cafe.

America's final space-shuttle launch may be this later week, but we definitely haven't finished dreaming of a future beyond the final frontier. Regardless of whether RAISE UP becomes law, cross-sector efforts with the support of the federal government will continue to take shape across the nation. The question is whether our legislators will demonstrate some leadership here instead of leaving much of the heavy lifting to community based organizations and philanthropists.