It was the first-ever cancellation of grants for , a federal program that has helped disadvantaged students across the U.S. enter college and graduate since 1964. While a district court judge recently ruled the Trump administration’s move illegal, TRIO staff and advocates say the loss of funds is hindering thousands of students’ chances to have a successful future after high school.

More than at various colleges around the country shuttered after the Trump administration canceled in September. The , which represents 1,000 colleges and nonprofits that participate in TRIO, sued the government weeks later.

“TRIO comes under existential threat about once every 10 to 15 years,” said Kimberly Jones, the council’s president. “Even during the first Trump administration, there were calls for cuts to the program. But this is the first time we’ve seen grants canceled within our programs and canceled without going through the due process that should be afforded to them.”

In January, a district court judge of the council and the administration to reconsider the grants for colleges that joined the lawsuit. Jones said the government still needs to comply and that there’s no timeline for when funding might be restored. 

The Trump administration canceled funding for a variety of local TRIO , including Talent Search, which exposes students in grades 6-12 to colleges and future career options, and assists high schoolers with college entrance exams, financial counseling and tutoring. Funding for Upward Bound, which brings high schoolers to universities for intensive courses during the school year, was also halted. The other half of TRIO’s services are programs for college students, veterans and adult learners.

In 1980, TRIO was standardized in the and Congress mandated that two-thirds of participants come from low-income families in which neither parent graduated from college. The organization currently serves around 875,000 students in 3,500 programs.

Jones said the affected programs were targeted because of the federal government’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion. Some were flagged solely because staff worked from university DEI offices.

The University of California Berkeley’s Talent Search program closed last fall, affecting more than 1,500 students from 14 public schools.

“My team had already gone into schools, done introductory meetings, created workshops, and we had already started helping seniors with their college applications and everything,” said Keyanna Hatcher, the university’s TRIO director. “The immediate pause on the program was completely detrimental to everything that we had already established with our school sites and partnerships.”

Seniors were in the middle of completing college applications when Talent Search shuttered. Low-income and first-generation students were suddenly without key resources before applications were due Nov. 30 — the deadline for California state universities. 

Middle school students lost access to STEM projects and university visits. Ninth graders no longer have TRIO workshops on how to be competitive for college. Berkeley staffers who were a permanent fixture in local middle and high schools are gone. 

“We were actually helping to supplement school staff, because some of our schools have counselors with caseloads of 700 students,” Hatcher said. “We were taking some of that load off and were helping meet with students so that they actually get more individual attention.”

The University of New Hampshire closed its Talent Search program in October after losing grant money, affecting more than 1,200 students from sixth to 12th grades in 29 schools. Close to a dozen staffers who worked with students in their schools were fired.

“It’s going to affect how many students are applying to colleges here in New Hampshire,” said Jes Crowell, the university’s TRIO director. “They aren’t going to have the assistance from (the staff) who normally sit down with them and help them apply, help them with financial aid and scholarships. That’s just not going to be done.”

Nearly 68% of Talent Search students enroll in college immediately after high school, compared with 56% of low-income students not in the program, according to a 2022 report. Upward Bound produces similar positive , with 74% of the 19,549 participants who graduated high school in 2022 enrolling in college. 

The report shows that nearly 43% of Upward Bound students in 2022 received a bachelor’s degree within six years, compared with 11% of low-income students not in the program.

Junior Angelina Dang said she had never imagined a future that included college until she joined Upward Bound two years ago through South Seattle College in Washington state. As a first-generation student, Dang figured she’d enter the workforce right after high school, like the rest of her family.

“Coming from a low-income family, if I hear other low-income families are telling me that this is helping them, I’m obviously interested,” she said. “When I first joined, I was like, ‘This isn’t probably going to help me.’ But I’ve had so much support — I know what I want to do for my future. I know what I need to do for my future.”

Dang said South Seattle College’s TRIO office has provided food that her family can’t buy, staff who support her through decisions about her college future and academic services that have improved her skills in the classroom. 

South Seattle College — which lost funding for its adult learner TRIO services — is where she takes dual-enrollment courses through Upward Bound. The program also helped her visit potential colleges. She plans to transfer to the University of Washington to pursue studies in wildlife biology.

“The support of being able to be at South Seattle College and also visit other schools — it was like, there’s a world outside of high school,” she said. “I don’t want to exaggerate, but I think if I never joined Upward Bound, I don’t know where I would be.”

But after this weekend, when President Donald Trump Bowen, who specializes in primary care pediatrics, fears a new obstacle: her patients might lose access to the publicly funded health insurance that makes her work possible.

“Before they had insurance, but then they couldn’t get to the provider,” Bowen said. “Now you’ll have providers coming out — but they won’t have the insurance.”

Experts say Bowen’s concerns are not unfounded. The sweeping, which Republicans pushed through Congress last week without any Democratic votes, will cut federal spending on Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program benefits by $1.02 trillion and increase the number of uninsured Americans by 7.8 million people over the next decade, according to estimates by the nonpartisan

Cuts to the Medicaid budget will have “just tremendous impacts,” Bowen added. Schools receive about $7.5 billion annually from , a popular joint federal and state health program that insures nearly 70 million Americans, most of whom are low income. For more than 30 years, it’s paid for services in schools for students with disabilities as well as low-income students.

If all provisions in the bill are enacted, it will lead to enrollment drops in the , which provides low-cost health coverage to children in families that earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid, and a $125.2 billion reduction in Medicaid by 2034, the Budget Office predicted, though it’s not clear just how many kids would be impacted. 

The cuts will come through a variety of mechanisms over the next decade, ranging from immediately enacted provisions that curb states’ ability to raise their share of Medicaid funding to new federal limits on eligibility — including work requirements for parents of kids 14 years or older — which will go into effect in 2027. These, in particular, could harm children, who are less likely to be covered themselves if their parents lose access, according to Anne Dwyer, an associate research professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families.

“Like many, we’re still unpacking exactly what this will mean for states and for individuals covered by Medicaid and for students in schools,” Dwyer said. “Some of these cuts are immediate and some go into effect over time.” 

Republican lawmakers, though, argue they’re actually Medicaid recipients by removing undocumented immigrants and others they say never should have had access in the first place.

While there weren’t any provisions in the bill that directly slash school-based Medicaid services, the 20-plus Medicaid provisions it does include will ultimately place immense financial pressure on states to make up for the lost funds, which will have trickle-down impacts on schools, according to Dwyer.

In response, states will either have to raise taxes, or make further cuts within their Medicaid programs — the more likely option, Dwyer said. They could also look to backfill budget shortfalls by slashing other school-based programs.

“It’s just hard to imagine a scenario where states are faced with these levels of cuts, and individuals across the program aren’t impacted,” she said. 

School-based Medicaid makes up less than 1% of the overall program’s budget, but is still the fourth-largest federal funding stream for districts and allows them to pay for a swath of resources, including therapies for students with disabilities, school nurses, mental health care and specialized equipment, such as wheelchairs. 

The loss of funds will significantly impact how schools are able to cover mandatory services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, according to Mia Ives-Rublee, the senior director for the at the Center for American Progress, a left-of-center think tank.

Kids who are eligible for Medicaid through expansions or waivers — state-based mechanisms that widen access to some people who wouldn’t normally qualify — are particularly at risk of losing services, since their eligibility isn’t required by federal law, said Ives-Rublee. 

But, she added, children will largely remain more protected than adults since a number of pediatric services are mandated at the federal level, including preventative screenings, check-ups and vision and hearing services. 

Still, if fewer children are enrolled in Medicaid overall, it will reduce the pool of money that goes towards school-based services leading to fewer resources and providers.

“What we will start seeing, and what we’ve seen in previous states, is that there will be a chunk of people who will just lose eligibility … because they either don’t get the information about the new paperwork requirements, they don’t understand that they now have to do check-ins twice a year [to determine eligibility vs. once a year] … and they might miss a recertification process,” Ives-Rublee added.

The changes could also result in fewer social workers or school-based psychologists and decreased access to health care — especially in rural and urban communities, according to a opposing any proposed cuts that was spearheaded by the Medicaid in Schools Coalition and signed by 65 organizations.

of districts use Medicaid funding to pay for the salaries of health professionals, according to 2017 data. And — 40 million — are now insured through Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

In Alabama, where Bower sees patients, over are enrolled in these programs.

“If you put all the kids in the country together, they’re the largest group of impoverished people,” said Bowen, who also serves as the president of the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, “and they have no political voice … They rely on adults to hopefully do the right thing so that they can grow up and be healthy and contribute to this country …. but if they’re sick, they’re hungry, they can’t be educated. It’s an all-around impact.”

These impacts will be challenging to track, though, as they play out over the next decade, experts warn — especially less tangible ones like the amount of time states will spend trying to untangle how to implement the bill’s complex provisions.

“We’re in for a long haul here,” said Dwyer. “A lot of these changes aren’t going to be overnight. They’re going to be over the next months and years to come. And so I think just documenting what’s happening, what’s working [and] where pressures are coming up will be really important.”

The , signed by 65 organizations, was spearheaded by the Medicaid in the Schools Coalition, which advocates to protect and improve school-based Medicaid programs, which primarily serve students with disabilities and those living in poverty.

“Any cuts to Medicaid would reduce care for children with disabilities, undermine efforts to address the mental health crisis and exacerbate workforce shortages of school health providers,” said Jessie Mandle, the national program director at the and coalition co-chair. “Strong school-based Medicaid programs … rely on a strong Medicaid program overall, and so cutting Medicaid is equivalent to cutting school district budgets.”

Schools receive about $7.5 billion annually from , a popular joint federal and state health program that insures nearly 70 million Americans, most of whom are low-income. For more than 30 years, it’s paid for services in schools for students with disabilities as well as low-income students.

While President Trump said this week that Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security would in the GOP’s quest to deliver $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and beefed-up border security, in Medicaid funding decreases are being eyed in the House.

School-based Medicaid makes up less than 1% of the overall program’s budget, but is still the fourth-largest funding stream for districts and allows them to pay for a swath of resources, including therapies for students with disabilities, school nurses, mental health care and specialized equipment, such as wheelchairs. 

of districts use Medicaid funding to pay for the salaries of health professionals, according to 2017 data. New data forthcoming from The Healthy Schools Campaign suggests that the number is now even higher, Mandle told ����Ӱ��. 

And — 40 million — are now insured through Medicaid or the , which provides low-cost health coverage to children in families that earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid. Previous that improving children’s health improves their classroom performance.

Meanwhile, the political confusion over whether Medicaid will be protected has done little to quell anxiety that the funding might be in jeopardy. 

A Feb. 19 statement to from White House spokesperson Kush Desai attempted to reconcile Trump’s comments shielding Medicaid with his support for the proposed House budget that targets it: “The Trump administration is committed to protecting Medicare and Medicaid while slashing the waste, fraud, and abuse within those programs — reforms that will increase efficiency and improve care for beneficiaries.”

Any spending caps or reductions to the federal match would shift the bulk of the mandated costs of providing health care coverage to states, according to the coalition’s letter. This could have “devastating” effects, leading to a cut in services for all students — not just those with disabilities — or increased local taxes. 

On the ground, this could result in fewer social workers or school-based psychologists, decreased access to health care — especially in rural and urban communities, a loss of critical supplies that allow children with disabilities to access the same curricular as their peers and noncompliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the coalition states.

“We have a very underfunded special education system,” said Sasha Pudelski, director of advocacy at and coalition co-chair, “and this Medicaid reimbursement is a critical source of funding.”

“Trying to find the money within our local education budget to fill in gaps where Medicaid currently reimburses districts would be — in this funding environment in particular — an enormous challenge,” she continued.

Silvia Yee, policy director at the , which co-signed the letter, said it’s particularly important that many of these health-related services are available in schools because they are widely trusted community hubs and family touchpoints. 

The burden of cuts would be felt particularly by vulnerable families, she added: “The more you reduce the available resources to a lower-income family, the more you’re potentially digging a pit for that family, and it’s very hard to dig out of.”

Yee also noted that a rollback in federal funding could make it more challenging for students with disabilities to learn in an integrated setting with their peers, setting them up for “segregation for the rest of their lives.”

“All of these services can and should work together to help us achieve integration that’s not a burden on teachers [and] not a burden on schools,” she said. “Helping take care of children’s medical needs in school is a step forward. Taking that away is such a step backward.”

Fortunately, federal funding structures include a little-used tool for sustaining student support programs. , which provides billions in funding for schools serving low-income students, includes allowing states to set aside up to 3 percent of their allocations for direct student services, including and other high-impact interventions. This funding could be a lifeline to the all-too-recently defunded programs making the on the most . 

This provision requires no new funding yet remains largely untapped. Policymakers and education leaders have long pointed to the 3% state set-aside in Title I as a way to sustain critical interventions, but few states have taken full advantage of it. Instead, they simply add it to the money they share with districts.

But with pandemic-era funds largely depleted and budgets tightening, this overlooked mechanism offers a rare opportunity: preserving the programs that have made the greatest impact without forcing districts into painful trade-offs.

For now, Title I appears to be a stable source of federal funding, with regular increases each year. Even when the Trump administration moved to halt federal funding last month, Title I stayed online. Since 1980, allocations to districts have grown by an average of 4.2% a year. This steady rise creates a practical opportunity: A state could allocate its full 3 percent set-aside for direct student services while still increasing district funding, at least in nominal dollars.

For example, if all states had reserved the complete 3% entitled in 2023, they would have had $552 million to continue supporting direct student services and still raised allocations to districts by $639 million. And 2023 allocations weren’t an anomaly. As Figure 1 shows, growth exceeds 3% in most years, with 24 of the past 43 years surpassing this mark and 11 others showing growth below 3%.

However, even looking at the worst years for Title I growth, it is still feasible to build toward the 3% allocation over a series of years. A state could gradually build up to that level, taking 1% initially and then additional shares in two subsequent years. The transition would be helped by the fact that a districts’ Title I allocations fluctuate from year to year reflecting changes in the U.S. Census Bureau estimates of the number of eligible children in each district.

Ohio is already leveraging the set-aside allocation with its grant. The program directs funding toward high-dosage tutoring, advanced coursework, career pathways, personalized learning, and academic acceleration, aligning with local improvement plans to improve student outcomes. 

Districts have leveraged this grant funding to introduce Advanced Placement and College Credit Plus courses, expanding access to high-level curriculum that were previously out of reach. At the same time, the grant has helped establish career pathways that expose students—some as early as middle school—to high-demand industries, giving them a head start on college and career readiness. 

These investments not only accelerate learning but also work to close long-standing opportunity gaps, illustrating the potential of targeted Title I set-aside spending to drive meaningful change.

Beyond successful state examples, the Council of Chief State School Officers has published a addressing the logistics of implementing the set-aside allocations. The guide also details how, with proper planning and careful communication, states can use this money as a powerful lever for filling gaps in critical supports, like intensive tutoring and wraparound services. Done right, this is more than just financial maneuvering; it’s a blueprint for how federal education policy can be both ambitious and effective.

The expiration of the $190 billion in federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding marks a natural transition, but it need not mean the end of direct student services, such as tutoring programs, that have proven valuable to mitigating pandemic-era learning loss. 

By leveraging year-over-year increases in Title I funding, states can establish a sustainable mechanism to continue these services without reducing district budgets. This approach balances our commitment to students with our responsibility to districts, ensuring that we move forward in a way that is both effective and equitable.

The end of ESSER doesn’t have to mean the end of targeted academic support. But making the most of existing resources requires political will. The question is whether states will act before students fall even further behind.

Wisconsin School Nutrition Association President Kaitlin Tauriainen says her goal has always been to feed every student.

“It seemed impossible for years, and then COVID happened,” said Tauriainen, who has worked in school nutrition for about 14 years and is also part of the Wisconsin Healthy School Meals For All Coalition. During the pandemic, the U.S. Department of Agriculture implemented waivers that allowed schools across the country to serve free meals to all children. “Basically, we were forced into doing it, which was fantastic, and really proved that we were capable and that it was better — like we thought it was going to be.”

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Tauriainen, who works as the child nutrition coordinator for the Ashwaubenon School District in Brown County, said there were less behavioral issues for the district then. She had observed earlier in her career at another school district how improved behavior could be the result of ensuring kids have access to food. She recalled a student who was eating free breakfast and free lunch, but still reported being hungry. Attending a different school that gave him more flexible access to food helped improve his situation, she said.

“He was so hungry all the time that he was just angry and causing disruptions. When they moved him to the charter school that gave him a little more flexibility and freedom to go make himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich whenever he was hungry, he turned into a completely different kid,” Tauriainen said. “That’s what some of the teachers were seeing during COVID as well.”

The federal universal school meals program expired in June 2022 after Congress decided not to extend it. Ashwaubenon School District now charges students who don’t qualify under current guidelines for lunches, but it is able to provide breakfast to all students.

Limiting behavioral problems is just one potential benefit of adopting universal school meals that Tauriainen and other advocates detailed to the Examiner. Other benefits include filling in gaps for students who may need the meals but don’t — or can’t — participate. Advocates say universal meals would level the playing field for students and ensure everyone has access to nutritious meals.

Last month, Department of Public Instruction Superintendent Jill Underly visited Kenosha Unified School District to propose that Wisconsin join to all students.

Under her proposal, Wisconsin would dedicate an additional $290 million per biennium so students, regardless of their families’ income, are eligible for free breakfast and lunch. Her proposal includes an additional $21 million to support other aspects of school nutrition. Those include funding to expand participation in the school breakfast program to independent charter schools, residential schools and residential childcare centers; creating a program to encourage school districts to buy directly from local farmers and producers; and funding for programs to support access to milk.

“Access to food is one of the most basic human needs, and yet many Wisconsin kids are telling us they don’t know when — or if — they will have their next meal,” Underly said in a statement. “When we make sure all our kids are properly nourished, we are nurturing the leaders of tomorrow.”

Hunger and grades

Across Wisconsin, 45.4% of enrolled public schools students — or 782,090 students — participate in the USDA Child Nutrition Programs and 52.1% of enrolled students at private schools participating in the USDA Child Nutrition Programs, according to the state Department of Public Instruction.

The current guidelines outline that students in a household of four, with income of $40,560 per year or less, qualify for free school meals. If a household’s yearly income is between $40,560.01 and $57,720, children can receive reduced-price meals. Families are also required to fill out an application annually in order to receive the benefit.

According to the 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, one in four Wisconsin students reported experiencing hunger due to lack of food in the home and 2.6% reported going hungry “most of the time” or “always.” Students with low grades of D’s or F’s also reported going hungry at a higher rate — 10.3% of students — when compared their peers with higher grades of A’s or B’s — 2.3% of students.

Universal school meals would help fill in the gaps that the current system allows for, advocates said.

Kenosha Unified School District currently provides school meals to all kids free of charge.

“When we had to return to our traditional system of serving meals in the 2022-23 school year, we heard from families that they missed the simplicity and security of free meals for all,” KUSD Chief Communications Officer Tanya Ruder wrote in an email responding to questions from the Examiner.

This year every school in the district is able to provide lunch and breakfast to all students through the federal Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). The policy allows some high-poverty schools and districts to provide school meals to all students regardless of income and without having to fill out an application.

When meals were not universally free, the Kenosha district’s breakfast participation was 23.9%, and lunch participation was 43.8%, Ruder said. Since moving to CEP, those numbers have risen significantly, with breakfast participation now at 29%, and lunch at 55%.

Some families who qualified under the current system may find the application process an obstacle. “The application process is very daunting for some families,” Tauriainen said. “It’s a very simple form to fill out, but it’s just another thing that families have to do to get food to their kids when they might already be struggling.”

Higher incomes, but still hungry

The income requirements also mean that some families that may be struggling financially may not qualify, Tauriainen said, because the application doesn’t consider other circumstances that families may be dealing with.

“It doesn’t take into account anything other than your gross wages, so whatever your income is before taxes, doesn’t take into account any medical bills you may have, or other issues that you might have going on financially at home,” Tauriainen said.

Jennifer Gaddis, an associate professor at UW-Madison who researches food systems in schools, said a gap still exists for some students. “There are actually a lot of children and families, who are food-insecure, but who don’t actually meet the federal threshold for eligibility for free or reduced school meals,” Gaddis said.

Gaddis and Tauriainen said providing school meals for free would benefit students in many ways.

“School meals are literally the only thing that is economically means tested,” Gaddis said. “Everything else kids participate in, regardless of their household income status — like math class, English class, busing — they’re not being charged a different amount or getting a different service necessarily that is tied to their household income status.”

Providing meals to all students would reduce the stigma that the current system can create, she added.

School meal debt has also become an issue again as schools have gone back to requiring students to pay for lunch unless they qualify for free food. In Wausau, a pastor to help pay off students’ unpaid meal debts. Madison Metropolitan School District in May stood at almost $230,000.

Ruder of Kenosha Unified said that providing meals free to all students would prevent them from being denied lunch or breakfast when their account funds run out.

Nutritional and academic benefits

Universal school meals could also allow many students to eat more nutritious food since school meals follow the federal dietary guidelines. Some have found that participation in school meals has been linked to healthier diets. 

“We get a bad rap, because people think of what school lunch used to be like back when they were in school, and things have changed so much since 2010,” Tauriainen said. “We’re offering whole grains, fruits and vegetables, multiple options every day, so that students pick something that they like to eat — low fat, low sodium, low sugar entrees.”

Tauriainen also noted that many school districts are trying to serve more food prepared from scratch and use more locally sourced foods for meals. Some school districts in the state serve food grown by the students, including Ashwaubenon School District, which has a 34-unit hydrophobic garden to grow lettuce.

Ensuring that kids are fed helps create a foundation for students to focus, study and be present in the classroom, producing stronger academic outcomes as well, Gaddis said.

Gaddis takes a historical and international comparative approach to studying school nutrition. Other countries with universal school meal programs, including Japan and Finland, have integrated school nutrition and home economics, she said, so students are “learning about, not only how to think about food and nutrition, but how to prepare things for yourself and how to do so in an economical way, and why you should also have respect for the people who are doing work in the food system.”

It’s an approach that addresses all students.

“It’s not seen as this anti-poverty program in those countries, it’s seen as a really integral part of the school day and an opportunity for people to learn really important life skills,” Gaddis said.

The Wisconsin proposal is part of Underly’s larger budget request, which would invest an additional $4 billion in schools.

It could face a tough road to becoming a reality given Wisconsin’s split government, where Republican lawmakers, who remain in the majority in the Legislature, have said they oppose growing “the size of government” and want to use most of the state’s budget surplus to cut taxes.

Tauriainen said she hopes universal school meals can gather bipartisan support, however.

“Being hungry shouldn’t be something that’s on one side or the other of the aisle,” Tauriainen said. “I really hope that the Legislature can come together and realize that this is something we really need to do for our kids.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Wisconsin Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Ruth Conniff for questions: info@wisconsinexaminer.com. Follow Wisconsin Examiner on and .

from highlight strategies that high-poverty schools across and are implementing to drive higher academic achievement. 

We focused on the 25% of schools with the highest percentages of students from low-income families. Proficiency rates for math and English range from 0% to about 60%, signaling that school-based policies and practices can have a marked impact on student achievement. In all, we identified 64 high-poverty “spotlight schools” across the two states that achieved either above-average proficiency rates or upward of 4 percentage points of growth since 2019 in math or English Language Arts.

The leaders of these schools completed surveys and participated in interviews to explain what’s behind their successes. It’s notable that these schools represent traditional public, charter and innovation schools across rural, suburban and urban areas in two very different states, yet there was resounding consensus on what’s behind their achievements. Here are the top 4 strategies they highlighted: 

Data-driven decision-making

High-performing schools use data as a guiding light to drive, monitor, and improve not just student achievement but every aspect of their operations. 

According to Executive Director Bill Spirer of Springfield Preparatory Charter School, a K-8 school in Springfield, Massachusetts, this “obsession with data” is absolutely essential: “[It’s] not in the spirit of turning our students into data points, but in terms of understanding where we can improve and evolve. … We … use data for really everything, whether it’s for finances, for student attendance or for student behavior issues.”

Other schools leverage this across-the-board utilization of data for various purposes: eight Massachusetts schools use systems, and the Behavioral and Emotional Screening System () to quantify and address behavioral difficulties and mental health challenges.

Tiered academic interventions

Most spotlight schools use personalized supports to drive academic excellence through or , which serve as frameworks to provide strong curricula and evidence-based practices during core instruction, supplemented by targeted interventions for students who need additional support. 

Executive Director Nicole Mack of Conservatory Lab Charter, a pre-K-8 charter school in Boston, uses five throughout the year to monitor student progress and adjust interventions when necessary. Several schools also implemented WIN — “” — time,an intervention block where all students receive small-group instruction.

Spotlight schools also made and scheduling. For example, Principal Rafaela Spence of Taylor Elementary in New Bedford, Massachusetts, leads data meetings every six weeks to group and match students with educators who can best meet their needs during daily WIN time, including their classroom teachers, interventionists, special education teachers, and English as a Second Language teachers. Principal Christopher Freisen of Beachmont Veterans Memorial School, a pre-K-5 school in Revere, Massachusetts, hired two English learner teachers and three interventionists to better target students’ unique needs and provide daily small group instruction.

Professional development, high-quality instructional materials and coaching

Ongoing professional development and coaching for teachers is another common thread in the success of these schools. For example, Spence hired teaching and learning specialists who observe and give feedback during instruction, as well as provide so educators who need additional support can see what exemplary teaching looks like. 

Providing is also important. “Anybody who thinks their teachers can write good lesson plans, they’re wrong,” says Principal Declan O’Connor of Chestnut Accelerated Middle School in Springfield. “They’re not vetted, they’re not scrutinized, they’re not aligned. … Those days for me are long over.”

Family engagement

Spotlight schools across both states have implemented strong programs. For example, Rocky Mountain Prep charter schools have found great success with “attendance hotlines,” in which designated staffers spend the first hour of each morning of every student who is absent. Over the past year, Rocky Mountain Prep Fletcher, a pre-K-5 school in Aurora, Colorado, has cut its chronic absenteeism rate in half and now has one of the highest attendance rates in the district. 

Many schools hold family engagement events to build relationships before absenteeism and other problems escalate. For example, Principal Robert Juhrs-Savage of Kemp Elementary School in Commerce City, Colorado, hosts community days where parents participate in SEL-based projects with their children, and Assistant Principal Morgan King of Vanguard Classical School West, a K-8 school in Denver, invites families into the classroom to help with reading groups. This inclusive approach encourages families to be active participants in their children’s education.

Demography need not be destiny. The success stories from Colorado and Massachusetts demonstrate that significant improvements are possible even in the face of adversity. The resounding agreement among school leaders of such a diverse set of high-poverty schools across two very different states confirms that there are common practices that can really make a difference for kids.

The data, released by the and the , found about one-third of community college students transfer to a four-year school with less than half graduating within six years — equating to the net completion rate of 16 percent.

But the report, in collaboration with the , saw even smaller completion rates for students who are Black, Latino and low-income at 9, 13 and 11 percent respectively.

John Fink, a senior research associate at the Community College Research Center, said this is because the transfer system is “riddled with barriers” from the historic lack of collaboration between community colleges and four-year schools.

“It’s not an equitable system when we rely on [community college] students to come in with knowledge of this hidden curriculum on how to transfer instead of holding institutions responsible for creating clear pathways and adequate advising along the way,” Fink said.

The confusion and lack of clarity has added to students’ growing disdain for working towards a four-year degree as recent enrollment gains come particularly from community colleges with a vocational program focus, Fink said. 

“The [transfer system] largely replicates existing societal inequities,” Fink said. “The folks who are going to community college in large numbers are from communities that have historically had less access to bachelor and graduate degrees — like low-income and students of color.”

“If there’s no additional resources and support to make up for this, you can expect to see these disparities in completion outcomes,” Fink said.

Disparate Bachelor’s Degree Outcomes

The report showed mixed four-year completion outcomes from community college transfers demographically, Fink said. 

Low-income, Black and Latino students saw completion rates below the national average, in addition to men and students 25 years or older.

But high-income, Asian and White students saw completion rates above the national average, in addition to women and students 18 to 19 years old.

Fink said completion rates have increased slightly compared to previous years — jumping from 14 percent in 2016.

But he noted the increase is “not a lot [and] definitely not where we need it to be.”

“There is so much potential here to create greater economic mobility, to further diversify student bodies and to bring in community college transfers that can perform at the same if not higher rates than non-transfer students,” Fink said.

Fink said creating a “sense of belonging” on campus and expanding core practices such as dual enrollment will greatly improve transfer completion outcomes.

“Visibility, belonging and inclusion are important things to think about in order to change some of these dismal outcomes nationally,” Fink said.

‘Exclusionary’ Transfer Practices 

Dr. Marielena DeSanctis, president of the , said the completion disparities for students from low-income backgrounds are troubling.

“There’s plenty of data that speaks to more and more jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree, so it’s concerning when you start limiting the number of people that can attain one,” DeSanctis said.

DeSanctis, who previously worked at , said Florida has a very different landscape for students to transfer from a community college to a four-year school compared to Colorado.

“There was no question that the courses you were taking were going to transfer and that it was going to be equivalent credits [but] here in Colorado that’s not the case,” DeSanctis said, noting the harm of “exclusionary” transfer practices she’s noticed from four-year schools.

“Because community colleges tend to be more racially and ethnically diverse, we should be telling students that community college is a vehicle to transfer to a university — particularly students that are ready to change the trajectory of their lives,” DeSanctis said. 

Debi Gaitan, vice president of student services at , agreed with DeSanctis, adding that constraints placed on students from low-income backgrounds shouldn’t hinder them from having access to a four-year school whether they decide to transfer or go straight into the workforce.

“San Antonio is very much a city where we can see where our communities of poverty reside and they feed directly into our institutions,” Gaitan said, noting that her students are often part-time, caring for family members and working to make ends meet.

“We want to ensure the stigma of not completing is not placed on this population,” Gaitan said. “It’s more about ‘did they reach their goal of being able to get a better job with better income to get out of poverty.’”

Gaitan said it’s important for both community colleges and four-year schools to actively reach out to students from low-income backgrounds.

“Students that have choices and are resourced know about us and know what we have to offer,” Gaitan said. “Therefore we need to shift to the communities that don’t know we’re here…[because] students from intergenerational cycles of poverty need those same resources our upwardly mobile, higher income communities already have.”

Gaitan said resources that have been effective in her community include counseling programs and “apartment starters” where students have access to microwaves, washing machines and other household needs so they can focus on their studies.

“These are communities that need us to be different and need us to be doing more,” Gaitan said. “We want as many people in higher education to know this as possible because that’s how we have learned and that’s how we have adopted and adapted some really promising practices.”

This article is part of a series in partnership with reporter Joshua Bay’s highlighting the struggles of community college students.

But being awakened in the middle of the night by sharp pains was new for Coreano and their family. Rats had begun to bite them in their sleep. Later that morning, they went to their Kensington school and pretended nothing happened.

Chronicling the life of Corem and two other Puerto Rican students from Philadelphia, author Nikhil Goyal presents harrowing accounts of childhood in his latest book . 

Readers see Corem, Ryan Rivera and Giancarlos Rodriguez grow up overpoliced and underfed. By the time they reached high school, the system threatened to close some 37 schools, and only after , shuttered 24. 

In some cases walking an hour one-way to school without transportation after an eviction left them displaced, Corem, Ryan and Giancarlos give low-income children a human face and serve as a cautionary tale. The Census Bureau has revealed the rate of childhood poverty has doubled, and the country will soon see pandemic-era relief for families, schools and come to an end. 

“If we believe that schools should be equitable and humane and child centered, then we’ve got to be willing to fight for an agenda that will end poverty,” said Goyal, who for the last two years served as the senior policy advisor for Senator Bernie Sanders on the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and Budget Committees. 

Their stories illuminate exactly how economic instability and harsh discipline policies impact children’s ability to learn safely, making the case for change, particularly as educators nationwide grapple with how best to support students academically after pandemic disruptions.

Making economic stimuluses like the Child Tax Credit permanent, Goyal added, would mean “the lives of educators and school staff and counselors would be a lot easier.” 

Named one of 2023’s best books by the New Yorker, also illuminates how school policies governing students can disproportionately shape entire futures, particularly for students of color who are more often suspended and expelled than their peers. Zero tolerance discipline policies, for instance, put children like Ryan Rivera in juvenile incarceration and harsh schooling isolated from friends for years, after being pushed to light a trashcan on fire at 12 years old.

In conversation with ����Ӱ��, Goyal reflects on school closures, community schooling, chronic absenteeism, and what policies stand to make a difference for the nearly living in poverty nationwide.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

You frame childhood poverty as a crisis to be — why release this book now? What’s happening?

The Census Bureau released its — child poverty more than doubled. More than 5 million children are plunged into poverty. It was the single largest increase in poverty in recorded history, just an astonishing development in public policy that I think deserves enormous attention as well as a full-throated response from people in Washington and people in power. 

The increase in child poverty coincides with the expiration of the expanded Child Tax Credit, economic stimulus payments, expanded unemployment insurance, and a number of other programs that have enormously benefited children and families, whether in terms of food assistance, or housing assistance, or Medicaid access. 

We’re also at this moment where a lot of districts throughout the country are facing dropping enrollments, facing fiscal cliffs with the end of ESSER funds. People are anticipating a lot more consolidations, and possibly something like what happened in Philadelphia where a school system weighed closing dozens of schools. What are some lessons that school leaders might glean from what happened in Philadelphia? 

In 2013, the school district proposed closing some three dozen. The argument was that the district was bleeding in a major fiscal deficit. In the book I cite a major report by Boston Consulting Group, commissioned by the district to evaluate the fiscal state of schools. One of the recommendations was a mass closure of schools. They also recommended a mass firing of teachers and other school staff and a very market-oriented approach to public education. The key recommendation was taken up by the school district, against the wishes of students and parents and educators and unions, who were an incredibly robust coalition. 

Pew Research and others have found that school closures haven’t actually yielded the balance of savings that the architects originally envisioned. They cause a lot of displacement, educational instability. And, and in many instances, students are not actually necessarily attending so-called “higher performing schools” after their schools shut down. 

I read about Fairhill School, this extraordinary school in the poorest neighborhood of Philadelphia, which had been serving generations upon generations of children of the working class. This was a school that had been deeply underfunded. And in spite of that, they were still able to provide children with a nurse, a safe environment. 

Their test scores weren’t as good as suburban districts, sure. But does that mean that we should necessarily be closing a school like that which has been an anchor of the community? I don’t think so. I think if we provide public schools with equitable resources, and the type of respect that they deserve, so many of the issues that folks might point you to in public education, I don’t think would exist. 

The charter movement has capitalized on this. But if you go back to the history of charter schools, and you go back to Minnesota and some of the earliest charter schools, these were laboratories of progressivism. We’re gonna bring innovation, bring the best, experiment with interesting ideas in pedagogy and curriculum and instruction and the teaching force. See what works and then bring the best ideas into the public system. That is the model that I would prefer, where charter schools work in tandem with public schools, not as competition.

Something I appreciated while reading is that you give these trends and the political events around them a human face, from the war on drugs and no tolerance policies for violence that led to thousands of incarcerated youth. What’s currently underway that you think might be on track to cause more devastation? Particularly for Black and brown children?

I think there’s a dramatic rise in the privatization movement. We’re seeing a dramatic increase in the voucher schemes as well as charter expansion. In Philadelphia alone, nearly 40% of children attend either charter schools or cyber charter schools. There’s cities all over this country where traditional public schools have become dismantled, and we’re seeing a rise of the private sector intervening in public education. There’s obviously some really amazing organizing and efforts by teachers unions and advocacy groups like Journey for Justice fighting back against those policies all over the country.

What’s at stake, if these models are to continue at the scale that they have? What would be the impact for students, based on your research and experience with Philadelphia?

If we continue down this path, where more and more charters replace traditional public schools, where voucher programs siphon even more dollars away from the public system into the private system, particularly the religious sector, then I think that’s one of the most grave and profound threats to American democracy. I think the foundations of American democracy are found in public education. I think it’s one of the areas of our society that has not been fully transformed and taken over by the market.

Look at health care, look at energy, look at housing. By and large, public education has withstood a number of those assaults over generations, but I think public schools are facing their most serious threats. The pandemic didn’t help. We can debate about school closures, the efficacy of that or not, but I think the reality is that they breed a distrust among parents who were rightfully frustrated about making sure that there was a place for their children to be during the day and be educated. 

One exception to this threat you’ve identified to the traditional public system is the expansion of 3K and pre-K programs in many cities. 

The early childhood education space is very fascinating to me. Public dollars might go to both public providers as well as private providers, and you’re seeing that there’s not a sustained level of federal dollars. A lot of those private providers cannot remain open because their margins are so low. 

There is a growing interest from states all over this country as well as cities like Tulsa, Oklahoma, where they have poured an enormous amount of money into public pre-K. We’re talking about an area of great optimism. I am deeply encouraged by efforts by states and cities to expand early childhood education, because it is not only the right thing to do, it is good for our economy and society.

At one point in the book, you say their story is one of survival, where 18th birthdays are not rites of passage, but miracles. That it’s a story of social contract in tatters. In this reality, where so many children grow up in poverty, what are some best practices for school systems?

I think every school should be turned into a community school, where they have wraparound services, social and health supports. Universal free school meals, extended hours, restorative justice, well paid teachers and staff and modernized infrastructure. 

There are incredible examples of community schools all over this country. I will point to Cincinnati as the gold standard for community schooling, because they’ve converted virtually all of their public schools into Community Learning Centers. I am always struck by the fact that they have dentists and mental health professionals and other medical staff and doctors who are literally based in the school itself to provide care to students. 

We have to recognize that the issues and challenges that young people experience in their homes and in their communities don’t get left behind when they go to school every day. It affects their ability to learn. It affects their relationships with their teachers and counselors, and their relationships with their peers. 

We’ve got to really recognize that poverty and economic insecurity is the root cause of many of these educational inequalities. That schools can be places where children can get access to healthcare and all their social support. I’m very encouraged by that trend across the country. And the research shows that community schools have a positive impact on absenteeism, on truancy, on graduation rates, and student engagement. 

It’s the idea of, meet people where they’re at, provide them with the basic, basic building blocks for dignified life and you will see many of the social problems that once existed, either be reduced or eliminated.

were chronically absent by the end of the last school year, and we’re hearing more and more about school avoidance. What does Corem’s story reveal about this trend and its links with mental health, which is what some believe to be a root cause right now? 

It’s a great crisis. I would say that Corem has a harrowing, fascinating story with a lot of lessons. Today Corem uses they/them pronouns. When they were growing up, they lived with their mother who was disabled. They endured consistent housing and food insecurity. They would run out of food. They had to endure evictions. They moved in some years, twice or three times, which meant that they had to constantly switch schools and never really settle into one school. That meant Corem’s academic performance faltered. 

I know they’ve suffered from absenteeism at times, not due to their own failings, but simply because they were deprived of the basic necessities of a decent life. They didn’t have the tools and resources that would allow him to get to school on time every day. There’s one moment in the book where the landlord tells their mother that sorry, we just sold the house and you have to leave immediately. 

That means, in the middle of the school year, they have to walk more than an hour from the new home to the old school. Their mother was able to get them a public transit pass, but it just goes to show homelessness and housing insecurity are huge obstacles to consistent and regular school attendance. 

There’s a lot of research to show that homeless students in particular make up a significant part of the population that is going to be absent. As emergency rental assistance winds down and now we’re more than two years since the end of the national eviction moratorium, our families are really suffering through the housing affordability crisis. And I think we see that play out with children.

The program, called , founded in 2007, spans students’ junior and senior year of high school and their freshman year of college. It began with a class of 25 and now serves nearly 14,000 students nationwide — including in Chicago, Houston, New York City, Massachusetts, Metro Atlanta and the Bay Area — with plans for expansion.

The study, conducted by the University of Chicago Inclusive Economy Lab, examined the outcomes of students who were slated to graduate from high school between 2011 and 2020. It found OneGoal students were also 46%  more likely to enroll in college, and 47%  more likely to come back for their sophomore year than similar students who did not go through the program. 

“I would tell any high school student who would listen, ‘Do not turn your back on OneGoal,’” said Mariam Ajose, 22 and a senior at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “They are a huge gateway to success in college or whatever goal you choose to pursue.”

Ajose credits the program for her success: Both of her degrees — the associate’s she has already earned and the bachelor’s she is working toward — will have been completely funded through sources she discovered through OneGoal.

Students learn about the program in informational meetings their sophomore year of high school. Some are selected for participation and others opt-in. 

Participants take a OneGoal class daily for two years: They spend their junior year reflecting on their own backgrounds and how they would like to use their talents to augment their communities. They close out the year with a list of colleges they’d like to apply to and spend their senior year examining each school even further before completing their applications — transcripts, recommendation letters, essays — and financial aid forms. Each OneGoal fellow is assigned a counselor to guide them through the process. 

Students’ freshman year of college is different: it consists mostly of individual check-ins with OneGoal staff tailored to participants’ needs.

Vanessa Lee, a teacher in the Chicago Public Schools, started working with the program in 2013. She said many students who enroll in OneGoal see themselves and their life experience in a negative light and that the program helps them view their challenges as assets, proving they already have what it takes to overcome obstacles.

“There is a deficit model when we think of low-income, first-gen students,” she said. “OneGoal is flipping the script on that, telling students to look at all of the things they do possess and strengths they do have.” 

Melissa Connelly, chief executive officer at OneGoal, understands how students from low-income communities might lose faith in themselves and in their education. Connelly missed 53 days of 8th grade and was on the road to becoming a high school dropout. She suffered from depression and had an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness about her future: Like many of the students OneGoal serves today, she couldn’t imagine living past age 18. So why bother investing in her education? 

It wasn’t until she met a compassionate social worker that she was able to turn her life around.

“She helped me see what was possible for myself,” Connelly said, adding that it took time for the woman to earn her trust. “Like the old education saying goes, kids don’t care what you know until they know that you care.” 

After gaining her confidence, the counselor moved onto some of the more practical matters of shaping Connelly’s future by working on her financial aid documents. 

OneGoal, a nonprofit funded in large part by philanthropic contributions, works on that same principle, winning students’ trust before shifting to the academic tasks at hand. 

“That’s why OneGoal is so special,” Connelly said. “When you walk into a OneGoal classroom, you will hear the word ‘family’ at least once.”

Kelly Hallberg, scientific director for the Inclusive Economy Lab, said researchers compared OneGoal fellows to students who came from a similar demographic: They attended the same Chicago high school, had similar past academic performance, came from a similar neighborhood, were of the same race or ethnicity, and had the same rates of housing instability and Individualized Education Plans.

“There is a growing body of evidence that shows holistic programs that touch many aspects of kids’ lives — shaping their mindset, navigating the college selection process, the financial side — move the needle more than a program that targets one aspect, as in, just tutoring, application support or funding.”

The findings were so remarkable that Hallberg doubted their accuracy.

“When we first saw the results, I said, ‘We need to kick the tires on this, make sure these numbers hold up because they are pretty big,’” she said. “But, the results are consistent.” 

Ajose said the program taught her far more than she anticipated, including how to find the college that best suited her by considering the local cost of living, student-professor ratio, graduation rate and the quality of the program itself. OneGoal staff can take kids on college trips: The organization also partners with universities for tours. 

Most important, the kinesiology major said, she felt like her OneGoal instructors truly cared about her. They noticed, for example, when her grades fell and she could come to them to talk about problems at home. 

Their involvement didn’t end when she aged out: OneGoal still helps her pay for books even though she is in her senior year, Ajose said.

Elijah Wright-Jefferson, 23 and a student at Illinois State University in the town of Normal, hails from the South Side of Chicago. Resources in his community were few, he said: Nearly a dozen of his high school classmates died by the time he reached his mid-20s.  

“People get desperate and upset, which leads to violence, stealing and a lot of anger,” he said. “That was the environment I had been around my entire life. I had never been anywhere else.”

His high school counselor knew he could do better: She asked him five times to join OneGoal before he relented.

Not only did the program teach him about the college admissions process, but introduced him to all different types of people — including basketball legend and community investor Magic Johnson — with myriad jobs, who lived and thrived in various parts of the city.

“During college, they helped me a ton,” Wright-Jefferson said, adding he’s thrilled to participate in the program to this day, encouraging other students to join and stick with it.

Lee, who teaches in the Chicago Public Schools, credits OneGoal for its adaptability: The program has changed dramatically through the years, building on teacher and student feedback.

“It has become much more inclusive,” Lee said, broadening its focus, upon teacher and students’ request, from four-year colleges to other routes to success, including associate’s degrees, trade schools and the military. “It puts students at the center of their own plan. It validates that there are alternative pathways — and one is not better than the other.”

She attributes at least a part of its success to the fact that it utilizes teachers who already work inside the schools: They know and have relationships with the students they serve.

OneGoal is currently working with the Illinois State Board of Education to partner with 24 districts across the state. It is spending this first year providingstrategic postsecondary coaching for district and school leaders to build the infrastructure needed to launch the program before offering the class as an elective in those school systems. It will also add districts in the six states it already serves, plus Kentucky. 

Connelly estimated there are roughly 1.4 million low-income 11th graders in the nation’s schools. OneGoal hopes to reach half of them in the next 10 to 15 years: It aspires to grow from 14,000 to 50,000 students in the next three years.  

Chris Riback: Lindsey, welcome to the studio.

Lindsey Lockman Dougherty: Thank you.

Chris Riback: Thank you for coming by.

Lindsey Lockman Dougherty: Thank you for having me.

Chris Riback: What is brain science, and how does Save the Children go about sharing that information with various communities, particularly rural communities?

Lindsey Lockman Dougherty: Brain science is the information we have now to really understand some of the common ways we know children develop, child development, how it occurs, relationship of parents. Brain science is that ability to really see the mechanisms, the biology, the way this is happening and the direct impacts of life experiences, relationships on children’s development. Save the Children, it’s been such a privilege to be able to share brain science with our community members and really for them to see the critical development that happens in early childhood development. Prenatal through those earliest years and the role that every adult plays in the life of a child. Whether it’s direct that they interact with that child or whether it’s they’re that kind of larger support system community around the family and really impacting the development of that child’s brain.

Chris Riback: Why the focus on rural communities?

Lindsey Lockman Dougherty: Save the Children has had a commitment to rural communities. We work internationally, looking for the places, the opportunities to really meet families, communities, and to really be promoting healthy child development. In the United States I think we recognize the opportunity we have to partner in rural communities recognizing the higher rates of poverty that occur for children in rural settings, that young children are the most at risk to experience some of those negative impacts that poverty has on health, on education outcomes. So we really see it as such an opportunity to take a national program, resources, partnerships, and to be directing it into communities that often don’t have access to the same level of information, resources, efforts that are really designed to be promoted within their communities.

Chris Riback: It’s a real cliché, isn’t it, that poverty is an urban problem-

Lindsey Lockman Dougherty: Absolutely.

Chris Riback: And not a rural problem. In fact, one of the statistics I think from your site that I got, in 41 of America’s 47 States with rural designated areas, rural child poverty is higher than in urban areas. Why does that message not get out – or does it?

Lindsey Lockman Dougherty: I think messages around those effects of poverty on child development, on families, the sources of adverse childhood experiences, of toxic stress, I think that message is common. That it is those universal experiences that families are happening. I think the rates at which it’s happening in rural communities is often population size. By the definition of rural communities you have fewer individuals in those communities and so I think there’s often not the same level of organizations, initiatives, efforts that are really focused because of how dispersed those families then can often be geographically hidden. They’re in communities-

Chris Riback: Hard to get to.

Lindsey Lockman Dougherty: That you don’t drive through necessarily. You don’t happen to visit. Where in urban settings it’s often a block to one block you see the disparity. In rural settings you might have to drive 60 miles.

Chris Riback: Tell me about your work with Vroom. How do you leverage it to share brain science in our rural communities and to increase community awareness and engagement around brain development?

Lindsey Lockman Dougherty: Save the Children has partnered with the Bezos Family Foundation, the Vroom Initiative and for us it has been such a critical resource in these efforts. As I mentioned, so we are hiring locally, we’re building capacity and we’re engaging folks that might not have formal education in early childhood. They might not have backgrounds or degrees in that development, but what Vroom has provided is kind of that initiative, that platform to come together and say, “We all have a stake in this. We all have a role that we play,” and by taking brain science and making it really actionable, easy, fun and embedded in everyday routines, it’s not something that a family feels like I don’t have the resource to buy that new toy. I don’t have the capacity to purchase a curriculum in a center.

Lindsey Lockman Dougherty: Vroom provides here’s the activity and here’s the brainy background. Here’s that science that’s in easily understood language and it makes it very comfortable for then our early childhood teams to go out and to speak with the pharmacist and say, “This is what child development is all about. Here’s a very simple activity families can do while they’re waiting in line and here’s how you can empower every family that’s coming through to recognize themselves as a brain builder and the work that they’re doing.”

Lindsey Lockman Dougherty: So it’s really provided this simple, easy resource to be able to build those relationships and I think a lot of our early childhood teams might not have had the comfort to approach a law enforcement officer, or to approach a business owner and to be able to articulate why should they care about early childhood and what can they do about it? What action can they take? It makes it so simple to say, “You’re a laundromat. There’s activities families can be doing while they’re folding laundry, while they are having conversations in that setting that are going to dramatically impact child development outcomes,” and that people get really empowered by that resource.

Chris Riback: And to bring it home, and the opportunity and the impact that you can have, I mean some of these statistics around how much poverty, the negative impact that poverty can make and how it can extend the opportunity gap and the inequality gap as it goes on. Four year olds from low income families are often 18 months developmentally behind their peers. Disadvantaged children who don’t participate in high quality early education programs, 50% more likely to be placed in special ed, 25% more likely to drop out of school, 60% more likely to never attend college, 70% more likely to be arrested for violent crime. The list goes on. Early intervention matters, doesn’t it?

Lindsey Lockman Dougherty: Absolutely, and I think what brain science shows us is yes, adverse experiences have a cumulative negative impact on biology, on development, on outcomes, but that critical role of the caring, loving adult in a child’s life, those protective factors that can surround a child and really through relationships build resiliency I think is incredibly powerful. So we come into communities where members, they know their risks, they know what life looks like in their communities, they know the challenges they’re facing that are impacting them, their children, but they also get very empowered knowing that they can be that loving, caring adult. They can be that buffering protective factor and that they can see really positive outcomes. That they’re trends, that the odds are stacked against them, but it’s not final.

Chris Riback: It’s not final. It’s not written and if you make the difference, particularly early on, you can rewrite the story.

Lindsey Lockman Dougherty: Yes.

Chris Riback: Lindsey, thank you. Thank you for coming by the studio. Thank you for the work that you do.

Lindsey Lockman Dougherty: Thank you for this opportunity.