1. Educational Alliance overview
Founded in 1889 as a settlement house on the Lower East Side of Manhattan
1951: First NYC-subsidized child care for low income mothers
1965: One of the first Head Start pilot programs
1996: One of the first Early Head Start pilot programs
Now serves a diverse group of 50,000 New Yorkers annually across 16 locations
$34 million budget and 700 employees implement 38 programs
Hello, I’m Lynn Appelbaum, I’m proud to be the Chief Program Officer of Educational Alliance and I’m grateful for the opportunity to be here this afternoon.
It’s an honor to be here to learn with all of you and to share the 2G work Educational Alliance has been doing.
Educational Alliance started 125 years ago on the Lower East Side of New York at a time of great immigration.
German Jewish community leaders who had done well in their new country wanted to help the burgeoning wave of Eastern European Jewish immigrants become good American citizens.
These Eastern European Jews were not welcome elsewhere. The Western European Jews wanted to make sure the new immigrants had opportunity. (And didn’t bring shame on them.)
We started with education, including early childhood education. We ran a public library before the NY Public Library existed, and what was known as the Breadwinners College which became the night school of the City University of New York.
Much of this remains at the heart of what we do today. We’ve expanded who we serve and the range of what we offer.
We have been at the forefront of Head Start operating Head Start since 1965 and Early Head Start since 1996

2. Educational Alliance overview
Is place-based and anchored in our community
Offers a wide range of programs that integrate education, social services, arts and recreation
Strives to nourish the total person, strengthen family connections and build inclusive communities
Recognizes that everyone has the same basic human needs
Provides opportunity and promotes learning with and from neighbors
Slide 2
We remain based in the community; what’s now sometimes called place-based.
We provide a wide range of programs that integrate education, social services, arts and recreation throughout our neighborhoods of the Lower East Side and East Village.
We strive to nourish the total person, strengthen family connections and build inclusive communities.
At our core we are about providing opportunity, about helping people from all walks of life, socio-economic backgrounds, religions and ages make connections with and learn from and with each other.
We intend to help people learn from and with each other. To help each person lift up in some way.
We recognize that everyone has the same basic human needs.
And we regard education as critical.

3. Education at the core of our 2G work
Education offers everyone, regardless of background, the opportunity to transcend difficult circumstances and pursue higher aspirations that benefit them and their communities
The vision of the Educational Alliance is to help families achieve economic self-sufficiency by making a college education available and achievable for low-income adults and their children
Education has always been integral to what we do.
While many settlement houses and similar organizations are named after their location, we have education in our name.
We believe that education offers everyone, regardless of background, the opportunity to transcend difficult circumstances and pursue higher aspirations that benefit them and their communities.
The spark of the idea for our 2G program, which we’ve been calling College Access and Success, came when we were working on a proposal, a renewal proposal in fact, to federal Head Start
As we were working on our renewal proposal, we were reminded that the Head Start performance standard is a GED for parents.
I expect we all agree that a GED isn’t going to help families join the middle class.
We also had some parents coming to Educational Alliance to enroll their children in Head Start and tell us, with pride, that they too had gone to Head Start at Educational Alliance. They were proud; we feel we’ve failed these families who remain Head Start eligible for at least two generations.
We’ve seen that transformation is possible in our College Prep program for teens which took off seven years ago and has a 100% college acceptance rate while high school graduation rates are as low as 32% in our community.
So, here’s our concept: you come to Educational Alliance when you are pregnant or ready to enroll your child in Early Head Start or Head Start. We stay with you and your child until you each graduate from college.
The vision of the Educational Alliance is to help families achieve economic self-sufficiency by making a college education available and achievable for low-income adults and their children.

4. Education at the core of our 2G work
Education and income are closely intertwined
College graduates earn over 60% more than high school graduates over their working life (Baum & Ma, 2007)
Only 10% of those with a Bachelor’s degree are poor, compared to 30% of those with a high school diploma or less (Redd, 2011)
Increasingly, higher education is necessary for many jobs
In 2018, 62% of jobs in the U.S. will require educational attainment beyond high school (OECD, 2010)
You’re familiar with the research so here are just two examples. Read slide

5. Education at the core of our 2G work
We seek to bolster Head Start impacts and reduce “third grade fade” by enhancing supports for families
Our settlement house approach offers a variety of supports to families
We engage parents and caregivers of Early Head Start & Head Start children in continuing their own education. Improving parents’ education helps them support their children’s learning
Our program positions parents as child’s primary teacher
Staff encourage and support parents to advocate for child’s education
Education at the core of our 2G work
We have great early childhood education and the ability to help families overcome obstacles.
We have strong results in our Head Start school readiness goals
We have a great adult education partner in CUNY BMCC (more about that in a moment).
We have the parents’ trust
The settlement house approach is comprehensive and inclusive so we are used to, and known for, offering a variety of programming
Our hope is that by increasing parents education we can reduce third grade fade and promote short- and long-term improvements in family’s economic situation and children’s educational outcomes.

6. Education at the core of our 2G work
When we make it possible for parents and children to access higher education, we foster a community in which families are healthier and more economically stable, and parents are better able to support and encourage the education of their children, we promote positive educational and economic results
Read slide

7. College Access and Success Program
Interdisciplinary approach (education, social services, family support, health/nutrition)
Developed in partnership with the City University of New York/Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC)
We take an interdisciplinary approach in the services we offer. Equally importantly we have partners
We knew from the start that we needed to work with others who have complementary expertise.
You can’t be great at everything. We believe we’re great at early childhood education, at family literacy at social services that support families. We’re good at family literacy.
We’re not adult educators. So, we have partnered with BMCC of CUNY to provide the adult education, which now include ESOL classes offered on site, from Level 0 to Level 4 and extending to college on campus.
This program isn’t referrals to BMCC; it’s a true partnership. They’re part of the team, on site offering classes, guiding students and helping to shape the program and our staff’s learning

8. College Access and Success Program
Program components:
Early childhood education
Wrap-around social services
Family Literacy
Adult education
English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL)
GED/High School Equivalency
College (including advisement)
Financial Education (Community Financial Resources)
Read slide; note financial education added this past year

9. JPMorgan Chase – Founding Funder
funders
JPMorgan Chase – Founding Funder
Federal Head Start (early childhood and wrap-around services)
Lower Manhattan Development Corporation
NYS Education Department
Annie E. Casey Foundation
JPMorgan Chase is our founding funder
Federal Head Start is our largest funder and have been supportive as we have expanded staff roles.
Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, a post 9-11 fund recognizes this program as economic development.
NYS Education Department funds BMCC through their Literacy Zone initiative
The Annie E. Casey Foundation is our most recent funding partner and connects to us a broader 2G movement
 JPMorgan Chase is our founding funder

10. Strategic experimentation: A work in progress
Convened External Task Force to inform program from the start
Formative Evaluation: NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development
Partnership forged at the beginning of program implementation allowed for:
Collaboration on logic model and theory of change
Collaboration on data system development
We have always have viewed this as ambitious and as strategic experimentation
We’ve had a task force that meets three to four times per year to guide and monitor program development, including funders, Board members, partners. It’s expanded as the program has expanded and has provided invaluable wisdom and helped insure the integrity of the program model.
Our other key partner in addition to BMCC is the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. We wanted an objective assessment of whether the program was working.
Thanks to a Board member we were introduced to a very smart group at NYU Steinhardt.
They convinced us it wasn’t time to evaluate the impact of the program.
First we had to know what the model is.
Partnership forged at the beginning of program implementation allowed for collaboration on logic model and theory of change and collaboration on data system development

11. Strategic experimentation: A work in progress
Pilot Year 1: Describing the program
What is the program and how is it being implemented?
How satisfied are families?
How might the program be improved to better meet the needs of families?

12. Strategic experimentation: A work in progress
Pilot Year 2: Improving the program
What changes have been made since the first pilot year?
Reaching its target population?
To what extent are families participating?
How well is the program functioning?

13. Formative evaluation: key strengths
Participants are overwhelmingly positive about their experience
Partnership with BMCC is central and productive
Data suggest that as a result of the program, even participants in the early stages of their education are engaging in behaviors that may impact their children’s educational success such as reading to their children, helping them with homework, and communicating with their teachers
Here are some of the results of the NYU Steinhardt formative evaluation.
Participants continue to be overwhelmingly positive about the program and feel that it fills a grave need in the community. They unanimously agree that staff were supportive and found the co-location of classes with their children’s preschool education convenient.
The partnership between BMCC and Educational Alliance is central to the success of the program and is a productive way to meet the needs of the target population.
Data suggest that as a result of the program, even participants in the early stages of their education are engaging in behaviors that may impact their children’s educational success such as reading to their children, helping them with homework, and communicating with their teachers.
As one ESOL participant reflected, “Before I never read bedtime stories to my kids and I never borrowed books from the library for them. Now the teachers tell us how to help our kids, and I read to my daughter for 30 minutes every day and play games with her.”

14. Program changes and growth
Expand and refine recruitment and engagement practices, particularly among parents who are ready or close to ready for college
Support unexpected diversity in participants’ backgrounds, goals, and levels of education
Added ESOL Level 0 (zero) and high-level off-site “bridge” ESOL classes at BMCC
Hired full time college advisor
As the program has grown we have work to integrate the 2G approach.
We renamed Family Workers Family Advocates and trained all to engage parents in activities that enhances their education
We have expanded offerings where there has been demand, adding ESOL Level 0 for very recent Chinese immigrants and Level 4 as parents advance through the program
We have added a College Advisor to provide more focused attention on and help recruit parents who are closer to college ready.

15. Program changes and growth
In the current academic year our 2G program serves 53% of Early Head Start/ Head Start families
Year 1: 129 unduplicated families
Year 2: 225 unduplicated families
Year 3 (to date): 267unduplicated families
Year 1: One parent enrolled in college
Year 3: 20 parents enrolled in college
Changes have produced results – read slide

16. Persistence for parents in their own education is critical
Lessons learned
Persistence for parents in their own education is critical
Exploring incentives
Balance short and long-term outcomes
Improved economic security can, in short term, trump parent education
Different parents may have different short-term outcomes but the same long-term outcomes for their family
We’re in the toddler-hood of this program and continuing to learn.
It was important to recognize that while we started hoping to serve second generation Head Start families, in our first year we served almost exclusively recent immigrants.
We expanded offerings to meet the needs of the new immigrants and to engage more college-ready parents, as I’ve just said. And we kept thinking of it as one program
We have learned how important persistence is for adults in their education.
And we know we have work to do in promoting persistence.
Parents may leave their school to get a better paying job now that they have better job skills, notably improved English.
So we are starting to experiment with financial incentives.
We have also come to accept – with the loving prodding of our colleagues at NYU – that we can stay focused on the same long-term outcomes for children and families of college degrees and economic security while having different short-term outcomes for different parents.
Success in the short-term for families may be a parent in college and it also may be a better educated parent with a better job and stronger skills in helping their child in school but not still in school themselves, at least not in the short term.

17. What’s next
Stay the course with current model and work to expand to offer services for families when children leave Head Start for elementary school
Continued learning, including new partners through Annie E. Casey Foundation and Ascend
Impact evaluation: Connect outcome data on children and parents
NYU Steinhardt to research specific context of our 2G program: place-based with high immigrant population
Influence models, especially Head Start
We are committed to continuing this program with existing and we hope new funding especially to expand offerings as children age and leave Head Start. We have school-based after-school and want to do more and keep Family Advocates with families as children age.
We are proud to be one of four sites selected nationally to be part of the Annie E. Casey Foundation 2G Family Economic Success-Early Childhood initiative and the Aspen Institute Ascend Network
To do an impact evaluation we need the ability to connect parent and child outcomes – working towards it with help from Metis, a partner provided by the Casey Foundation and from NYU. We expect to have a new data system in place that while allow us to connect this data in the coming academic year.
Thanks to Annie E. Casey we will be part of a larger evaluation on four 2G programs.
NYU Steinhardt will continue to be an invaluable partner, doing research which focuses on explaining the context in which the dual-generation program at Educational Alliance works. One of whether the differences between this program and the others funded by the Casey Foundation is that ours is very much a “program in place,” that is, it serves a particular neighborhood and a particular population, rather than its services being available to anyone that seeks them out.
Additionally, the bulk of participants have been recent immigrant families with limited English skills. Many of these families have been dealing with issues of isolation because of language barriers and we will therefore look at how participation may be lessening isolation among these families, many of whom are women.
Our hope through our continued learning, and we hope continuing to inform the field, at events such as this, is to influence the field, especially federal Head Start to embrace and invest in 2G programs
Thank you.