American Graduate

CPB Combats the High School Dropout Crisis

American Graduate: Let's Make it Happen is a multi-year public media initiative, supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, to help local communities identify and implement solutions to the high school dropout crisis. Public broadcasting has a long history improving educational outcomes for high-need students and communities. The dropout crisis demands attention now, and we are rising to the challenge of doing our part to address this problem.

Working with Alma and Colin Powell's America's Promise Alliance, Civic Enterprises and Johns Hopkins Everyone Gradates Center, the initiative puts faces on the numbers — the more than 1 million young people who fail to graduate each year — and increases awareness and understanding of the risks and solutions through national and local content, covering all facets of the issue for broadcast, web and mobile platforms. In addition, American Graduate is engaging and empowering teachers, parents and students to help those most at risk of dropping out through community collaborations and classroom resources.

More than 75 public radio and television stations in over 30 states have launched on-the-ground efforts to keep students on- track to high school graduation and be prepared for college and career.

Local Partnerships: Stations have engaged over 800 partners to mobilize community engagement and action.

Local Content: Stations have produced, aired and streamed local content and PSAs to increase awareness and understanding.

Local Forums: Stations are hosting teacher town halls, community forums and screenings, and business leader meetings, to generate dialogue on how to resolve the local dropout crisis.

Local Volunteerism: Stations are connecting mentors through internships, career fairs, and volunteer fairs with students in need to help keep them on the path to graduation.

Teacher Professional Development: Stations are empowering local teachers with professional development and digital classroom resources to help engage at-risk students.

Parental and Caring Adults Connection: Stations are empowering parents, caregivers and caring adults with knowledge and tools to help keep children on track to graduation.

Student Engagement: Through youth media creation and other classroom resources – focused on early reading, middle school, and high school connections to college and career, stations are helping students to share their stories with peers and develop new skills including problem solving, collaboration, and critical thinking and analysis.

American Graduate demonstrates public media's commitment to education and its deep roots in every community it serves. Beyond providing programming that educates, informs and inspires, public radio and television stations — locally owned and operated — are an important resource in helping to address critical issues. American Graduate content can be accessed for free by all Americans and, like so much of the content found across public television and radio — on air and online — directly benefits our civil society. As the steward of the federal government's investment in public broadcasting, as well as the only entity that represents the breadth of the industry — public television, public radio, producers and local stations — CPB is pleased to share these highlights of work happening across the country.

Online

Visit the American Graduate Web Site
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Contact Us

For more information, contact americangraduate@cpb.org.