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Become an American Graduate Champion

An American Graduate Champion commits their time, skills and resources to make sure that young people succeed. He or she is an individual who plays an active role in improving educational outcomes for students. A champion is a parent who is active in the lives of young people or a volunteer who creates a positive environment daily for youth in their community.

Make the commitment to help all young people succeed by becoming or recognizing an American Graduate Champion. Recognize yourself or someone else online now.

About

Today’s global economy demands a more educated workforce. Communities are working together to improve 21st century learning and increase high school graduation rates to prepare more students for college and successful careers. Public media stations across the country are at the center of this community-based work — from quality content and forums to local partnerships and classroom resources — to increase understanding and access to solutions.

Download the American Graduate Fact Sheet

American Graduate: Let’s Make it Happen is a long term public media commitment, supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), to help communities implement solutions to the high school dropout crisis. Public media plays a significant role building individual activity, community capacity, and national awareness.

The dropout crisis demands attention now, and we are rising to the challenge of doing our part to address this problem. A new study conducted by the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins School of Education finds that the American Graduate initiative has succeeded in building community capacity to meet the national priority of ending America’s high school dropout crisis.

Working with Alma and Colin Powell’s America’s Promise Alliance, Civic Enterprises, Johns Hopkins Everyone Graduates Center, and The Alliance for Excellent Education, and over 1000 local partners, the initiative puts faces on the numbers and increases 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 80 public radio and television stations in over 30 states have joined forces with over 1000 partners and at-risk schools to shed light on the problem and share solutions. Through American Graduate: Let’s Make it Happen, public media is increasing national and local reporting, convening diverse local stakeholders, and providing access to free, digital classroom resources for teachers and parents. By working with the community, public broadcasting stations are increasing the footprint of progress, reaching more children and families to seed the foundation for a prosperous economic future for our country.

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Questions or comments? Send us a message now.

Local Partners

AmericaSCORES
ArcelorMittal
Broadway P16 Council/Slavic Village Development Corporation
Cleveland Metropolitan School District
College Now
Cuyahoga Community College
Neighborhood Connections
Neighborhood Leadership Institute
Pre4CLE
Third Federal Foundation

Join us on Monday, February 20 at 1:00 p.m. as we celebrate the 55th Anniversary of John Glenn's Mercury Friendship 7 Flight! Great Lakes Science Center and NASA Glenn Research Center will celebrate the 55th anniversary of John Glenn’s historic flight aboard Friendship 7 with a special presentation featuring remarks by former astronaut Dr. Donald Thomas, a crew member on four Space Shuttle missions and Cleveland native, and Dr. Marla Perez-Davis, NASA Glenn Research Center deputy director.

Live stream will be on this page starting Monday, February 20 at 1:00 p.m.

Gov. John Kasich’s budget includes a plan that would have businesses file a specific tax through the state, instead of through the municipality where they’re located. The state says it will save money, but communities say it’ll do just the opposite.

State tax commissioner Joe Testa says the proposal streamlines the process by which thousands of businesses would file their net profits taxes, having them use the state’s Ohio Business Gateway.

“But it handles large volumes now," he said. "We have 400,000 CAT tax filers, sales tax filers, all come in through the Business Gateway to the tax department now. We can do this.”

Testa says the Ohio Business Gateway is being upgraded now to prepare for the volume.

He says the plan could save cities $9 million a year, but the Ohio Municipal League says the state’s fees could be more than what some communities are paying now and that cash flow could be stalled as cities wait for the state’s quarterly checks.

The Ohio Municipal League’s Kent Scarrett compares the governor’s proposal to the federal government offering to come into Ohio and take over a process usually done by the state.

“And you’ll be good with that because we’ll do a better job – we have ways to make sure those dollars are coming back and you’ll actually get more dollars back. I think the governor and the leaders of the legislature and every Ohioan would probably stand up and say, ‘Over my dead body.’

The plan would have businesses file their net profits taxes through the state, which would then send back quarterly distributions to municipalities. The state says it will streamline the process for businesses, but Scarrett says the state’s fees could be more than what some communities are paying now.

On Thursday, March 23rd 2017, ideastream held a panel discussion and forum on the disproportionate impact of court fines, fee and bail have on the poor with students of Cleveland State University's Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. It was held in the Moor Courtroom at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law's Moot Court Room, and was moderated by Mike Shafarenko, ideastream's Manager of Civic Engagement, Web and Social Media.

This forum was part of ideastream's Justice for All series as well as its Courting Justice Ohio initiative, a year long initiative to engage criminal justice stakeholders and residents on the reforms needed and already underway to address the disproportionate impact of fines, fees and bail on the poor. 

The panelists were:

Judge John J. Russo
Administrative and Presiding Judge, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court

Mike Brickner
Senior Policy Director, ACLU of Ohio

Sara Dorn
Public interest and advocacy reporter, cleveland.com

Find more Courting Justice Ohio discussions and join the conversation at http://courtingjusticeohio.org

Ohio released its annual school report cards Thursday morning, offering parents a look at how the state grades the performance of their kids’ schools. The report cards for the 2016-2017 school year are based on 11 graded measures, including student progress from year to year, 3rd grade literacy, and graduation rates.

The current report card measures have been phased in over a number of years after changes to both state and federal educations standards.

Search for grades by school district, city or county below:

What’s notable about this year’s report cards, according to Chris Woolard with the Ohio Department of Education, is that parents now have two years of data they can compare to get a more true sense of how schools are doing.

“We’re now in the second year of data based on the same tests so it really makes for a strong comparison of where you were at last year compared to where you are this year,” Woolard said.

On Wednesday, August 30th, ideastream gathered leaders from 12 different non-profit and social service agencies from throughout Northeast Ohio for a discussion on poverty. 

The discussion was part of ideastream’s Listening Project effort to identify “the things that matter most” to residents of Northeast Ohio.

The report on ideastream’s Winter 2017 Listening Project survey on poverty in Northeast Ohio was a jumping off point for the discussion.

The participants were (l-r):
Brian Davis, Northeast Ohio Coalition for Homelessness
Jennifer Scofield, Hunger Network of Greater Cleveland 
Melissa Winfield, Lake Metropolitan Housing Authority
Jeffery Patterson, Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Authority 
Kate Carden, Cleveland Housing Network 
John Habat, Cleveland Habitat for Humanity 
Jackie Boehnlein, Lorain County Community Action Agency
Juliana Chase-Morefield, Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio
Kristin Warzocha, Greater Cleveland Food Bank
Elizabeth Newman, Centers for Families and Children 
Jacqueline Chisholm, The Council for Economic Opportunities in Greater Cleveland
Mary McNamara, Cleveland Department of Aging 

The moderator was Mike Shafarenko, Manager of Civic Engagement, Web & Social Media for ideastream.

Read the report on ideastream’s Listening Project survey on poverty online at ideastream.org/lp

Courting Justice Ohio is a year long initiative to engage criminal justice stakeholders and residents on the reforms needed and already underway to address the disproportionate impact of fines, fees and bail on the poor. The initiative includes self-organized community discussions across Ohio using the Courting Justice Ohio Discussion Guide, private discussion groups organized by ideastream in Northeast Ohio, and City Club of Cleveland forums.

The foundation for this initiative is a televised forum hosted on December 8, 2016 by Tavis Smiley and the National Center for State Courts, in partnership with ideastream and The City Club of Cleveland, which put judges in direct dialogue with the communities they serve. The focus of the forum was on how various forms of payment required by the courts (e.g. fines, fees, bail) to either punish offenders, support operating court costs or incentivize defendants’ release before trial affect people who cannot pay those costs at a far greater rate than those who can.

The goals of this initiative include:

• raising awareness of the disproportionate impact of fines, fees and bail on the poor
• encouraging statewide, self-organized dialogues on the issue
• collecting responses and reform ideas from discussion participants across the state and identifying key themes in these discussions for policy consideration

The initiative is led by ideastream, in partnership with The City Club of Cleveland and with support from the Cleveland Foundation.

ideastream’s Public Square is a moderated Facebook* group for people who want to delve deeper into what they hear, read or watch on WCPN, WVIZ, or our website, ideastream.org. It's a place where people share a common interest in what’s going on in the world, unpacking it and distilling it and just having real good conversations online, no matter their political or other ideologies.

It’s also a place to revel in other content beyond news that we’re listening to, watching and reading. Is there a podcast you’ve been obsessed with? An article that changed your thinking? A TV show you’ve been binging on, but have no one to talk about it with?

Let’s talk about it here!

*A Facebook account is required to join.

Please e-mail Mike Shafarenko if you have specific questions about the Civic Commons.