Founding Global Network partner, Future First USA is now known as The Alumni Toolkit by Big Picture Education.
This report looks into the effectiveness of alumni on students in public high schools in the USA.
Extract
During the 2018-19 academic year, UC San Diego’s Center for Research in Educational Equity, Assessment Excellence formative, (CREATE) multi-site and Teaching conducted a study of efforts to increase alumni engagement in San Diego County high schools.
This report covers findings from 15 high schools (public and charter) that attempted to use their own high school alumni to provide career and college advising to their students over a sixmonth period. The study focused on 15 schools that used an online database called Alumni Toolkit to create 20 alumni events for students.
These events ranged from small group panels around college and career advising to larger alumni-related events celebrating graduating seniors. Overall, the study collected input from 8 participating educators, 102 students and 34 alumni and conducted observations at the 20 alumni events. Data analyses revealed that all three groups responded participation in positively creating, to their attending and participating in alumni events to benefit high school students.
Educators found that putting on the events was easier because of the availability of the Alumni Toolkit as a back-end recruiting and sorting database. Students found they learned practical knowledge and gained motivation from interacting with alumni.
The alumni themselves were pleased to have a chance to reconnect with their schools, or, if they were already connected, to continue their work supporting their home high schools.
We conclude that high schools tapping alumni as an educational resource is a promising new strategy that may provide much at little overall cost.
The following sections provide insights into the study’s objectives and purpose, theoretical framing, collected and results.
