Every year, thousands of Canadian students make the life-altering decision to drop out of high school. Statistics show that in some of the country’s most vulnerable neighbourhoods, upwards of 60 percent of students do not graduate high school, taking a toll on our communities, health and justice system and economy.

The Pathways to Education Program® is focused on solving this problem by lowering high school dropout rates, increasing access to post-secondary education and closing the “achievement gap”.

Pathways has been successful in making learning a priority for the eight low-income  communities in which it now operates, and the results have been nothing short of transformational.  Within this success there are experiences, results, and lessons that point the way to a future where all youth have access to the opportunities that will ultimately yield a stronger, more productive nation.

What have we learned?

We’ve learned that the community has great wisdom.  They community told us that if we wanted to have an impact on a community we needed to “include all the kids”; not targeting or creaming, but including all the youth.  Other programs had tried to deal with a few of the “most at-risk” kids or the ones with the most “promise”.  The community knew better.  The reason this matters is because the stigma changes when you’re all in it together; achievement rises for everyone.  The form of the supports may differ a bit, but no one is stigmatized.  It may sound simple, but it’s hard to do.

It’s the “blend” of supports that matters.  It’s not about a single intervention, for example, which focuses on grade 9 attendance. We know that tutoring by itself won’t work.  The four supports – taken together – make the difference.  The Canadian Millennium Scholarship Fund in The Price of Knowledge reported “Specific interventions designed to alleviate a narrow set of barriers—by targeting one kind of barrier, such as academic ability—will be limited in their effectiveness because they leave the other sources of the problem untouched.  Without a comprehensive approach to overcoming these barriers, it is unlikely that Canada will gain the post-secondary achievement necessary to chart a successful course in the 21st century”.

And the supports need to be in the community.  Our young people and youth in other similar neighbourhoods, identify with the community, not with their schools. For the most part they know, deeply and profoundly, that it’s those in the community who they can turn to.

Interventions need to be made in the “space between” systems.    It is the relationship the student has with the teacher, institution, parents that help nurture productive citizens.   The systems themselves need to be understood and the connections are key.  It is important to have knowledge of both the kids and the institutions.

Maintain high expectations. Raising standards creates an expectation of success which in turn builds self esteem.  We learned that self esteem follows achievement and achievement follows expectations and support mediated by “discipline”.  Without discipline a human being cannot achieve his or her goals.  The most challenging situations we’ve seen are where young people who are struggling are left to struggle; where the “why bother?” becomes the inability to give homework or textbooks; where a school principal just wants to get rid of particular kids because he or she doesn’t know how to engage them; where the excuses come from the adults, rather than the kids.

What the numbers don’t tell you

Yes, we’ve had groundbreaking results – and here’s what the numbers don’t tell you.

They don’t tell you about the debating event at Hart House; how more than a dozen Pathways girls worked with mentors from U of T debating club to understand what a formal debate is and how to participate; how those young women had never set foot in the university, let alone Hart House, let alone the Great Hall, let alone ever spoke aloud there. I can tell you how proud they were and how, afterwards, most told us they intended to go to school there; and to do that they knew they’d have to work hard.

The numbers don’t tell you about the kid abandoned by his mother, living with an aunt who had her own problems; how he wasn’t going to school, wouldn’t talk to teachers or guidance counselors or school social workers; who spoke to his Pathways Support Worker and, over time, with much effort, started not only to go to school, but to attend our tutoring and mentoring as well.

No data can show how a 13 year old from a refugee family entered grade 9 and was told she’d have to start in an ESL program; how our staff told me she was an ‘A’ student all through elementary school, but was to be placed in a program for new immigrants because they hadn’t yet gotten her records; and how she’d worried about falling behind academically while they waited; how we worked with the school to ensure they got it right; how she was correctly placed within two days – and how she’s continued her academic achievement.

The numbers don’t tell you about the principal who values the program enough to call when one of the kids needs support that the school can’t give and Pathways can; or about the kid who says “I Love Mentoring”, or how a fourteen year old girl who once had little confidence, held the attention of the then Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, who was riveted by how the young woman now demonstrated her own worthiness.

Yes, the numbers are amazing – but the kids behind those numbers are even more amazing.

Rising to the future challenge

Finally, a few recommendations, from our experience, that may help move us toward the Canada we need in 2017.

There’s been an awful lot of talk over the years – over decades – and if there’s one thing I want you to hear is that we need to act and invest!  And here’s why

In July 2007, the Boston Consulting Group released a comprehensive report analyzing the cost/benefit of Pathways to society. The report’s conclusions are impressive:

• The direct societal Return on Investment for a dollar invested in Pathways is $25 in current dollars
• The Net Present Value per student of a Pathways graduate is almost $50,000
• Over the lifetime of a Pathways graduate, the cumulative incremental benefit to society of a Pathways student is $400,000. That means that a cohort of 150 Pathways graduates creates a $60 million net benefit to society.

We need to ensure that our expectation for academic success, specifically secondary school graduation and post-secondary attendance, is a national priority for all of our youth, including our lowest income youth, those who are excluded and marginalized.  The reasons for doing this are prosperity, productivity and competitiveness; higher incomes; inclusion; reduced health, justice and social spending; and because leveling the playing field is the right thing to do.  It is a priority with sound and significant fiscal and social benefits; and, most importantly, it is achievable for the overwhelming majority of those who currently dropout.

To succeed, we need to ensure there are demonstrably effective programs that incorporate several key features, for which there is now clear evidence:  Interventions must be community based, comprehensive, for the duration of high school, have high standards and be accountable for results.

We need a “reality check”. There are many who want to believe that there is a “quick fix”; an easier and cheaper way to be successful.  There isn’t.  Reducing the dropout rate, reducing crime, increasing life chances, improving the health of the population; these things are possible – but not tomorrow, and certainly not for those who have been on the outside for so long.  Pathways and fundamental change in Regent Park has taken years.  It took years to create the conditions and dispositions that ask “why bother?” Why would we presume they can be changed overnight?

The good news is we all have a role to play in closing the achievement gap. Pathways has found that corporations, foundations, not for profits, public institutions and individuals all want to help.  The role of government should be to facilitate the alignment of the multi-sectoral partnerships that are required to sustain the delivery of this type of model at the community level.  If we want the very public benefits that effective community-based initiatives provide; results that the schools alone cannot duplicate; governments must invest in these programs as a partner with the private sector.

We all have a role to play and what we do matters. Pathways is proof of that.