Largest public school district in the United States was facing
a persistent core population of high school dropouts.
Parthenon partnered with district leadership to develop a comprehensive strategy to provide "Multiple Pathways" to high school graduation, and to evaluate a range of related high school reform options
Parthenon Action
Assessed size and profile the population of students who fall "off-track" in high school, representing the district's eventual dropouts
Identified school and programs with the greatest ability to graduate students who have fallen off-track
Evaluated the financial and organizational requirements to support school portfolio strategies, and forecasted the effects of different portfolio investments on system-wide graduation rates
Calculated return-on-investment (cost per point of graduation rate increase) based on current spending levels and outcomes in specific schools and programs
Proposed prioritized investments as a result of data-driven outcomes tied to instructional practices and specific school design models
Outcome
District and City leadership increased commitment to expand existing
Multiple Pathways portfolio by 2.5x, through more than $60MM of new
investments in schools and contracted program Parthenon analyses
and recommendations featured prominently in numerous news articles,
including Time
Magazine and the New York Times
