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Catalogue Blog

20 Year Goal

Monday morning food for thought from Martha Ross of the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, via WAMU 88.5:

The city should commit to an ambitious goal: by 2022, 90 percent of DC’s young people will earn a post-secondary credential and obtain full-time work by the age of 24. Such a shared goal would have a cascading effect, and require partners in the public, private and social sectors to re-think and re-orient their standard operating procedures [...] Building and expanding such programs will be a complex, multi-year project, but it’s not out of our reach. In fact, city leaders have already taken a number of steps. They created a community college, revitalized the Workforce Investment Council, and are developing an intermediary to better match residents with job openings. These steps are necessary but not sufficient. We must do more.

What do you think? Is such a goal achievable? And what might be the first steps for us, in the nonprofit sector?