Reimagining New Mexico's Secondary and Postsecondary Education

Future Focused Edu­ca­tion (FFE), based in Albu­querque, New Mex­i­co, is trans­form­ing the state’s approach to sec­ondary and post­sec­ondary edu­ca­tion and its stu­dents’ tran­si­tion to col­lege and careers. A part­ner in the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Thrive by 25^® efforts, FFE has devel­oped inno­v­a­tive intern­ship pro­grams, pro­vid­ed tech­ni­cal assis­tance to school dis­tricts and engaged in pol­i­cy advo­ca­cy to increase oppor­tu­ni­ties for young people.

“Future Focused Edu­ca­tion has a laser focus on the well-being of young peo­ple, ages 14 through 24, the intend­ed ben­e­fi­cia­ries of Thrive by 25,” said Charles Rutheis­er, a Casey senior asso­ciate. ​“The orga­ni­za­tion has been mak­ing sec­ondary and post­sec­ondary edu­ca­tion much more ground­ed in the expe­ri­ence of young peo­ple, keep­ing those youth engaged with school or oth­er train­ing and deliv­er­ing results that are impor­tant for stu­dents, their fam­i­lies and their communities.” 

Remov­ing Bar­ri­ers to Work and Edu­ca­tion in New Mexico

Stu­dents from low-income fam­i­lies often must work to meet basic needs. But low-skill, low-wage jobs that can keep stu­dents out late inter­fere with their edu­ca­tion and pro­vide lit­tle prepa­ra­tion for sus­tain­able careers. High school stu­dents in FFE’s X3 intern­ship pro­gram have a more mean­ing­ful, paid work expe­ri­ence while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly earn­ing school credit.

The X3 pro­gram has expand­ed access to intern­ships for youth who may lack the con­nec­tions for these valu­able oppor­tu­ni­ties. FFE pro­vides X3 stu­dents with what it calls ​“360-degree sup­port,” which includes com­pre­hen­sive job ori­en­ta­tions and men­tor­ship. X3 also works with employ­ers to ensure both they and stu­dents ben­e­fit from the internship.

“We have knocked down a lot of bias bar­ri­ers that box out many young peo­ple from these expe­ri­ences,” said Tony Mon­filet­to, founder of FFE. ​“We cre­ate the job descrip­tions with the employ­ers, we inter­view the stu­dents, insure them and pro­vide onboard­ing sup­port. At the end of the intern­ship, we have an eval­u­a­tion that is done with the employer.”

Mak­ing Suc­cess­ful Post-Sec­ondary Transitions

FFE has been expand­ing its work into rur­al areas of New Mex­i­co, where oppor­tu­ni­ties for intern­ships are scarce. For exam­ple, in Des Moines, a remote ranch­ing com­mu­ni­ty in north­east New Mex­i­co, the X3 intern­ship pro­gram is enabling stu­dents to learn how to use archi­tec­ture soft­ware to design and build a small house. Area par­tic­i­pants gath­er reg­u­lar­ly to learn from pro­fes­sion­al archi­tects and contractors.

To help high school grad­u­ates suc­cess­ful­ly make the tran­si­tion to fur­ther edu­ca­tion and careers, FFE devel­oped X3 NeXt. This pro­gram pairs stu­dents with employ­ers, allow­ing young peo­ple to gain work expe­ri­ence while earn­ing cer­tifi­cates and degrees from col­leges and train­ing pro­grams. FFE and the Uni­ver­si­ty of New Mex­i­co Hos­pi­tal have devel­oped a $1 mil­lion part­ner­ship to fund intern­ships for recent grad­u­ates and high school students.

Over the past six years, the X3 and X3 NeXt intern­ship pro­grams have grown to 170 employ­ers, with some 1,500 place­ments and near­ly $2 mil­lion paid to young people.

New Mexico’s Inno­va­tion Zones

To help sup­port the state’s large pop­u­la­tion of young peo­ple, ages 16 to 24, who are nei­ther in school nor work­ing, the New Mex­i­co Pub­lic Edu­ca­tion Depart­ment estab­lished Inno­va­tion Zones. The ini­tia­tive des­ig­nates high schools that are redesign­ing edu­ca­tion by incor­po­rat­ing proven approach­es to engage stu­dents in and out of the class­room. Key ele­ments of Inno­va­tion Zones include:

• high-qual­i­ty instruc­tion that com­bines the cul­tur­al back­ground of stu­dents with chal­leng­ing career and tech­ni­cal education;
• per­son­al­ized sup­port for stu­dents; and 
• part­ner­ships with fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ty organizations.

The Pub­lic Edu­ca­tion Depart­ment has engaged FFE to pro­vide tech­ni­cal assis­tance to the 47 Inno­va­tion Zones statewide. ​“We have cre­at­ed ini­tia­tives that get at some of the hard­est-to-solve prob­lems in the state, includ­ing young people’s access to high-pay­ing jobs and the way we think about what a young per­son needs to learn,” said Mon­filet­to. ​“All those ini­tia­tives are now part of the state’s strat­e­gy to redesign high schools.”

Youth Civic Infra­struc­ture Fund

FFE’s Youth Civic Infra­struc­ture Fund pro­vides mul­ti­year grants to non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions that seek to inte­grate young peo­ple and schools into their work. Projects embed­ded in the com­mu­ni­ty and designed by schools and non­prof­its pro­vide stu­dents with real-world expe­ri­ence address­ing com­mu­ni­ty-defined chal­lenges. In San­ta Fe, for exam­ple, home­less­ness and hous­ing insta­bil­i­ty guide the fund’s work. In Aztec, a small rur­al town in north­west New Mex­i­co, the issue is youth men­tal health.

FFE has been an effec­tive pol­i­cy advo­cate for the well-being of ado­les­cents and young adults. Over the past three leg­isla­tive cycles, fund­ing for Inno­va­tion Zones increased from $12 mil­lion to $40 mil­lion. This year, the state’s sum­mer intern­ship bud­get increased from $8 mil­lion to $10 mil­lion. A recent leg­isla­tive suc­cess changed the state’s grad­u­a­tion require­ments to include work-based learn­ing and cap­stone projects that devel­op skills that are trans­fer­able to careers — for exam­ple, team­work, effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion and prob­lem solving.

View NBC News Pro­file of Future Focused Education