Improving early career outcomes for D.C.’s high school alumni is important; attendance has an impact on postsecondary enrollment

On Wednesday, March 5, 2025, Education Policy Initiative Director Chelsea Coffin testified before the D.C. Council Committee of the Whole at its Deputy Mayor for Education (DME) performance oversight hearing. Her testimony focuses on attention to early career outcomes for high school alumni and the importance of attendance. You can read her testimony below, or download a PDF copy.

My testimony is based primarily on two D.C. Policy Center reports: State of D.C. Schools, 2023-24 and Building career assets for lifelong success. 

There is a real need to improve early career outcomes for D.C.’s high school alumni. Young adults aged 18 to 34 who were born and currently reside in D.C. earn less than half the income of the young adults who were not born in D.C., based on American Community Survey (ACS) data. They are 7 times more likely to be unemployed, and they are two-thirds less likely to have a bachelor’s degree or higher.¹ 

In concert with the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education, D.C. government agencies and schools are the main providers of career asset building opportunities, or the programs, courses, or experiences that help young people connect to college and career (offering 96 percent, based on a school year 2022-23 survey). Building career assets² is one demonstrated way to boost earnings for D.C.’s alumni.³ Based on enrollment, there are enough intensive (occurring two or more times a week) career asset building opportunities to reach 41 percent of high school students during the school year (the equivalent of all juniors and seniors), and 67 percent of high school students during the summer—in addition to reaching roughly three-quarters of high school students with lighter touch opportunities.⁴ Some strong examples of these in FY25 include access to CTE, which reached almost 6,000 students; increased dual enrollment opportunities; more access to paid internships through OSSE and DOES; and courses at the citywide Advanced Technical Center in Ward 5.

Existing data on postsecondary enrollment and initiatives to collect more information show promise. Out of the graduating class of 2023, 56 percent enrolled in a postsecondary institution within six months of high school graduation.⁵ This is an impressive 3 percentage point increase from the previous class, and means a return to pre-pandemic year levels—at a time when learning outcomes and chronic absenteeism have not yet rebounded. Much-needed data linkages across District agencies through the Education Through Employment (ETE) Pathways data system will allow District policymakers to find out more about employment outcomes in addition to current available data on postsecondary degrees, and direct funding to the most effective programs. 

Postsecondary outcomes are also connected to attendance for D.C.’s alumni, meaning that efforts to cut chronic absenteeism by half by 2026-27 are crucial. Among high school graduates (data on postsecondary enrollment are not available for the group that did not graduate from high school), the more school students miss, the less likely they are to enroll in college. Looking at postsecondary enrollment, on average, 7 in 10 high school graduates who missed less than 5 percent of the school year went on to enroll in postsecondary, compared to 3 in 10 who missed more than 30 percent or more of the school year. 

It is vital that this momentum in postsecondary outcomes and supports, as well as efforts to track outcomes continues after FY2025.

1. Coffin, C. and Mason, H. 2024. Building career assets for lifelong success. D.C. Policy Center. Retrieved from https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/building-career-assets-for-lifelong-success/ 
2. Career assets are the tools, skills, experiences, and competencies that help effectively navigate post-high school life.
3. Calma, E. 2021. D.C. high school alumni reflections on their early career outcomes. D.C. Policy Center. Retrieved from https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/early-career-brief/  
4. Coffin, C. and Mason, H. 2024. Building career assets for lifelong success. D.C. Policy Center. Retrieved from https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/building-career-assets-for-lifelong-success/
5. Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE). 2024. “DC School Report Card – Graduation and College Enrollment – Metric Scores for school years 2017-19, 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22, and 2022-23.” OSSE. Retrieved from https://osse.dc.gov/page/dc-school-report-card-resource-library