Louisiana's Promise

Louisiana's Promise is a statewide initiative on dropout prevention. Its mission is to support the planning efforts of local districts to help them achieve a cohort graduation rate goal of 80% or greater by the 2014 school year. Louisiana's Promise was launched in late October 2008 with a state summit that attracted more than 800 community leaders from the state who came together to begin tackling the dropout problem in their communities. The state summit was followed by seven regional summits in which community leaders from each school district met to begin identifying local solutions to the dropout problem. Sixty-seven (67) districts prepared preliminary action plans.

Education's Next Horizon commissioned the Picard Center for Child Development to conduct an evaluation of the initial community engagement and action planning work. In response to the findings and recommendations of the Picard Center, Louisiana's Promise now provides targeted assistance to the twenty school districts that have the lowest cohort graduation rate.

For its work with Louisiana's Promise, Education's Next Horizon received the Community Cornerstone Award by the United Way of Acadiana.

• State Summit Report
• Louisiana's Promise Video
• State Summit Sponsors
• Regional Summits
• Community Action Plans
• Publications & Resources
• District Dropout Prevention Goals
• Promise Fulfilled: Louisiana's 80-10 High Schools

For more information about Louisiana's Promise or to learn how to become involved in raising graduation rates, click here.