Date: Monday, January 5, 2026
Hello, AEA365 community! Liz DiLuzio here, Lead Curator of the blog. This week is Individuals Week, which means we take a break from our themed weeks and spotlight the Hot Tips, Cool Tricks, Rad Resources and Lessons Learned from any evaluator interested in sharing. Would you like to contribute to future individuals weeks? Email me at AEA365@eval.org with an idea or a draft and we will make it happen.
Hi! We’re Kristin Kappelman, director of research, and Samantha Reynoso, research and evaluation manager, with Milwaukee Succeeds, a collective impact that advances education equity in Milwaukee, ensuring all children have the resources they need to succeed. We do this by sharing decision making, centering racial justice, and changing existing systems of power.
Since 2019, high school success has been one of our strategic priority areas, with youth adult equity serving as a guiding principle. We are committed to elevating youth voice and empowering youth who are directly impacted by issues in our education system to be active decision-makers when it comes to identifying solutions. As we worked with partners, we discovered the need to assess where organizations are when it comes to youth adult equity.
Much like climbing a ladder, the youth adult equity ladder is a conceptual framework, originally developed by Roger Hart, representing a series of ascending rungs, each signifying a distinct level of youth engagement, influence, and partnership.
Understanding that our partners needed a tool to help determine their rung of the ladder, we created the Youth Adult Equity Ladder Assessment. At its core, this assessment tool seeks to empower organizations, schools, and community programs to introspectively evaluate the extent to which they genuinely include and respect the voices of young individuals. Partners are encouraged to take the Assessment as a team, dedicating at least 30 minutes for discussion and reflection. The Assessment includes a series of scored Likert questions, followed by open-ended questions to collect evidence or reasons why the partner answered the Likert questions.
Upon completion of the Assessment, partners receive an email with the score, which corresponds to a rung on the ladder. Additional reflection questions are shared, which can be used to help guide future conversations on how to improve the score. The Assessment provides a vital feedback mechanism, allowing our partners to measure their progress and identify areas where they excel and, equally importantly, where improvements are needed. The Youth Adult Equity Ladder Assessment also serves as a data collection tool to gather exemplars of youth participation with local organizations, and results are published in a guidebook to help organizations incorporate ways to move up the rungs of the ladder.
Milwaukee Succeeds aims to foster a future where youth are not mere spectators in their own lives but active, empowered participants in shaping their present and future. We hope that others join us on this journey!
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