The Association for High School Innovation (AHSI) is a network of youth development organizations with 277 sites nationwide committed to creating educational opportunities for young people for whom traditional school settings have not been successful.

AHSI was originally launched as the Alternative High School Initiative in 2003 as a response to the growing national trend of diminishing graduation rates, affecting this country’s low income, African American and Latino youth. Young people who attend AHSI schools, once considered “on the bottom” academically, socially, and economically, are overcoming academic failure and graduating high school prepared to succeed in college and careers.

As of February 2010, the Association for High School Innovation was adopted as a new name when AHSI launched its new enterprise with the intention to lead - through innovation and intentional collaboration - a national response to the imperative that our country educate all youth.

While building upon achievements since 2003, AHSI has restructured its network to become a national organization formally serving its membership with the aim of reaching the widest possible audience across the country to educate all youth. Specifically, AHSI will cultivate new partnerships and build upon existing ones to:

• Expand the number of high quality pathways to graduation and post-high school success nationwide by opening new, high quality high schools and partnering with communities and schools locally and statewide to create innovative options within existing systems;
• Use the AHSI Distinguishers and AHSI Policy Conditions to analyze characteristics of the environment (e.g., laws, policies, and regulations) that affect the sustainability of innovative schools and programs;
• Engage with community-wide partners, municipal leaders, higher education institutions, school districts, State Education Agencies, and others, to develop a wide range of high quality pathways to graduation; AHSI Partnerships in Indianapolis, IN; Nashville, TN; and Newark, NJ are demonstrating the potential for this strategy to succeed in other localities committed to educating all youth;
• Cultivate a community of practice for knowledge development that fosters exchanges of information on effective interventions, educational tools and instruments, strategies for managing networks of schools and programs, and curriculum/school design; and
• Promote evidence-based practices and accountability for student success by improving the use of data, research, and evaluation to assess longitudinal student outcomes, improve school and program results, and otherwise measure progress toward consistently delivering high quality programs and services.

Ultimately, high quality alternative schools will become part of the fabric of education in the United States — no longer marginalized but well regarded options that enable all students to choose among high quality pathways to graduation and post-high school success.