The first assurance that must be met to qualify for stimulus dollars for education is that every newly funded program must be directly aligned with the goal of achieving college or workplace readiness. Ripple Effects meets this assurance on several levels. 

Workplace and college readiness

Ripple Effects addresses social-emotional factors that have been correlated with academic and workplace performance. In particular it addresses the non-academic factors, “soft skills”, that comprise the majority of 21^st century workplace requirements, and that are highly correlated with success in college after the first year. They are more correlated with elementary and high school school success than any measures of raw academic intelligence.  In addressing these factors, Ripple Effects not only develops core social-emotional competency (for both students and teachers), it develops Language Arts skills - listening, reading, writing, and speaking - especially reading comprehension and critical analysis. It  promotes healthy behavior, increases teachers’ ability to motivate and manage the most diverse set of learners in the nation’s history; and reduces the chance that students will drop out of school, or teachers drop way from the profession. 

Aligned with state content standards

Ripple Effects student program is aligned with Language Arts content standards for California, Texas and other states. It is aligned with common social-emotional learning standards, proposed by the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL). It is aligned with national standards and frameworks for health education.