Second Chance

Caitlin Baron is the founding CEO of the Luminos Fund, which is dedicated to advancing education innovations for the world’s most vulnerable children. The Luminos Fund has provided over 136,000 out-of-school children with a Second Chance at an education. Caitlin believes in the power of creative pedagogies and activity-based education to transform children’s lives, even in the poorest corners of the world. Caitlin spent the previous decade as a senior leader at the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation (MSDF), helping to grow the organization to steward over $1 billion in charitable giving. She founded and led the foundation’s office in South Africa and built MSDF’s impact investing portfolio. Caitlin graduated from UCLA in Political Science and is pursuing an executive masters with the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

COVID-19 is creating a confluence of crises with devastating impact on education. Today, over one billion children globally remain out of school due to COVID-19. For the wealthy, school closures are largely an inconvenience. For children from the world’s poorest and most vulnerable households, COVID-19 is a dire threat to learning and their future opportunity. My organization the Luminos Fund’s sole focus is on addressing this problem.

Luminos elevates humanity by ensuring children everywhere get a chance to experience joyful learning. We believe rich “five senses” learning is possible even in the poorest corners of the globe, and that no child should ever be denied an education. Our Second Chance program employs an innovative, data-driven pedagogy to help out-of-school children catch up. Second Chance is a project for this moment as low-income countries struggle to recover from COVID-19. These children need help.

My vision is of a world where no child is ever denied the chance to learn. Sadly, 258 million school-aged children globally do not know how to read or write. Children from the poorest households, like those whom Luminos serves, are especially vulnerable. COVID-19 has amplified this education tragedy.  

At COVID’s peak, 9 in 10 children globally were impacted by school closures. For lower-income families, COVID-19 poses a dire threat to learning and opportunity. Research shows that 3-month school closures can cause children to fall one year behind. Lessons from the Rwandan genocide and Hurricane Katrina suggest it can take years for children catch up to the learning levels they were at before disruption. Without bold action, millions of children out of school today may never return. Missed education has massive human costs: increasing children’s vulnerability to violence, teen pregnancy, hunger, and more. Meanwhile, education offers abundant benefits. One extra year of schooling increases an individual’s earnings by up to 10% and the effect can be double for women. Around the world, data shows that education is correlated with democracy and there are positive links between education and civic participation levels. Our mission has never been more important.

Second Chance is a 10-month accelerated learning program that gives children who have been kept out of school a second chance at education and the chance to catch up.

Second Chance employs an innovative, activity-based pedagogy to enable children to (i) learn to read and do basic math, (ii) learn how to learn (self-directed learning), and (iii) transition successfully into mainstream schooling at the appropriate grade level. Students advance with help from teachers: young people and members of the local community, trained by Luminos, who guide students through the curriculum. Together, children cover three years of curriculum (Grades 1-3) in three trimesters. Students’ parents and caregivers participate in Luminos-supported Parent Engagement Groups that promote shared accountability for learning and encourage small-scale collective enterprise to support families with the future cost of education. Over 90% of our students complete Second Chance and advance to mainstream school. On average, Second Chance students go from not recognizing the letters of the alphabet to reading 40 words per minute by the end of the program! Also, low-resource communities can implement our model themselves, with minimal training, so it is well-positioned to achieve impact at scale.

Second Chance serves vulnerable, overage, and out-of-school children e.g., children facing extreme poverty, refugees, and first-generation readers. Today with COVID-19, millions more children are out of school and facing severe learning loss. The need is greater than ever.

When opening Second Chance classrooms, my team selects vulnerable communities with large numbers of out-of-school children, working collaboratively with district and national governments. We also recruit and train young adults from these same communities as our teachers, and emphasize local stories and culture in our curriculum.

In addition to our emphasis on joyful, accelerated learning, Luminos takes a data-driven approach to deliver impact. Students’ progress is tracked in real-time. At the beginning of Second Chance, students take a diagnostic exam to identify their baseline learning competencies. Every week, students take timed reading assessments and numeracy assessments. Phase-level assessments corresponding to each grade level covered in the curriculum (Grade 1-3) are administered throughout the year. Second Chance teachers and staff receive support to tailor their instruction to students’ needs. Rapid feedback loops, including bi-weekly learning sessions with the program team, local partners and experts, and monthly Parent Engagement Groups, help us ensure the program responds to realities on the ground and students’ needs.

Like Elevate, I believe in individuals’ power to spark movements, mobilize communities, and catalyze positive change. I also believe today’s education crisis is one of the greatest challenges – and heartbreaks – facing humanity.

With Elevate’s support and leveraging our success to-date, we can spark a movement to solve this education crisis through Second Chance. Luminos has enthusiastic, strong supporters, and I am proud that communities, governments, and individuals can easily adopt Second Chance to reach more vulnerable children.

I would be so honored to receive The Elevate Prize, yet I believe students are the true Heroes of my story.

For years, I have believed that the world’s best-in-class knowledge on how child learn effectively and successfully can – and should – be reimagined for the lowest-resourced communities, too. Why is the world less imaginative when it comes to educating poor children? I believe no child should ever be denied the chance to learn and, moreover, children should be able to experience joyful learning! In 2016, in my new role as CEO, I began working with communities in Liberia to help them unlock their own creativity and capacity, leveraging evidence-based teaching practices adapted for the local context. After a number of years of thoughtful testing, learning and iteration, today, Second Chance has earned the support of well-respected funders and philanthropists and is admired by education organizations across the sector. Since 2016, we have refined and scaled our model to Lebanon and grown our efforts in Ethiopia where the national government is adopting our Second Chance model in its own classrooms. As of 2020, Luminos has reached over 136,000 children with second chance education while never losing sight of my belief that poor and vulnerable children should have the opportunity to learn joyfully.

Helping vulnerable children access education and opportunity is my life’s work. Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, I saw first-hand how living in a different zip code could affect the quality of one’s school and so much more. As an adult, spending years living in South Africa and India and traveling to low-income countries, the world’s vast discrepancies in opportunity are painfully apparent. Now, as a parent myself, I understand even more deeply how much parents and communities long to give their children better opportunities.

We all know intrinsically that children learn best in richly engaging environments. Why would this be any different for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable? Why does the education sector seem less imaginative when it comes to educating children from the poorest families? Education offers lifelong benefits for children, their families, and communities: unlocking opportunity that transcends generations. If I can help unlock the light of learning in more children’s lives through the Luminos Fund and our Second Chance program – and especially if these children are among the world’s most vulnerable – I feel like I’ve done some good in the world.

I am uniquely well-positioned to continue growing the Second Chance movement to educate the world’s most vulnerable and out-of-school children because:

• My Second Chance program works. Ample external research shows that our students learn to read at remarkable rates in our classrooms and are happier, more confident, and complete primary school at twice the rate of their peers.
• My global team includes senior international education professionals with years of experience making a difference for children across Africa and South Asia.
• We have years of experience delivering Second Chance and have already reached over 136,000 children across three countries with our programs.
• We partner closely with the communities we serve to ensure long-term sustainability and empowerment: hiring teachers locally, working hand-in-hand with local partners (25 partners across our three countries of operations), empowering parents and families through Parental Engagement Groups, and collaborating with governments to ensure excellence and alignment with national education goals.
• We are data-driven and constantly iterating to deliver higher quality and impact to children. Our online program dashboard supports data-driven decision-making across all levels of the organization (HQ to field operations).
• Our Advisory Board features some of the brightest minds in international education, including former African Ministers of Education and the former Executive Director of UNICEF.

When I launched the Second Chance program in Liberia in the aftermath of Ebola, I knew it would be a challenge. Liberia has one of the world’s highest rates of out-of-school children – more than 50%. With extended school closures during the twenty-year civil war, a whole generation of prospective teachers missed out on the education required to teach. Further complicating the challenge, school is taught in English though few speak it at home.

We knew from the external evaluations of our flagship Ethiopia program that we had a model of accelerated learning that worked, but when we first launched in Liberia, it wasn’t clear we would succeed in the new geography. In fact, students made little progress in our first year. I realized we needed to radically rework the program, keeping core principles of “five senses learning” but reinterpreting them for a new challenge. We rewrote the curriculum around phonics (critical for struggling English learners) and added a midday meal (essential for hungry children).

After three years of careful iteration and program refinement, I am proud to say that our Liberian students are learning to read at one of the fastest rates on the continent. 

I had the privilege of creating the Dell Young Leaders scholarship program in South Africa for the family foundation of Michael & Susan Dell. Building on their success elsewhere, the Dells set about radically transforming the prospects for young South Africans. With only one third of university students graduating on time, and nearly half of all young people out of work, the context was daunting. Together we set a goal to build a scholarship program for first generation students with an 80% graduation rate and 100% employment.

To do this, I took everything we knew from what works for first generation students in the US and married that with the best research on the unique barriers and constraints in South Africa. Working with top researchers, administrators, and young people themselves, I came to understand that coaching, mentorship, and advocacy were as important as money for student success. We built a program that provides holistic support to now over 1,000 students, and that serves today as a model for the national finance aid program in South Africa. My greatest achievement though was bequeathing leadership of the program to directors who were once themselves Dell Young Leaders.

We all know that children learn best through rich, holistic, joyful education. Yet when we think about bringing education to children at the margins of society, too often our conception of what is possible narrows. Many revert to traditional teaching methods, rote learning, and memorization. In doing so, millions of already-disadvantaged children are essentially left behind. I refuse to accept this frame and am devoted to ensuring that even the world’s most vulnerable children have the opportunity to learn with joy, respect, and caring.

The Luminos Second Chance program is changing the game and proving what is possible for basic education in low-resourced communities globally. First, the most vulnerable children can become independent, collaborative, and resilient learners who master the basics through activity-based, child-centric approaches. Pedagogy that caters to children’s needs should no longer be reserved for boys and girls whose families have means. We must democratize access to and enjoyment of rich learning. Second, Luminos hires local young adults to serve the same community as Second Chance teachers. Often these men and women have little more than a 10th grade education but are remarkably successful as teachers in our program, thanks to our unique training. Third, we offer parent engagement groups to help parents better understand the value of education and even to learn about ways to make and save money to fund their children’s future educations.  Second Chance is shining a light on innovative new pathways in the education sector – for children, teachers, and families.

Independent external research confirms Second Chance’s impact and track record equipping formerly out-of-school children with functional literacy, numeracy, and the broader skills that are needed to enter mainstream school and succeed.

According to longitudinal research led by the University of Sussex (Akyeampong, 2018), Luminos graduates go on to complete primary school at nearly twice the rate as their non-Luminos peers. Even six years after completing Second Chance, they consistently outperform their peers in English and Math, have higher aspirations for their future, and are happier and more confident. In Liberia, external evidence (Simpson, 2019) suggests that the Luminos Second Chance pedagogy is driving a ten-fold improvement in reading familiar words. Second Chance enables students, the majority of whom are non-readers from illiterate families, to become functionally literate (able to read 40 words per minute on average) by the end of the 10-month program.

Our theory of change builds on the above evidence base and includes three strategies:

• Adapt the Second Chance model for the local context: Leveraging what we know works based on the existing evidence, we work closely with local partners to customize Second Chance to a new country context, maintaining 70% of the original model and adapting 30%. This process enables us to achieve greatest impact in the unique local context.
• Build the local evidence base: Our expertise knowing how Second Chance compares to existing approaches enables us to scale a model that works. Since inception, we have completed 6 external evaluations with 4 more underway. Sharing knowledge and expertise with governments and stakeholders empowers others to implement Second Chance themselves, while accelerating our collective ability to counter today’s education crisis.
• Drive government adoption: Our ultimate aim is to help governments adopt solutions that get kids back to school and continuing on the path to opportunity. In pursuit of this, we collaborate with national and global partners to adopt and adapt Second Chance for their own classrooms. 

In the coming years, Luminos will serve nearly 200,000 beneficiaries through our programs.

• Currently in 2020, the Luminos Fund serves 27,124 people directly (13,201 students, 13,201 parents, and 722 teachers).
• One year from now, the Luminos Fund will serve 35,977 people directly (17,600 students, 17,600 parents, and 777 teachers).
• In five years, the Luminos Fund will serve 133,492 people directly (65,722 students, 65,722 parents, and 2,048 teachers). 

In the next year, our goal is to reach an additional 17,600 children and 777 teachers. We will ensure strong outcomes for students including: (1) 90% program completion rate, (2) 90% transition rate into mainstream school, and (3) 75% of children progressing towards minimum proficiency levels for literacy and numeracy. By early 2021, we aim to inspire an additional African country to reach children through Second Chance. As part of this effort, we will begin building a senior team based in Africa. We will also continue building Second Chance’s external evidence base by launching a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of the Liberia Second Chance program and a multi-year process evaluation of the government adoption of Second Chance in Ethiopia. We will augment our promising data dashboard into a fully operational data management system. In the next five years, Luminos aims to reach 200,000 total children through Second Chance: 50,000 through direct programming and 150,000 by empowering governments, partners, and other stakeholders to adopt and adapt our model. We will continue inspiring Ministries of Education in Africa to adopt Second Chance, scaling to a total of five+ countries by 2024. To support these efforts, we will develop, publish, and disseminate a Second Chance toolkit and continue building Luminos advocacy platforms to champion Second Chance education as a lever for progress on SDG4. Our focus and ambitious outcomes for children (learning gains, program completion, transition into mainstream school) will remain unchanged over the next five years.

With COVID-19 impacting nearly every learner around the world, the global challenge before us is of unprecedented scale. Second Chance is a proven model born for this moment in time, but barriers exist to tackling this challenge, at the scale required, on our own. We must accelerate collaboration with governments, implementers, and other leaders to scale up our model and, in the process, mobilize a global coalition of changemakers advocating for children and Second Chance education. To do this, we must drive adoption of our model on a far larger scale.

I believe a vital way to overcome these barriers and achieve next-level impact is through the development of the Second Chance toolkit noted above. With COVID-19, children need help more than ever to catch up, but education leaders and policymakers will be unable to travel for workshops and convenings for some time, leaving children and teachers at risk. Our innovative toolkit will provide a roadmap for educators and communities to implement the Second Chance model and best practices with agility, which we can support through state-of-the-art dissemination and digital convenings. This is a key step to inspiring a global movement for change. I believe The Elevate Prize’s esteemed community will be crucial to helping make this dream a global reality.

We plan to overcome the barrier noted above through two primary strategies:

1. Develop and disseminate a Second Chance Toolkit to create pathways for broader adoption and integration of Second Chance solutions in other countries. This includes the creation of a “Second Chance in a box” comprehensive toolkit and replication roadmap for governments and non-government implementers that codifies best practices and provides implementation guidelines. Luminos has not yet widely shared the wealth of lessons and external evaluations that have driven our success. When completed, this toolkit will serve as a critical asset in the fight against the current global education crisis. We believe the Elevate community could offer valuable expertise on structuring and amplifying this toolkit.
2. Invest further in Luminos advocacy platforms to champion Second Chance education. As COVID-19 demonstrates, one of the greatest challenges to global society is a pandemic. In our immediate future, education systems will need to become more innovative, agile, and resilient. The world will be navigating new norms of how, when, and where teaching and learning take place for the foreseeable future. We intend to leverage our compelling evidence base and track record to shift mindsets and change the global paradigm regarding how best to help children ‘learn how to learn’ and read proficiently by age 10, regardless of background and schooling experience. We plan to do this through increased advocacy including a steady drumbeat of convenings, workshops, and thought leadership, and believe Elevate could be a superb partner on this journey. 

In each country where we work, Luminos partners with local NGOs, government schools, and government.

NGO Partners: To deliver the Second Chance program, we partner with local NGOs with demonstrated capacity and successful track records delivering education programs to vulnerable populations. Luminos trains these partners in our methodology and curriculum and empowers them to run a cluster of Second Chance classrooms. They lead engagement efforts with local communities, government schools and local government, and support Luminos to identify out-of-school children who the Second Chance program is intended to serve. Each step of the way, Luminos works closely with these partners: investing in their capacity (financial, operational, M&E) while cultivating local knowledge and ownership for Second Chance. Luminos currently works with 25 NGO partners in Ethiopia, Liberia, and Lebanon.

Local government schools: After a child completes Second Chance, Luminos supports graduates to transition into their local government school. To ensure smooth transitions, we partner with local government schools: exposing government teachers and school leaders to Second Chance methodology, sharing best practices, and building capacity to ensure that our graduates – and other children -- have the best chances for success once they arrive.  

Government and Ministries of Education: Luminos partners with governments to promote adoption of Second Chance as a literacy and learning intervention in support of national education goals. As shared, in Ethiopia, Luminos is currently supporting the national government to scale Second Chance across Ethiopia’s nine regions.  

It is human to strive for opportunity and learning, but extreme poverty, crisis, and discrimination create heartbreaking multi-generational barriers. When a vulnerable child misses out on school, there is often no practical way to get her back on track. Many children are lost to learning forever. Second Chance catches children at the end of childhood, giving them a last chance to get back on track toward lifelong learning and opportunity.

Second Chance works with the hardest to reach children, is a grant-based initiative, and is free for families. We recruit young people from the local community, train them as effective teachers, and create welcoming classrooms where even illiterate parents feel welcomed. Through Parent Engagement Groups, we invite parents to see for themselves the learning that’s blossoming in our classrooms, while affirming their support for their children’s long-term education. A free midday meal for students ensures that we meet families where they are, recognize their poverty with dignity, and ensure that hunger does not prevent learning. Our schools are located in communities so there’s no fear of children walking long distances to school.

Second Chance is delivered in partnership with local NGOs, who support us to identify vulnerable communities and support our engagement efforts on the ground. Luminos leads strategy, program design, curriculum development, teacher training, monitoring and evaluation, child protection, and engagement with regional and national governments.

At every level, our program empowers children, families, and communities to strive for opportunity and learning – always with joy and dignity.

The Luminos Fund launched in 2016 with an upfront commitment of $10 million USD over 5 years by the Legatum Foundation. In the past two years, my team has doubled our revenue, growing from $3M in 2018 to $6M in 2020 (we closed 2019 with $6.3 million in revenue). Moving forward, we are projecting 20% annual growth. 2019 was a historic year because it marked the first year we secured three years of funding runway for each of our existing Luminos programs: Ethiopia, Lebanon, and Liberia. Luminos serves the most vulnerable populations so our funding is grant-based. Philanthropic contributions support early innovation and government sustains the work in the long-term through adoption of our models. 

Some of the most respected global education funders invest in Luminos, the majority of which are private foundations and have been with us from early on. These core partners provide a healthy mix of project-based and strategic funding and are deeply invested in our growth.

I am currently focused on diversifying our revenue. In particular, I aim to increase the proportion of our revenue from individual philanthropists and to secure our first bilateral partner. As we develop a full Second Chance toolkit and training for our methodology, we will explore the possibility of other revenue models. 

In 2019, Luminos received $6,343,913 USD in revenue, 100% of which was grant funding. The majority of our funding comes as multi-year grants that are paid out over three-year periods. Luminos recognizes revenue upfront at the point of signature on grant agreements. 2019 revenue included: Dubai Cares ($2,999,017 USD), UBS Optimus Foundation ($2,287,522 USD), Legatum Foundation ($650,000 USD), Mulago Foundation ($150,000), Malachite Capital Management ($38,000 USD), Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart ($25,000 USD), and individual sources ($67,896 USD). In addition to revenue received in 2019, we have active grants from The Peter Cundill Foundation, Cartier Philanthropy, Supercell, and World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) that were awarded in previous years. Revenue from these grants was reported at the point of signature of the respective grant agreement and therefore is not reflected in 2019 revenue detailed above. 

I continue to seek grant funding for the Luminos Fund to build and scale our Second Chance program. As noted, by early 2021, we aim to inspire one additional government in Africa to adopt Second Chance, thereby expanding operations to an additional country to reach thousands more deserving children with education. By 2024, we aim to reach an additional 200,000 children through both direct programming and government adoption. To help us reach these goals, we plan to develop a Second Chance Toolkit and invest further in advocacy. In 2020, we aim to raise $7 million USD. We continue to welcome like-minded investors who are motivated to reach marginalized children and are inspired by the Luminos Fund’s impact on the communities and education systems we serve.

In 2020, the Luminos Fund’s estimated expenses total $4,196,148 USD. 2020 expenses include: Programmatic expenses ($2,978,098) including expenses incurred for program implementation, program staff and capacity building; Operations ($1,018,050) including finance, administration, and fundraising expenses; and External monitoring and evaluation ($200,000) including the cost of contracting professionals to evaluate the impact of our Second Chance program.

Today’s younger generation could lose as much as $10 trillion in future earnings as a result of COVID-19 school closures. COVID-19 may force as many as a half a billion people into poverty, erasing decades of progress on poverty reduction. Estimates suggest that three-month school closures can cause children to fall a year behind, with drastic loses for low achievers. And even before COVID-19, the world faced a global learning crisis.

I am committed to supporting communities and education systems to bring the most vulnerable children back to school and provide joyful, rich learning to meet their needs – both academic skills and broader holistic skills – in this unprecedented moment. My organization, the Luminos Fund, has a proven model – born for this moment in time. However, this crisis is so large that Luminos and our current partners will only be able to reach a fraction of those who need us. I am applying because The Elevate Prize would be a fantastic partner and advisor on our mission. Elevate’s esteemed network could help me level up further to meet the needs of the current challenge – and change children’s lives for the better. The Elevate Prize will help us develop and amplify a Second Chance toolkit and strengthened advocacy practice, so that we can share and spread our learnings to meet the needs of the challenge at hand. We cannot do this alone and I am so excited about the possibility of partnering with The Elevate Prize.

I recognize that to realize the future Second Chance envisages – a world where no child is denied an education – partnership and collective action are critical. It is therefore my priority to continue building a network of experts, collaborators, partners, advocates, and stakeholders committed to ensuring that all children, even the most vulnerable, receive the education needed to thrive. Through Elevate and the MIT Solve community, Luminos aims to leverage like-minded innovators and advocates who can challenge and support us with their creativity, innovation, and bold ideas to ensure that no child is denied an education. 

The Luminos Fund seeks mission-aligned corporate and foundation partners interested in some combination of the following. First, I welcome partnership with MIT and members of the SOLVE community to develop and disseminate a Second Chance toolkit, or to explore other avenues to scale. As part of this, I am interested in exploring MIT’s open-sourced online education platform for dissemination of the toolkit. Second, I welcome partnership and investment in the Luminos Fund via additional funding, programmatic participation, working group membership, or other mutually beneficial collaborations that advance our mission to ensure that no child is ever denied an education, whether by crisis, poverty, or discrimination.