One of the more interesting examples of community wide collaboration around education has been having tremendous impact on young people in Cincinnati. 5 years ago childhood educators, school superintendents, college presidents, business leaders, foundation directors and a number of community leaders came together because local students were lagging behind other communities in college attainment rates. Community leaders were concerned about remaining competitive in a global economy if local students weren’t able to get into college and do well. Leaders initially met to discuss college readiness, but the focus quickly shifted to high school freshman and keeping the kids in school…. Then to middle school students …. Then to grade school and eventually focused on the importance of kindergarten and quality early learning experiences. The initial meeting of community and education stakeholders met to discuss college attainment rates but quickly focused on the entire education continuum.
This collaborative was unique both in the quality of the partnership and the nature of the problem being addressed. Partners in a collaborative must come together and agree not just on common goals, but shared ways to measure success towards those goals. They must communicate on a regular basis. And there must be a “backbone” organization, like United Way, that is focused full-time on managing the partnership. The key to making a community collaborative like this work is setting a common vision and finding a common language, and in this case the common language was data. The participants didn’t let each other get focused on ideological or political issues. They focused on the data, and implemented thoughtful data driven programs as a single working collaborative. Everyone worked together from the same playbook.
Three years later the results were dramatic. Kindergarten readiness had jumped 9%, 4th grade reading increased 7% and math increased 14 %; and the high school graduation rate was up 11%. College graduation rates for students from local urban high schools had jumped by 10 %.
Delaware County has hundreds of nonprofit organizations, most of which work independently, and many local, county, state and federal government agencies each focused on a very unique part of the education continuum. When it comes to solving social problems, society often behaves like a drowning man whose arms and legs thrash about wildly in the water. We expend a great deal of energy, but because we don’t work together efficiently, we don’t necessarily move forward. It’s encouraging to see community collaboratives work, and I hope that the educational funding issues we are facing here in Pennsylvania will spur similar local efforts that can better prepare our children for a prosperous future. They deserve it!