Strive Success Compels
Nine Regions Across the Country to Adapt its Model; 30 Cities Sign on at Launch
SUNY & New York State Announce
Networks in Albany, Buffalo, Brooklyn, Harlem
Alexandria, VA – State
University of New York Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher, Strive Executive Director
Jeff Edmondson, Living Cities and the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities convened
education and community leaders from more than 30 cities across the country
today to launch the first National Cradle to Career Network. They were joined
by U.S. Department of Education Assistant Deputy
Secretary Jim Shelton and KnowledgeWorks President Chad P. Wick.
The National Cradle to Career
Network will be modeled after Strive, which has increased academic achievement
as well as kindergarten preparedness and college graduation rates over the last
five years.
“Our country is focused, and
rightly so, on the education pipeline – what Americans are learning at home and
in schools, from the time they’re born through college graduation and as they
pursue a career,” said Chancellor Zimpher. “Higher education has a deep
responsibility and great capacity to lead this critical national conversation
and the creation of a National Cradle to Career Network is nothing short of the
solution to many of the challenges that our country’s K-16 education programs
face.”
Strive creators stressed the
need for collaboration. “Strive is a growing movement to support every child,
cradle to career,” Edmondson said. “And the key to this movement, what makes it
successful, is all of us working to build this together. We have to work
cohesively to build this vision and make it a reality.”
“It is a myth that one person
or group can fix education by themselves, no matter how visionary or
passionate,” Chancellor Zimpher added. “Only by working together – public and
private institutions of higher education, state education departments and
school districts, civic and corporate leaders and elected officials – will we
see results.”
KnowledgeWorks CEO Chad Wick,
a co-founder of the Strive Partnership with Zimpher and Edmondson in 2006, said,
“The Strive model has been proven to be successful by uniting leaders from
various sectors and having them support student outcomes using data,” Wick
said. “We are seeing welcome increasing in early childhood education, academic
achievement and college enrollment. That sets the stage for our kids to become
productive citizens and leaders of the future.”
Assistant Deputy
Secretary Shelton said, “As communities
and education leaders continue to work together to share and replicate their
innovative ideas for comprehensive programs that work, they will blaze the path
to improving the education and lives of children and youth in distressed
communities throughout our country.”
“Living Cities is proud to
have supported the important work underway in Cincinnati as well as the
expansion of the Strive model to other cities,” said Ben Hecht, President and
CEO of Living Cities, a collaborative of 22 of the world’s largest foundations
and financial institutions working to re-engineer America’s cities. “This type
of collaboration will lead to a new normal in education – one in which private
and public sector leaders set aside their parochial interests and use data to
ensure a much greater good. As a result, our cities will be better served and
we will all reap the benefits.”
A cradle to career network
brings together leaders in Pre-K-12 schools, higher education, business and
industry, community organizations, government leaders, parents and other
stakeholders who are committed to helping children succeed from birth through
careers. As demonstrated by the success of Strive, a comprehensive community
effort can positively impact a region’s education pipeline and improve student
success at every level.
In Cincinnati’s public
schools since Strive’s inception, 8th grade math scores have gone up
15 percent and college enrollment has increased by 10 percent. At Northern
Kentucky University and the University of Cincinnati, graduation rates for
students from the local urban area high schools have increased by 10 and 7
percent, respectively. There have been additional improvements in the number of
preschool children prepared for kindergarten, fourth-grade reading and math scores
and high school graduation rates.
Strive’s results have
compelled nine regions across the country to replicate or adapt the program,
most recently New York State, under Chancellor Zimpher’s leadership.
SUNY is establishing a series
of systemic and sustainable regional education networks across the State and
bringing together partners who, like those in Cincinnati and Kentucky, have
signed on to strengthen the education pipeline from cradle to career. The SUNY
model will also be embedded within a state and national network of
partners and constructed upon principles of mutual adaptation.
For the prototype network,
currently being developed in and around the State’s capital city of Albany,
SUNY is collaborating with the City School District, several regional SUNY
campuses, local government and not-for-profit organizations such as the Albany Family
Education Alliance and the United Way. Simultaneously,
SUNY will work with partners to launch cradle to career networks in Buffalo and
Brooklyn. SUNY is also a partner in the Harlem Promise Neighborhood, which is
being led by the Abyssinian Development Corporation and is one of 20 Promise
Neighborhoods nationwide funded by the U.S. Department of Education.
“I have been involved in
education for more than 40 years, and for the first time -- with the Strive
model for building local civic infrastructure a national network to promote
it -- I am convinced that we have the most comprehensive, democratic, and
compelling system for developing fully ready and capable children and youth,”
said Robert Wimpelberg, professor and dean of the University of Houston’s
College of Education.. “This means that, with new generations empowered and
living up their full potential, we can build a productive, competitive, and
humane America.”
Mark R. Kramer, managing
director, FSG Social Impact Advisors, wrote about Strive’s work in the winter
edition of the Stanford Social Innovation Review. “Strive is successful because
it has enabled a core group of community leaders to abandon their individual
agendas in favor of a collective approach to improving student achievement. As
their results demonstrate, there is tremendous power and impact in this
approach,” Kramer said.
Dan Ryan, CEO of the Portland
Schools Foundation, agrees: “We are excited to be working with a broad
cross-section of the community to work together to improve outcomes for every
child in our region. The opportunity to share what we have learned from others
will certainly help expedite our success,” Ryan said.
At today’s national launch,
participants from more than 30 cities across the country began a two-day
conference during which they will share information, ideas, and approaches to
developing cradle to career solutions in order to define a national advocacy
agenda. At the conclusion of the conference, the group will commit to actions,
including specific next steps for strengthening our progress around the four
pillars of the cradle to career infrastructure: Partnership Development,
Evidence-based Decision Making; Collaboration & Continued Improvement; and
Investment & Sustainability.
About Strive
The Strive Partnership is
focused on the success of our children: every child, every step, from cradle to
career. The Strive Partnership unites common providers around shared issues,
goals, measurements and results, and then actively supports and strengthens
strategies that work. To learn more about Strive, visit www.strivetogether.org.
About the State University of New York
The State University of New
York is the largest comprehensive university system in the United States,
educating more than 467,000 students in more than 7,500 degree and certificate
programs on 64 campuses with more than 2.5 million alumni around the
globe. To learn more about how SUNY creates opportunity, visit www.suny.edu
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