Chancellor Zimpher, Strive President, Portland Mayor Host Cradle-to-Career Convening in Portland

Portland, OR – State University of New York Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher, together with Strive President Jeff Edmondson and Portland Mayor Sam Adams today kicked off the second annual cradle-to-career convening in Portland.

More than 300 educators, business and community leaders, elected officials, and others from more than 80 communities across the country are in attendance for the two-day event, Program Rich and System Poor No More: Building the Civic Infrastructure to Support Every Child Cradle to Career.

Chancellor Zimpher will be recognized as a “Cradle-to-Career Champion” at this evening’s reception and provide direction for participants seeking to begin cradle-to-career efforts in their own cities and communities.

“Cities and communities across the country can take a cue from Portland today as its leaders band together for the sole purpose of supporting the success of children through an improved education pipeline,” said Chancellor Zimpher. “I am proud to be a part of today’s event and delighted to see the Strive framework continuing to spread its wings across the country. By viewing education from cradle to career and agreeing to work together, we are ensuring a better future for our children and communities alike.”

Led by the Portland Schools Foundation since 2010, Portland began building its P-20 cradle-to-career framework in 2009 with leadership from Portland State University, and the now dissolved Leader’s Roundtable and Portland Mayor and Multnomah County Chair’s Education Cabinet. Portland is now one of seven national demonstration sites in the Strive Network, along with Cincinnati, OH, Houston, TX, East Bay, CA, Richmond, VA, Seattle, WAS, and Boston, MA.

“Portland is honored to welcome representatives from communities who are taking responsibility for the long-term well-being of their children,” Adams said. “Our city has made a commitment to do our part to help our youth thrive, and today we have powerful tools in place to move forward strategically, systematically, and collaboratively.”

“What excites me about this convening is that participants will be able to see how they can create a successful system to improve education by focusing a community’s academic, business and civic sectors on programs of proven value,” Edmondson said.

Dan Ryan, CEO of the Portland Schools Foundation, said his community is seeing progress in Portland in just this first year of development.

“Cross-sector collaboration that includes kids and student achievement is at the center of everything we do. This collaborative effort acknowledges both the good work that already exists in our community and the fact that we have to invest in building an infrastructure that improves outcomes for kids,” Ryan said. “We look forward to hosting partners to share and learn from communities from across the nation about what’s working to keep people at the table and to keep this important work moving forward.

Since its inception in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky in 2006, communities in more than 20 states and the District of Columbia have demonstrated interest in replicating Strive’s cradle-to-career approach to improving education.

In New York, under Chancellor Zimpher’s leadership, SUNY is establishing a series of systemic and sustainable regional education networks across New York, with development already underway in Albany, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Rochester and Harlem. The SUNY model, which was highlighted on the first day of school by Martha Kanter, the U.S. Department of Education’s Under Secretary of Education, as a part of her first stop during her national tour in Rochester, NY, will also be embedded within a state and national network of partners and constructed upon principles of mutual adaptation. Chancellor Zimpher helped launch the country’s first National Cradle to Career Network in February. 

Strengthening the education pipeline is one of six areas where SUNY is focusing its efforts as it implements its strategic plan—The Power of SUNY—over the next five to 10 years. The goal of the plan is to create a stronger, more competitive system of public higher education and, in turn, a stronger more competitive New York State.

About Strive
Strive is catalyzing a national movement focused on the success of every child from cradle to career. Building on the principles of collective impact, Strive is helping communities create the civic infrastructure to unite stakeholders around shared goals, measures and results in education, and organizing a national network of cradle to career communities. Strive is a subsidiary of KnowledgeWorks.

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 nearly 3 million alumni around the globe. To learn more about how SUNY creates opportunity, visit www.suny.edu