Opportunities for Local Collaboration in Delaware County

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!

Impact of Corbett's Education Budget

Governor Corbett presented his 2011 – 2012 to a joint session of the Pennsylvania Legislature today and he kept his promise of a balanced budget and no new taxes. It isn’t pretty. If you’re interested in the details on which department gets what, the new governor has created an Online Budget Dashboard with the details of his budget proposal which includes some deep cuts in educational support. (http://www.portal.state.pa.us/imageserver/budget2011/GBD_2011.html

As Winston Churchill observed there is an opportunity in every difficulty, and I believe Governor Corbett’s budget will present communities with a tremendous opportunity to strengthen their local education infrastructures.

Successful education is dependent on three very important factors: Family, School District and the local community. With expected deep cuts in state educational support, local districts will be challenged to effectively engage community leaders and parents to participate in and strengthen the education process. If the state budget passes as presented, local school districts will be expected to do more with less, and effective engagement with parents and community leadership organizations will be critical. The financial crisis may well prove to be an incentive for communities to build a collaborative effort of school, community and parent stakeholders, to assess the district’s strengths, community challenges and needs, to develop an educational vision, and to plan the community’s educational future. It’s not rocket science to consider getting people together to discuss an important issue like education, and a few general rules for effectively engaging stakeholders should be considered:
• Establish ownership among participants,
• Build on the strengths of local individuals and organizations,
• Promote participation by community-wide stakeholders,
• Get everyone working together and focused on the same issues,
• Develop specific actions with measurable results.

By engaging diverse stakeholders, including residents, non-profits, businesses and others to develop sustained collaborative efforts to strengthen education, the District could be in a better position to link unique community resources together with its educational resources to provide a more effective, nurturing learning environment. As I said, it isn’t rocket science, but getting a community’s assets all working together to support education could be a very empowering tool.