Education & Youth Blog 

Helping the Kid with the Giant Hands Learn
My two oldest kids started kindergarten this year and my third is in pre-school. So while I’ve worked in public education reform for two decades, now it’s gotten personal. I want my kids to be in the best possible schools. And when I look at the public school options out there, I’m not optimistic. All kids deserve great schools, inspiring schools, transformative schools. But do we have them today? If not, what would they look like? So that’s the topic of this two-part blog. What is the school of the future?

Over the past several years, I have embraced (or is it accepted?) the reality that I am a bit of a data geek. The power of data has appealed to the generalist in me – it can help to explain and quantify a whole host of social challenges, and ideally help to inform a whole host of possible solutions. Data may not always provide the answer, but I have increasingly noted its power to start conversations that may not have otherwise been had. In the education world, there are new ways of linking and analyzing data that have allowed a greater understanding of the performance of our students as they progress through the education system.

As a recently married woman in my 30s, with dual US and German citizenship, my mind naturally at times wanders to the question of where I want to raise my hypothetical future children. When the National Institute for Early Childhood Education’s (NIEER) report on “The State of Preschool 2011” made news last week, it logically caught my attention. The headline “Drop in Per-Pupil Spending for Pre-K” made me nervous. Little did I know that once I dug into the data, I would be horrified!

As a reminder, please join us this Monday, April 16th, for a free webinar on how service providers can help community colleges improve completion.

A Market for Success

Monday, April 16, 11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m. PDT

REGISTER now - it's free!

This webinar will be based on FSG’s recent work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to research how external service providers can help community colleges improve completion. We’ll cover highlights from our research and report—including what community colleges most need to improve student success rates, the landscape of service providers who can meet those needs, and recommendations on how to build a robust market for external services that helps colleges deliver stronger results. The webinar will also include a moderated discussion with presidents from leading community college and external service providers.

Moderated by Jeff Kutash, Managing Director, FSG, panelists include: 
Dr. William Trueheart, President and CEO, Achieving the Dream
Dr. Karen Stout, President, Montgomery County Community College
Dr. Rob Johnstone, Senior Research Fellow, Research & Planning Group

Registration is free, and we encourage you to check out the full report as well. We hope to see you on Monday!

Last week, my colleague Ellen Martin and I had the opportunity to join the Council of Michigan Foundations Community Foundations Retreat to discuss collective impact and what the approach might mean for their work in college access. And what a visit it was! In addition to the local microbrews and Zingerman's chocolate, we were encouraged and excited to hear about the stories from local community foundations and how they're grappling with critical questions of how to build and sustain college access networks around the state, using the collective impact approach. We heard stories of community foundations taking on roles in rural, suburban, and urban communities; engaging with cross-sectoral players; and shedding light on data, problems, and gaps; and grappling with what it means to "own" a problem and how they can have the greatest impact.