Striving Together: Early Lessons in Achieving Collective Impact in Education

by Jeff Edmondson, Nancy L Zimpher, Ben Hecht (Foreword)

In 2006, Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky had been suffering from many of the same challenges facing metro regions across the country. Despite significant investments in education from the public and private sectors, outcomes were Kindergarten readiness was below fifty percent, and nearly half of the students in the Cincinnati Public Schools were dropping out before high school graduation. Fortunately, a diverse group of community leaders across sectors was exploring a transformative approach to improving education as a system . This gathering of leaders was the genesis of the StrivePartnership, which served as the inspiration for the theory of collective impact. Together, these partners are building a cradle-to-career civic infrastructure based on the idea that everyone in a community has a stake in the success of every child.

This book chronicles the early stages of this ongoing journey from the perspective of the founding chair and director of this work, drawing upon lessons from Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky and four other pioneering local partnerships. The experiences captured in these five regions helped lay the foundation for the StriveTogether Cradle to Career Network, a national community of practice on the cutting edge of social change.

214 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2014

Reviews

[Paul Jellinek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some useful things in here about Cincinnati's "collective impact" effort to improve outcomes for the region's children "from cradle to career," but overall the book could have benefited from a good editor and more of the human story of what actually happened.