Data Driven

Are we doing the right things to address, or rather, prevent the issues of disparities in education?

April 30, 2026

I just read a fascinating opinion piece in the New York Times entitled “No Rich Child Left Behind.” I wasn’t surprised by what I was reading. There is a significant gap in education success between high-income families and those of lower socio-economic status. This we know and have known for years. What did surprise me [...]

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One Lesson from Atlanta

April 9, 2026

There is so much we can learn from the recent indictments of so many administrators in the Atlanta public schools around scrubbing data. I would like to focus on just one: as long as we use data for punitive rather than constructive purposes we can expect to keep seeing these types of situations no matter [...]

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Head Start Report Recommendations Aligned with Cradle to Career Collective Impact

December 5, 2025

The Advisory Committee on Head Start Research and Evaluation, established two years ago, recently released an outstanding final report containing recommendations for the future of the federal Head Start and Early Head Start programs. U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius lays out 3 broad recommendations: a data-driven focus on school readiness and [...]

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The Difference between Collaboration and Collective Impact

November 12, 2025

We recently hit the benchmarks of having over 150 communities reach out to us and 80 communities having completed the Site Readiness Assessment to join the Strive Network. As we start our discussions with each community on the work of collective impact through building civic infrastructure, I would estimate at least half have declared “we [...]

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An Encouraging Update from Portland Cradle to Career Initiative

February 3, 2026

All Hands Raised, a Portland cradle to career initiative, recently released their January update. The update highlights the progress being made by the partnership in areas of student success, the establishment of new collaboratives, and the refinement of student indicators. Highlights from the update: New graduation data sends a clear message that the partnership is moving in [...]

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Collective Impact: Using Data to Address the Achievement Gap in Seattle

January 20, 2026

Seattle, one of seven Cradle-to-Career communities across the country, was recently recognized in The Atlantic: Cities for its collective impact work around the area’s educational achievement gap. The article, “Targeting an Achievement Gap in One of the Country’s Most Educated Metros,” focuses on the progress being made through The Road Map Project, and captures exactly [...]

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Transforming Charitable Giving into Social Investing

January 6, 2026

Although published over three years ago, the ideas explored in the Philadelphia Social Innovations Journal article “The End of Charity: How to Fix the Nonprofit Sector Through Effective Social Investing” are still very much relevant today. The article delves into what author David E. K. Hunter calls “three impolitic, unpleasant truths” about nonprofits. These truths [...]

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Developing Shared Measures

December 8, 2025

I had the opportunity to spend some additional time with some visitors from Germany who came to Cincinnati to take part in the recent Strive Discovery Workshop. They have become very interested in the collective impact approach to a cradle to career initiative and wanted to learn more about what is taking place in Cincinnati. They [...]

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The Strive Partnership Releases Fourth Annual Report Card

November 23, 2025

  The Strive Partnership has released its fourth annual report card, which offers an update on the encouraging progress being made to improve student achievement and growth, cradle to career, in the cities of Cincinnati, Covington, and Newport. In fact, of the 34 measures of student achievement on which the partnership is focused, 81 percent [...]

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Measuring the Ties Between Student Services and Student Success

November 21, 2025

With the belief that schools and communities are strongly linked together, Cincinnati Public Schools established multiple Community Learning Centers throughout the city in 2001. The intention is for these CLCs to act as hubs for community services - providing access to a range of social services and educational opportunities. From its inception, the CLC program [...]

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