KnowledgeWorks' Strive subsidiary to launch national cradle to career network
Friday, January 28, 2011
By: Byron McCauley

This event will welcome participants from more than 30 cities to help define a national advocacy agenda. Speakers include USDOE's James H. Shelton, SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher, KnowledgeWorks CEO Chad P. Wick and Jeff Edmonson, president of Strive.

MEDIA ADVISORY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Byron McCauley
(513) 929-1310
mccauleyb@knowledgeworks.org

ALEXANDRIA, VA -- In President Obama's State of the Union address, he issued a challenge: are we willing to do what's necessary to give every child a chance to succeed? KnowledgeWorks subsidiary Strive and other education leaders stand ready to accept.

Strive President Jeff Edmondson, SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher, Living Cities the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities will convene a group of education and community leaders from across the country next week to launch the first national cradle to career network.

The national network will be modeled after Strive, which Edmondson and Zimpher worked together to create in 2006. Since that time, Strive has improved student success in the greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky school districts. Specifically, success indicators tracked as part of the program show positive trends in college and high school graduation rates, fourth-grade reading and math scores, and the number of preschool children prepared for kindergarten.

These results have compelled nine regions across the country to replicate the program, most recently New York state. A cradle to career network is one that brings together leaders in Pre-K-12 schools, higher education, business and industry, community organizations, government leaders, and parents who are committed to helping children succeed from birth through careers.

The launch event will take place over two days, Tuesday, Feb. 1 and Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2011, at Hotel Monaco in Alexandria, Virginia.

The event is open to the press and can be followed under Twitter hashtag #STRIVEC2C. An agenda of the event can be found by clicking here.

Participants from more than 30 cities will share information, ideas, and approaches to developing cradle to career solutions in order to define a national advocacy agenda. The group will also commit to actions, including specific next steps for strengthening our progress around the four pillars of the cradle to career infrastructure: Partnership Development, Evidence-based Decision Making; Collaboration & Continued Improvement; and Investment & Sustainability.

In addition to Edmonson and Zimpher, other education leaders at the event will include Ben Hecht, CEO of Living Cities, Jim Shelton, and Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement at the U.S. Department of Education and Chad Wick, CEO of Knowledgeworks.

Strive (www.strivetogether.org), a subsidiary of KnowledgeWorks, unites common providers around shared issues, goals, measurements and results, and then actively supports and strengthens strategies that work to increase educational outcomes.

KnowledgeWorks (http://knowledgeworks.org) is bringing the future of learning to America's high schools and creating widespread, lasting change in the communities and states we serve. Our portfolio of high school approaches includes New Tech Network high schools, EdWorks high school redesign, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) and Early College High Schools.