Lessons from the Talent Dividend Network meeting

By Dan Ash

How can a community best grow its economy? The answer is abundantly clear: focus on education. The best predictor of increases in per capita income is education attainment. For every one percent increase in the population attaining a postsecondary degree, there is a $760 increase in per capita income according to Joe Cortright, President of Impresa Inc. Such a boost in the economic health of communities was a strong motivation for CEOs for Cities, a nonprofit network of urban leaders, along with the Lumina and Kresge Foundations, to announce a competition to boost the number of residents with postsecondary degrees. A $1 million Talent Dividend prize will be awarded to the city that produces the greatest increase in postsecondary degrees over the next three years.

Kathy Zandona and I attended the Talent Dividend Network meeting on May 9 and 10 in Chicago along with representatives from 56 other cities vying for this prize to learn more about the details of the competition and share ideas on ways to encourage education attainment. We explored a variety of topics and heard from a multitude of experts concerning communication of educational issues, means of translating real world experience into college credit, how to best serve diverse college students, strategies for helping adults complete their education, and the use of talent analytics as a means of understanding the business benefits of employer support for employees’ educational pursuits. One particularly interesting idea that is catching on in several cities is the practice of “reverse articulation”. Many students who transfer from community college to a four year institution do so before they complete their associate’s degree. Several locations have now set up reverse articulation agreements which monitor these students as they pursue their four year degrees. When the student successfully completes the courses at the four year institution that, combined with previous courses, are equivalent to an associate’s degree, the community college and student are notified and the associate’s degree is then awarded. This process is especially beneficial for those students who are working as they pursue their bachelor’s degree because the associate’s degree credential is instrumental in securing a good job.

As we interacted with representatives from the “competitor” cities it became abundantly clear that Greater Louisville leaders showed prescient insight in establishing 55,000 Degrees. We are clearly at the forefront of a growing realization that leaders from all sectors must work diligently together to help our community pursue and complete postsecondary education if we are to prosper. In the coming months we will keep you updated on how Louisville and 55,000 Degrees is progressing in the pursuit of the Talent Dividend award. For more information on the award go to www.talentdividendprize.org.

Communities Learning in Partnership (CLIP) meeting

By Mary Gwen Wheeler

Hold a citywide college day for all seniors where they visit a college campus and enroll? Sounds like our Close The Deal program on steroids! San Francisco's Bridge To Success partnership did just that last week. Called Frisco Day, every public school senior visited City College, filled out an application and learned about financial aid. See this news story. I am learning about other practices to promote college-going such as this at a 3-day network meeting.

One of the driving principles underlying 55,000 Degrees is that by working collectively, we can have greater impact than what can be achieved by individual effort alone. I am attending a convening in San Francisco of 11 cities who have created similar collective efforts focused on postsecondary success. Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and administered by the National League of Cities, the Communities Learning in Partnership initiative seeks to improve PSE outcomes, particularly for low-income young people, through collective action.

Another great idea: Philadelphia held a financial aid phone-athon. Two TV stations each donated the commercial time slots, one in a morning show and the other in the evening, for a phone-athon where students and parents could call in to get answers and information about financial aid. The phone banks were manned by area college admissions and financial aid counselors. Over 2000 callers were helped in one day!

I'll blog with more learnings tomorrow.

Turning up the Heat Together

By Mike Kennedy

Louisville Metro United Way (MUW) and The Community Foundation of Louisville (CFL) have turned up the heat together and given away $250,000 to 27 local organizations, schools and school systems that are helping to create a college-going culture in Louisville.

At yesterday’s grant presentation at Actors Theatre, CFL CEO Susan Barry spoke about her experiences as a first-generation college graduate. MUW CEO and 55,000 Degrees board member Joe Tolan talked about what it was like growing up as an immigrant’s son, and how important it is for Louisville to set “bold goals.”

Mayor and chairman of the 55K Board Greg Fischer asked the crowd, “Why shouldn’t we have the best public school system in the country?” He said there is nothing more important in this community than education, because Louisville is not just competing with cities in the US, but also cities around the world. He noted that one-third of children born today will not graduate from high school, and another one-third will not graduate from college. “Everyone must have a degree,” Fischer said. “If not, we’ve given up on their potential.”

The awards were designed to target five key tipping points: transition to college or career, high school graduation, middle school transitions, early grade reading, and early childhood education. Grantees will create learning networks for each tipping point in order to share promising approaches with the community at large. Both funding organizations expressed the desire for a similar collaborative next year.

To see the list of winning groups and programs, click here.

To see pictures from the event, click here.

Student Achievement and the Arts

By Mary Gwen Wheeler

What is the importance of an arts-rich education on later overall education attainment? Research presented yesterday by Dr. James S. Catterall from the UCLA Center for Culture, Brain and Development, showed that those who had intensive involvement in the arts in grades 8-12 were more likely to attend college and complete degrees. In his talk at Actor’s Theatre, sponsored by Louisville’s Art and Cultural Attractions Council, Dr. Catterall showed the correlation between arts education and involvement to increased student achievement and higher levels of community engagement in adult life, such as voting. Particularly relevant to 55K, a rich arts education led to a significantly greater likelihood to get an associate’s or bachelor’s degree. (See chart). Importantly, these effects were even greater for low-income students.

He also shared interesting findings from neuroscience. It turns out the same parts of the brain that indicate empathic behavior also light up when the person is involved in an arts activity. So kids involved in the visual and performing arts are building skills in collaborative problem solving, teaming and communication (particularly listening) – all the attributes employers say are important in the 21st century workplace.

Learn more about this connection in Prof. Catterall’s book, Doing Well and Doing Good by Doing Art (2009 Imagination Group/I-Group Book.)

Community Forum

Thanks to everyone who attended Monday’s community forum. There was a diversified crowd of people working in education, others working in community based organizations, and still others who just want to advance education in Louisville. We had an overwhelmingly positive response, and the group discussions generated many great ideas.

At Monday’s event, Metro United Way and The Community Foundation of Louisville announced a joint request for proposal to any local group looking to promote a college-going culture in Louisville. It’s exciting to see two local organizations form a partnership to get us closer to obtaining those 55,000 degrees. For more information on the RFP, visit Metro United Way’s website.

National League of Cities, Gates Foundation bring partner city leaders to Louisville

How do you build strong collaboration around education? How do you bring business leaders to the table? What kinds of partnerships get results?

Those were some of the issues discussed by more than 50 national education, city and community leaders who came to Louisville for a meeting of cities involved with Communities Learning in Partnership (CLIP).

CLIP is an initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in partnership with the National League of Cities Institute of Youth, Education and Families that aims to increase the number of low-income young people who earn college degrees.

Eleven cities are involved – and gathered in Louisville Oct. 27-28. Four have grants to implement programs: New York; San Francisco; Mesa, Ariz.; Riverside, California. Three others received planning grants: Dayton, Jacksonville and Phoenix. Louisville – along with the cities of Boston, Portland and Philadelphia – recently became affiliate cities.

“Louisville has a tremendous history of collaboration,” Jeanne Contardo from the Business Higher Education Forum told the CLIP gathering.

In discussing Louisville’s 55,000 Degrees initiative and the Mayor’s Education Roundtable, the group was impressed by the level of business engagement in Louisville.

They appreciated the creation of an organization that would survive and prosper after Mayor Jerry Abramson leaves office in January 2011.

And they recognized the value in a common goal – 55,000 Degrees – even as individual educational institutions set their own objectives.

“We have an opportunity, a once-in-a-generation opportunity, to combine forces, to develop collaborative efforts and sustain them over time to make a difference, to move the numbers in a dramatic way,” said Tony Newberry, president of the Louisville-based Jefferson Community and Technical College.

He said his six-campus system has set its own 2020 goal -- to double the number of associate degrees awarded annually and to dramatically increase transfers to four-year universities.

While access to college is important, his emphasis is increasingly on completion – critical when fewer than 1 in 5 freshmen at two-year institutions in our region finish their associate’s degrees in three years.

One group took a field trip to understand a unique Louisville public-private partnership -- Metropolitan College. When UPS needed a stable night shift workforce for its package-handling hub in Louisville, Metropolitan College was created so students could work those shifts and get a free college education at the University of Louisville or JCTC during the day. Twelve years later, over 11,000 students have participated in the program.

Participants on the tour also heard about the CREW Career Center; the EES, a joint program of JCTC and JCPS Adult and Continuing Education; and the University of Louisville ULtra program, all of which are geared toward helping people plan an educational path from the minute they decide to go to college.

Jefferson County Public Schools superintendent Sheldon Berman discussed the steps the Louisville school system is taking to better prepare its students to graduate, and to succeed after high school. JCPS has restructured its curriculum, providing better support systems for students, and has moved to a trimester schedule. JCPS has created schools of study to provide students with a more personalized environment focusing on students’ individual interests.

“Kids have to be cared about,” Berman said. He noted that JCPS works to ensure that every student succeeds, and that no student is ever expelled from the school system.

Dan Ash, the executive director of Louisville’s Metroversity, told a group the education stakeholders in Louisville are very honest with each other, and that helps.

“The challenge is not avoiding conflict. It’s avoiding disengagement,” he said.

Another highlight of the meeting was hearing from Eduardo Ochoa, assistant secretary for postsecondary education at the U.S. Department of Education. He spoke about President Obama’s commitment to higher education, to creating a college-going culture in the nation.

“Quality education, more than ever before, is the cornerstone for a strong economy in the 21st century,” said Ochoa.

Business group buzzes about Louisville’s collaborative efforts

The Business-Higher Education Forum held a Leadership Summit in Louisville Oct. 28-29 and the sessions buzzed with conversation about the Mayor’s Education Roundtable and 55,000 Degrees.

Delegations from Des Moines and Oklahoma City – including mayors, college presidents, foundation and business leaders, and superintendents -- came to hear about Louisville’s experiences. Also on hand: experts from Long Beach, Houston, Cincinnati, and other communities with stories to share.

“Hearing you talk about ‘the Louisville Model’ and what it’s ‘achieved’ leaves us flattered but also a little shocked,” said David Jones Jr., as he welcomed the group to Louisville.

“At this point, we feel good about the progress we have made by coming together … but we’re just getting started.

“The pipeline” – the education system from preschool through graduate school – was the focus of many remarks. BHEF provided a flow-chart depicting how improvement occurs across the pipeline, available here (slide 14.)

Sheldon Berman, superintendent of Louisville’s Jefferson County Public Schools, said his goal is “not only every student graduating, but also every student graduating college-ready.”

Berman outlined reforms underway, including more personalized instruction, a caring environment, engaging curriculum, inquiry-based learning, high schools reorganized around career themes with a trimester schedule to allow acceleration or catch-up.

“These are the kinds of changes we need to make,” he said, “if 55K has any chance of succeeding.”

David Spence, president of the Southern Regional Education Board, said getting more students into college was critical, but colleges and universities will be challenged to serve them on tight budgets.

“I know this is hard to talk about …” he said, “but higher education must become more efficient. The cost per student has got to come down.”

Indiana University Southeast Chancellor Sandra Patterson-Randles agreed, saying colleges needed to achieve business-like efficiency.

Jamie Merisotis, president of the Lumina Foundation for Education gave the dinner address. He spoke about the work that Lumina is funding in Louisville, and he said: “It’s my hope that we can take what’s happening here in Louisville and transplant it into every American city. I can’t think of a better way to supercharge the efforts we think are required to dramatically increase postsecondary education attainment.”

Berman praised the commitment of Louisville’s business community, noting that he raised more than $1 million in 28 days from local businesses and foundations so JCPS could secure a $5 million federal grant -- Investing in Innovation (or i3) -- from the United States Department of Education. Nearly 1,700 applications were submitted. The JCPS application was one of 30 selected.

“Thank you for inviting us to hear Louisville’s story,” Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett said. “I really benefit from hearing the opinions of so many high level educators, policy-makers and business leaders – and the time to sort out some ideas to take back for the betterment of our community.”


55K Interim Director Mary Gwen Wheeler told the group: “We have a plan – a clear goal. And we are going to keep the numbers in front of everybody.”

The list of other Louisville presenters included a number of Roundtable members, including its convener, Mayor Jerry Abramson: GLI president Joe Reagan, University of Louisville president James Ramsey and U of L Provost Shirley Willihnganz and JCTC President Tony Newberry.


For more coverage of the event, visit the BHEF blog.