Nancy Zimpher
Chancellor
State University of New York
Co-Founder
Strive

Writer David Leonhardt wrote in a New York Times Magazine article: “Education—educating more people and educating them better—appears to be the single best bet a society can make.”

More and more communities across the country are educating people better so the entire community can grow and individuals can achieve things in life they never dreamed were possible. This is in large part because of what Living Cities has done to marshal the collective, collaborative efforts of parents, educators, school districts, universities, local businesses, elected officials, and the philanthropic community to address the state of education not as an isolated crisis, but as part of comprehensive approach to urban revitalization.

My initial involvement with Living Cities began when I was president of the University of Cincinnati and chair of The Coalition of Urban Serving Universities (USU). Strive, an organization I co-founded that was implementing measurable education reform in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky school districts, was yielding encouraging results.

I learned about Living Cities’ holistic philosophy, which is that the problems facing our nation’s cities must be addressed comprehensively, not piece meal. This immediately struck a chord with me, as it related closely to my work with Strive and its holistic approach to strengthening the cradle-to-career education pipeline. I shared with Living Cities that Strive was proving to be a particularly strong and adaptable vehicle for “best practices.” The program was turning out to be an ideal demonstration site for innovative learning approaches that were coming out of USU member universities.

We immediately started brainstorming about ways to bring our respective organizations together to further a shared goal. I brought to the USU table the potential of collaborating with Living Cities to disseminate Strive’s success beyond our initial sites, to take it national. It was a game changer, in many respects.

The goal of taking our collaborative approach to education to scale demanded that we dissect why Strive was working and what lessons we were learning about how to build supportive community networks. Was cookie-cutter replication of the approach the way to go? Or could the framework be tailored and adapted to local needs, political realities, and histories of reform?

Living Cities was invaluable in helping us answer those questions, as well as keeping us focused on the big picture. Just what was the added value of creating a network of Strive-based efforts across the country? What were the expectations? What were the opportunities? What were the best ways to leverage emerging networks of community-based stakeholders for the greatest benefit of urban-based schools and kids?

I’m happy to say that since the inception of Strive’s collaboration with Living Cities, we’ve moved forward on every front, and the results, I believe, have begun to change how America thinks about education reform and the potential for making measurable, meaningful changes in even the most underserved communities. Living Cities’ support has helped make the case nationally for evidence-based demonstration sites for education reform so local reformers can implement strategies with greater confidence and improved likelihood for success. Truly, Living Cities is helping people and institutions find their most effective role in bettering their schools and their communities. And that has made all the difference.