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City of Rockford Education Initiatives

Why Should The City Be Involved In Education?.

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City of Rockford Education Initiatives

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    1. City of Rockford Education Initiatives August 2008 Presentation Rockford Chamber of Commerce Mayor's Business Luncheon

    2. Why Should The City Be Involved In Education?

    3. Education Is A Community Priority RAEDC Voice of the Customer Survey: "There continues to be a concern that students are not adequately prepared to meet employer’s needs. Particular concerns exist with work ethic, math & science skills, collaboration skills, and developing a culture of life-long learning. This can result in an inability of employers to expand and new companies to locate within our region."   RAEDC Leadership Council: Public School Education top priority and initiative of the Council!

    4. Education Is Our Foundation Our unemployment rate is the second highest in the state at 8.6%. Our jail population is growing daily. The poverty rate has put our county on the state watch list. There are only four other counties – out of 102 counties that have a higher rate of children eligible for free or reduced lunches.

    5. What’s Happening To Our Children? Too few of our children perform well on standardized testing. Only 1% of minority students test above the state standard & 82% test below the standard. Too few of our children attend school Our truancy rate is four times the state average. Too few of our children graduate In 2003 we had 2718 children enter the 9th grade. Four years later, we had 1386 children graduate from the 12th grade. Too few of our children attend post-secondary programs In Winnebago County, only 18% of our children attend post-secondary programs Too many of our children are arrested In 2007, almost 4.5 times more Black youth were arrested than graduated. Almost twice as many Hispanic youth were arrested than graduated.

    6. It is time to step forward and be accountable to our children.

    7. We Have Solutions That Work

    8. Head Start/Early Learning Council Head Start offers comprehensive services to pre-school children and their families who meet the income guidelines. Head Start has the overall objective of breaking the cycle of poverty by preparing pre-school age children to be effective learners and by assisting families to achieve greater economic, social and personal self sufficiency in support of their children.

    9. Community Education Partnership (www.rfdcep.org) Opportunity: Increase coordination of growing number of community based education efforts

    10. Community Education Partnership Members: the Partnership represents citizens, educators, businesses, government, and non-profit sector

    11. Fighting Truancy

    13. Cost of Truancy: NIU/United Way Study “Rockford’s schools have an unusually persistent pattern of large scale chronic truancy. This pattern exists in very few school districts in Illinois.”

    14. 2006 Short-term Costs of Chronic Truancy in Rockford (in $ millions)

    15. Long-term Costs of Chronic Truancy in Rockford (in $ millions)

    16. Fighting Truancy

    17. Fighting Truancy

    18. Youth Engagement Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council (MYAC) nFactor nCenter

    19. MYAC Core responsibilities include: Policy guidance and discussion. Annual youth leadership summit. Supervision of nFactor and nCenter efforts.

    20. “Born” August, 2006 Created and driven by City Officials and the Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council Unique Movement to Rockford Over 70% funded from private donors Focuses on youth throughout No. Illinois Multi-issued: Confronting barriers to success.

    21. Three-Tiered Movement

    25. CHARTER SCHOOLS

    26. Charter Public School Efforts

    27. Charter Time Line

    28. Higher Education Initiatives “The [higher education] gap impedes economic development, individual and community advancement and results in a talent drain from our region due to the out-migration of students/workforce seeking educational and career opportunities.” (Excerpt from 2004 Higher Education Study Mission Statement)

    29. HIGHER EDUCATION: DEMAND SIDE  Junior League: Project Raise Pilot project One-on-one mentoring with 20 Jefferson High students Workshops: ACT Prep, Career Planning, Etc.

    30. Higher Education/Demand Side: The Rockford Promise

    31. Higher Education: Supply Side ‘While the community is blessed with affordable two-year degree opportunities at Rock Valley College, the lack of publicly funded bachelor degree opportunities contributes to the region's low bachelor level attainment rate estimated at 18% compared to national average of 28%.’ (See 2004 Higher Education Report at 7-10). 

    32. Partnerships: The Whole Must be Greater than the Parts!

    33. Partnerships: The Whole Must be Greater than the Parts! "We recommend that as a near-term strategy the Rockford community strive to expand its higher education presence to the next level through a multi-institutional alternative that extends carefully selected upper-division baccalaureate and graduate degree programs through a local brokerage center."  2004 Study

    34. Partnerships: The Whole Must be Greater than the Parts!

    35. Building From The 2004 Study University Village/City University of Rockford Take advantage of existing higher education resources Physical Resources Core teaching resources

    36. Next Steps

    37. PUBLIC SCHOOL GOVERNANCE Moving Toward a New Approach

    38. Why Should The City Get More Involved With Public School Governance?   Review of Current Conditions: Truancy Rate Drop Out Rate Poverty Rate Crime Rate Incarceration Rate Education Attainment Rate Failure Rate: Highest % are male, minority students

    39. RAEDC Proposal

    40. School Governance/ RAEDC Proposal

    41. Why Don’t We Feel Like We’re In Control Of Our Own Destiny When It Comes To Our Schools? Past Trends: Cities lost power to appoint boards City and schools politically and functionally separated as evolution of “progressive” movement At best, ad hoc Efforts with Schools Much frustration Few Positive Results We spend a lot of money (approx. $12,000.00 per student in District 205) We get inconsistent/poor results

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