April 2011 All Hands Raised Update from CEO, Dan Ryan

Dear Children and Youth Advocates,

On Tuesday we reached an important milestone in our shared work—we held the first meeting of the Cradle to Career (C2C) Council, a group of more than 40 leaders representing businesses, educators, students, non-profits, philanthropists, and local government (roster attached), in order to establish a disciplined cycle of analysis, benchmarking, improvement and innovation targeted at transforming our education and support systems. It was an invigorating meeting and an inspiring launch of this renewed cross-sector commitment to our community’s students. Many partners and supporters, including members of the C2C Steering Committee (roster included with Council roster), were in attendance at Tuesday’s inaugural Council meeting.

Simultaneously, we released the first-ever cohort study on the Ninth Grade Counts initiative which shows that, by working together, we are making progress toward keeping children and youth in Multnomah County on track to graduate. A press release on those results, as well as a recent article from the Oregonian, “Signature Portland anti-dropout program shows promising results,” are included here for your review. While I am excited about the promise of these Ninth Grade Counts results, I am even more excited that a broad set of partners have committed to use data as the anchor for an action plan to continuously improve outcomes for students transitioning from eighth to ninth grade. This approach will serve as a roadmap for the Cradle to Career partnership.

Best,
Dan