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You
are here: Alliance for Education:
Partner in Transforming Public Education
Introduction
Our 21st century world has created many new demands on us as citizens in our communities—demands that require us to rethink how we can best tap the talents, skills and resources of all community members. Nowhere are the implications of these changes more dramatic than in the world of education. National research tells us that all young people today need:
Being responsive to such new societal norms requires fundamental change in how we "do school." Throughout the country, communities are working to reinvent their schools—not because they are broken—but because they were designed for another era. Gone are the days when people who didn't finish school could support a family with jobs on farms or in factories. Today, "knowledge" work has replaced unskilled work. Most jobs require at least two years of post-secondary education.
In Seattle, the impetus for change has come from both inside and outside the public school system. Representing the external perspective, community stakeholders—parents and leaders in education, business, philanthropy and government—have come together through the Alliance for Education to promote the transformation of their schools. Their goal is to create a system of schools with the conditions, culture and competencies to ensure that ALL young people are prepared to experience success in the future. Building on a rich history of community support for Seattle's public schools and motivated by the belief that education is everybody's business, the Alliance has been a steadfast and collaborative partner with the school district in pursuit of the shared goal of academic achievement for every child in every school.
The Alliance for Education—A Look Back
The Alliance was formed in 1995 against a backdrop of ongoing academic decline in—and public dissatisfaction with—the Seattle Public Schools. Washington State's Education Reform Act had passed in 1993, setting in motion the development of state standards and "high stakes" testing. Three existing nonprofits—Partners in Public Education, which developed "adopt-a-school" partnerships; Seattle Schools Fund for Excellence, a grass-roots fundraising organization; and the Seattle Alliance for Education, a CEO-led group that provided technical expertise for improving school district management—merged to create the present Alliance for Education.
The purpose of the new organization was three-fold: to support systemic reform across the school system, replacing the "random acts of kindness" model that characterized community-supported efforts up to that time; to align existing and future community support for public education; and to create efficiencies of scale and improved alignment of efforts by bringing three leading non-profit organizations that supported public education in Seattle together under one organizational structure, complementary to and independent from the school district.
With its mission of "ensuring that all kids in the Seattle Public Schools achieve and are prepared for post-secondary education and life success," the Alliance works towards three primary goals in partnership with the Seattle Public Schools:
1. ensuring the academic achievement of all students;
2. developing effective leadership at all levels from the "boardroom to the classroom"; and
3. building stable and adequate public and private funding for the schools.The launch of the Alliance coincided with the arrival of the charismatic John Stanford, a retired U.S. Army general, as the new—and first African American—superintendent of the Seattle Public Schools. As a non-traditional educator, he brought a fresh perspective to education reform. He applied his philosophy of "Love 'em and Lead 'em" to raise expectations and improve the performance of principals, teachers and students. Under Stanford's leadership, the Seattle Public Schools built a strong framework for increasing academic achievement, which included a focus on principals as leaders and change agents, an emphasis on professional development for teachers, and state-of-the-art school management systems.
During his tenure, John Stanford inspired Seattle's educators and the broader community with a spirit of optimism and his belief that all children will achieve. He understood the power of the entire community sharing responsibility for the academic success of all of its young people, and he recognized the Alliance's potential as the vehicle for forging a stronger partnership between the school district and the community. Soon after his arrival and his discovery of critical gaps in the system, Superintendent Stanford turned to the Alliance for help in developing a leadership program for principals and galvanizing resources in support of the essential elements (e.g., reading, the arts, technology, career education, environmental education and international language and culture) of his vision of a "world class, student-focused learning system."
When John Stanford died of leukemia in November 1998, his vast legacy included his handpicked successor, Joseph Olchefske, whom he had hired as Chief Financial Officer and mentored for three years. When Olchefske resigned as superintendent in April 2003, his most noteworthy contribution to the transformation of the Seattle Public Schools was his unrelenting focus on standards for students, principals and teachers, along with providing schools greater freedom in developing plans for meeting these standards.
Since its earliest years, the Alliance has served as a catalyst for change, a convener of community leadership and a conduit for directing private resources—both dollars and expertise—toward critical needs in the Seattle Public Schools. Through these roles, the organization has provided support in the development of programs and targeted community partnerships in areas of priority to the school district.
Private fundraising by the Alliance on behalf of the district has fueled this work. With a campaign to make private giving to public education a "habit of the heart" in Seattle, the Alliance has developed a unique model of private philanthropy for public schools. Guiding this effort is a strategic change agenda and the conviction that there is an appropriate place for private dollars in public education—providing the "venture capital" for school transformation and supplementing, but not supplanting, taxpayer support for schools.
The Transformation Agenda
The arrival of the Year 2000 provided the opportunity for leaders in the Alliance and the Seattle Public Schools to take stock of what had been accomplished in the first five years of this strategic partnership and set a new agenda appropriate for the beginning of the 21st century. With new standards in place and higher expectations for all students, it became readily apparent that the system of schooling designed early in the past century could not produce the "product" required by today's standards and embodied in the district's new "Profile of the Graduate of the Seattle Public Schools." It was clearly time for the Seattle Public Schools to move beyond "school improvement"—tweaking the old system to increase performance—to rethinking the fundamental design of the K-12 system. Bold change was needed to ensure that all students would meet or exceed standards, and that the so-called "achievement gap" separating students along ethnic and socioeconomic lines would be closed. On January 26, 2000, both the Seattle School Board and the Alliance Board of Directors agreed that the proposed "Profile of the SPS Graduate" provided the foundation for developing a blueprint for a transformed learning system. The agenda for "School Transformation" that evolved from these discussions between leaders in the district and the Alliance is defined by a shared vision of a future school system that has transitioned:
In March 2000, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided substantial fuel for this bold initiative with the award of a $25 million grant, the first of its district awards, to the Alliance for Education on behalf of the Seattle Public Schools. In making this grant, the Gates Foundation recognized the "value add" of the Alliance as a community leadership organization in leveraging change inside the educational system while galvanizing additional private resources on the outside in support of this work.
As the Alliance has sharpened its focus in support of "all kids achieving," it targets the community's support for this transformation in three ways:
In fulfilling its mission, the Alliance for Education is guided by several core beliefs:
Acting on these beliefs, the Alliance is pursuing a theory of action—A+Schools + A+Leadership + A+Teaching + A+Community = ALL Kids Achieving. The Alliance and the Schools Public Schools are working in partnership to create a transformed system characterized by:
Now beginning its ninth year, the Alliance takes pride in what has been accomplished in partnership with the Seattle Public Schools. These accomplishments include helping shape an agenda for change that will ensure achievement for all students, building partnerships with diverse organizations and representatives across the community to support learning and student engagement, and raising approximately $73,000,000 in private funding, since its inception, to support making the transformed system we envision a reality.
The Road Ahead
It has been said, "School systems, like most large organizations, don't change because they see the light. They change because they feel the heat." Now and in the future, the Alliance for Education sees itself as a source of both light and heat in the transformation of Seattle's schools, so that all young people will experience the learning success they deserve.
As the Alliance for Education looks toward the future, it will focus priority attention on supporting the successful reinvention of Seattle's comprehensive public high schools, building broader and deeper community engagement and enhancing a system to attract and retain excellent teachers and administrators. The raising of private funds—and a permanent endowment—will help to sustain these changes and will ensure that the Seattle Public Schools remain on the leading edge in this changing world.
Robin K. Pasquarella serves as President and CEO of the Alliance for Education, a private, non-profit organization that mobilizes business and community support behind efforts to build a world-class public school system in Seattle. Established in 1995, the Alliance serves as a catalyst for systemic reform in the Seattle Public Schools by focusing private sector resources on strategic initiatives designed to help all students reach higher standards of academic achievement. As the charitable foundation for the Seattle Public Schools, the Alliance has raised over $73 million in private funds since its inception and has launched a broad-based campaign to establish a permanent base of philanthropic support for K-12 public education in Seattle.
Prior to assuming this post, Ms. Pasquarella served as the first Executive Director of the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, a national grant making organization providing support to non-profit groups and educational institutions in the U.S. and abroad in the fields of international affairs, environment, public service and human rights. She also directed the Committee for Affordable Health Care, a coalition of leading health care executives working to address health care access issues for the uninsured in Washington State. During the first term of Seattle Mayor Charles Royer, she directed his efforts to reorganize city government.
© August 2003 New Horizons for Learning
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