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For too long, California’s public, PreK-12 education system has fixated on advancing student work on averages and understanding achievement by groups. Full Circle Fund’s Education Circle has worked in this arena for nearly a decade and their collective experience has brought to light one singular point: it’s just no longer enough to process students in batches and aim for improvement across averages.

In the human work of education, success is individual: for each student, each school, each teacher, and each community. That framework is the basis of a newly released policy platform, EACH, a non-partisan education policy approach for California, building on the best research, analysis, and community input of the past decade.

download a PDF of the EACH policy platform

Project Lead Natasha Hoehn stresses that the main concepts in EACH did not originate from Full Circle Fund, but rather are a compendium of the most successful ideas and levers that can be used to improve California’s capacity to close achievement gaps, drive change, and better serve students.

Additionally, “It’s a work in progress, evolving as we go,” says Natasha, “As a team, we’ve taken time to synthesize all the best thinking that’s been done already in California around education policy and come up with this platform, which includes ways to make change for kids in a system that’s really not working for too many students right now. Because it’s non-partisan, it’s not intended to reflect anything but what research and policy analysis says will move the needle for our State’s kids.”

The year 2010 is an especially pivotal and challenging time for California’s education system, a year when leaders at the forefront need ideas and solutions more than ever. Therefore the team has a twofold strategy to increase EACH’s reach and impact. First, they’re leveraging their networks to disseminate these ideas to other leaders and inform them of EACH’s availability as a resource, and engage in an ongoing dialogue about the ideas. This includes meeting with all gubernatorial candidates and the candidates for State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Next, the team aims to target key influencers and community leaders from across sectors, expose them to these ideas, and make sure that they are asking the right questions of our elected officials so that they address the critical failures in California’s education system.

Currently in development is an EACH Platform Action Toolkit that Full Circle Fund leaders, Members, as well as key influencers can use to learn about the issues, ask the right questions, and eventually demand changes at the state level. Slated for a spring release, the toolkit will include a video, ways to electronically distribute key components, questions to ask, and strategies to help users connect with their elected officials.

Read a blog post by John Fensterwald about the EACH policy platform.

If you are interested in working on Education reform in California, contact Caroline Thompson by email to talk about becoming a member and joining one of the Education Circle’s project teams.

Posted in EACH Policy Platform, Natasha Hoehn, Systemic Change, results, education