Cradle to Career

Every child and young adult succeeds cradle to career, through shared purpose, alignment and accountability among community partners This is the purpose of the Cradle to Career initiative in Rochester, Minnesota. Education is a powerful strategy to improve educational outcomes resulting in healthy individuals, families and community who have economic stability with productive careers and contribute positively to a civic and equitable society.

Confirmed: ARCH to Philanthropy ; Boys and Girls Club of Rochester ; City of Rochester, MN ; County of Olmsted, MN ; Families First (Fomerly: Child Care Resource and Referral) ; GRAUC (Greater Rochester Advocates for Universities and Colleges) ; Jeremiah Program ; Mayo Clinic ; Rochester Area Family Y ; Rochester Area Foundation ; Rochester Chamber of Commerce Foundation ; Rochester Community & Technical College ; Rochester Public Library ; Rochester Public Schools ; Rochester-area Chamber of Commerce ; Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation ; Spark (Formerly Minnesota Children's Museum - Rochester) ; The Reading Center ; United Way of Olmsted County ; University of Minnesota Rochester ; Winona State Rochester ; Workforce Development Inc

Potential:

 The Cradle to Career Planning Team recommends the StriveTogether Framework for several reasons. The framework consists of four pillars: shared community purpose, evidence based decision-making, collaborative action, and investment sustainability. It is a model using collective impact which is critical to success. There are 70 other cities, large and small
within the United States and beyond working within this same framework. This gives the initiative a body of support, best practices and partners with whom to learn, share and grow success. 

StriveTogether core values:

▪ Community: We focus on what connects us rather than what separates us and communicate to each other with transparency and integrity
▪ Courage: We fail forward even if no one is watching, have the tough conversations no one likes having and take risks in pursuit of results.
▪ Progress: We share learning and progress in real time, view professional development as personal growth and fix problems through continuous improvement.
▪ Results: We use data and evidence to make decisions and hold each other accountable for getting results.

Partnership goals

• Developing a shared purpose and supporting systems change
• Broadly supported backbone structure to sustain a community-adopted purpose and shared outcomes
• Continuous examination and measurement of result using actionable data and continuous improvement
• Aligning resources to support what works
• Advocating for equity at all levels of the system

Lowering of the poverty rate

Lowered social services and needs for social support programs

Reduced crime and its associated public spending on incarceration

The Cradle to Career Goals align to seven community-wide academic outcome areas that we have committed to improving. By 2029 we are committed to maintaining or improving 60% of these outcome indicators. The seven indicators are:

1. Pre-K Developmental Success

Percent of children developmentally health at age three

2. Kindergarten Readiness

Percent of children developmentally ready to enter kindergarten

3. Third Grade Reading Proficiency

Percent of students reading at grade level at grade three

4. Eighth Grade Math

Percent of students proficient in math at grade eight

5. High School Graduation

Percent of students graduating high school with for year cohort

Percent of students with required skills for post-secondary training

6. Post-Secondary Completion

Percent of you adults attaining within 6 years:

a college degree or industry, government or military-recognized license/certificate

7. Workforce Participation

Percent of young adults gainfully employed and percent of young adults contributing to community

Related indicators

Lowering of the poverty rate

Lowered social services and needs for social support programs

Reduced crime and its associated public spending on incarceration

Increased food security

Increased housing stability

Increased employability

Increased physical and mental health

AVID: advancement via individual determination implementation in RPS ; America's City for Health ; Bridges to Careers ; Closing referral disparities (resolution agreement with Office of Civil Rights) ; Expanding Career and Technical Education Center (C-TECH) Reach ; Head Start ; Identification and intervention for adverse childhood experiences in our local community - A Study ; IncubatorEdu at RPS ; Maintain and Evolve the 2016 Rochester/Olmsted County Compass Points (Community Dashboard) ; P-TECH 535 ; Parents Are Important In Rochester (PAIIR) ; Rochester Public Schools Strategic Plan ; Targeted Business Enterprise Utilization ; World's Best Workforce ; Youth & Whole Family Training System ; Youth Mediation in Rochester Public Schools

Cradle 2 Career (C2C), Rochester Public Schools (RPS), and Arch to Philanthropy are launching a College Coordinator Pilot to provide College Based Organizations (CBOs) resources for College Readiness.

Dec 2023 Leadership Table Membership

Oct. 2023 C2C Second Annual Education Summit

Jan. 2023 Data Analyst Job Opening. 

We invite parents, family members, healthcare providers, and others to help us increase healthcare access for pregnant people. Parents 15-19-years-old, with less than a high school education, and/or who are Black/African American face the largest care gaps.

C2C Admin Message

Compensated co-designer description

State funding for C2C to include in state legislation. 

C2C Annual Reports: 2021, 2020

Feb news, Jan. Updates to RPS Board

Cradle to Career published Community Report and recruiting Collaborative Action Network (CAN) conveners for Kindergarten Readiness and On-Time Graduation.

2018-07-30 and 2018-05-11 C2C Newsletter

At the February 22 meeting, the following information was shared. 

Second newsletter:  "Organizations involved in planning have committed additional resources to bring StriveTogether back on August 31 to help us complete our recommendations for a shared backbone structure to sustain this work across the community over time."