Our connection to KnowledgeWorks Foundation

Ohio Education Matters is a subsidiary of KnowledgeWorks Foundation.

KnowledgeWorks Foundation has a longstanding commitment to education improvement in the state. It began 10 years ago with the creation of the Ohio College Access Network, which supports the college-access organizations that are helping disadvantaged students get into and succeed in higher education.

KnowledgeWorks spent considerable time and effort improving Ohio high schools. In a partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the state of Ohio and others, KnowledgeWorks spearheaded $100 million in investments to show how Ohio’s high schools could be transformed so that they provide the support and guidance that today’s learners need to be successful in the 21st century. From Lorain to Lima, from Cleveland to Columbus, and from Youngstown to Dayton, the foundation created new high schools and redesigned dysfunctional ones into small, high-performing high schools that are serving all students. The nine Early College High Schools, for instance, are some of the best high schools in the state, graduating seniors with both a high school diploma and an associate’s degree, and our redesigned high schools increased student graduation rates 31%.

KnowledgeWorks also pushed through significant structural improvements to the state workforce development system, bringing together the disparate elements of education and training to workers that need to improve their skills in order to improve themselves and ultimately the state’s economy.

OEM joins other KnowledgeWorks efforts focused on doing good work in the state. Strive, created in 2006, unites partners across Greater Cincinnati around shared goals and uses research to strengthen strategies that support children from birth through college and into meaningful careers. Our Organizational Learning and Innovation group creates partnerships and conversations among Ohio’s education leaders that lead to new ways of thinking about learning and the future.