KnowledgeWorks works to change education system

What started 10 years ago as an effort to increase educational opportunities has grown into a national enterprise that has helped open up 35 small high schools and showed countless students the benefits of continued education after high school. For their decade of work, the University of Cincinnati's Economic Center has awarded KnowledgeWorks with the 2012 Community Service Award.

 

KnowledgeWorks joins the ranks of Duke Energy, the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport as recipients of the award. The award is give to organizations that make a, "important local impact and a deep commitment to supporting economic research that guides policy or business practices."

 

“We are honored to be recognized by the Economics Center as we strive to improve education not just in our community, but throughout the United States,” says Brian Ross, KnowledgeWorks president and CEO. “As education budgets constrict, it’s important that school districts are able to identify ways to operate more efficiently without impacting the quality of learning for students.”

 

KnowledgeWorks uses three main ideas to create a complete overhaul of today's education, starting with access for children everywhere, creating better schools and transforming education from schooling to learning. One main contribution to the award was the work of KnowledgeWork's subsidiary, Ohio Education Matters (OEM). With OEM's Ohio Smart School Initiative, the organization presented more than $1 billion in savings in many different areas. With the idea of doing more with less, KnowledgeWorks knows it must plan for educational system that will be much different in coming years. 

 

Not as a way to predict the future, but as a way to guide what will happen in the future, KnowledgeWorks created the 2020 Forecast: Creating the Future of Learning. The forecast highlights six major areas of change -- altered bodies, amplified organizations, platforms for resilience, a new civic discourse, the maker economy and pattern recognition. While the forecast is difficult to sum up in few words, it does integrate everything form technical advances, to citizen responsibility, to utilizing local resources.