It seems like everywhere you turn people are talking about the need for educational reform. To be a part of this unique partnership where people are actually doing rather than just talking is exciting. - Ian Pumpian, Executive Director, City Heights Educational Collaborative

Given its desire to be responsive to the needs of the local community, in the 1990’s SDSU’s COE began concerted efforts to fully engage with the community. The result of this outreach initiative included not only the creation of strategic partnerships to improve the learning environment of our community, but also the development of collaborative educational efforts that have, to date, impacted thousands of lives. These programs, such as the Literacy Center, the Compact for Success, the CSP Counseling Center, the National Center for the 21 st Century Schoolhouse and the City Heights K-16 Educational Pilot, serve as a testament to the COE’s ability to partner with others to improve student achievement. Similarly, it indicates that SDSU’s COE can be successful in implementing innovative solutions to tackle “real world” problems.

With regards to collaborative educational efforts, San Diego State University’s College of Education is particularly proud of the impact the City Heights K-16 Educational Pilot has made on the City Heights community. In partnership with Price Charities, the San Diego Education Association, the San Diego Unified School District and the administrators, teachers, students and parents of three City Heights schools, the pilot program, which began in the fall of 1998, sought to accomplish three objectives: significantly improve student performance, prepare educators and other professionals to effectively serve inner-city environments and provide solutions to community problems through an active research agenda. In order to accomplish these objectives, the COE assumed administrative responsibility for three urban schools educating more than 5,000 students in City Heights, one of the most diverse neighborhoods in San Diego where transience, crime, unemployment and student attrition rates are high, and income is low.

In pursuit of the Pilot’s objectives, SDSU’s COE works diligently to support the diverse academic and non-academic factors that affect learning for City Heights’ students. SDSU’s students donate tens of thousands of hours of course work, field work and research services to the Pilot annually, while others serve as student teachers or teach in the classrooms. In addition, University faculty and staff also contribute thousands of hours each year to curriculum support and design, implementation, teaching and direct support of the Pilot. And, finally, over 40 academic departments at SDSU contribute mentoring activities, social and health services, parent and family outreach, after-school recreational programs and numerous other services in City Heights.

Although the College of Education’s partnership and commitment to facilitate transformational changes in these three schools alone is to be commended, the interim results of the six-year program are even more encouraging. Most significantly, student achievement has shown marked improvement since the Pilot began. Additional Pilot achievements have included improved student attendance, teacher retention and increased dialogue about, and research of, student achievement in urban schools.

Through the City Heights K-16 Educational Pilot, SDSU’s COE and its pilot partners are helping a local community find solutions to its most pressing problems—real problems of practice where success is being measured through outputs. It is the partners’ desire for the Pilot to serve as a model for collaborative development of ethnically diverse neighborhoods that can be replicated in other communities. And as a result of its involvement in strategic initiatives such as the City Heights K-16 Educational Pilot, SDSU’s COE has developed valuable expertise about the effective development and implementation of educational initiatives, making it uniquely poised to work with other school districts to support their adaptation of core elements of its successful programs to fit the needs of their schools.