Jax2025 Results: Excellence in Education
5/22/2013
On Saturday, May 18, JCCI released the culminating report from their eight month-long Jax2025 community visioning process. The 100-page report, based on survey responses and active input from thousands of community members from all parts of the district, details the community's vision for what they want Jacksonville to look like by 2025. The vision is focused around improvement in ten priority target areas, including specific goals and measurable results for each. The target areas include:
- Arts & Entertainment
- Clean & Green City
- Diversive and Inclusive Community
- Distinctive Neighborhoods & Urban Heart
- A Place Where People Matter
- Exemplary Governance
- Hub of Smooth Transportation
- Healthiest Community
- Excellence in Education
- Vibrant Economy
The community-created vision for the target area of Excellence in Education states:
"In 2025, Jacksonville prioritizes excellence in education at every age. Jacksonville challenges, prepares, and actively engages learners at every stage of life. We are a community of teachers who infuse learning and a sense of discovery in everyday activities within Jacksonville. Our schools and libraries are a hub, connecting caregivers with community resources so that the whole child thrives, competes in the global economy, and contributes fully here at home."
To monitor progress towards this goal over the coming years, the community participants also identified 18 specific indicators across five key questions that will be tracked to make sure we are progressing towards that goal. They include:
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Question |
Indicator |
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Are we preparing children for school? |
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Children enrolled in high-quality early learning |
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Are our children succeeding in school? |
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Are we successfully preparing people for the workforce? |
College continuation |
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College graduation rates |
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Vocational certifications |
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Educational attainment |
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Are we embracing lifelong learning? |
College degrees awarded |
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Library usage |
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Are we caring for the whole child? |
Child homelessness |
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Children in foster care |
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Number of mentors |
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Youth Baker Acted |
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Participation in arts education |
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Amount of physical activity |
The report goes on to outline a number of strategies the community should adopt to impact these indicators, including:
- Communicate to parents and primary caregivers about early childhood development services available to optimize children's developmental potential as infants and toddlers
- Create a closer connection between schools and libraries for tutoring, computer-based schoolwork, and afterschool programs and activities
- Coordinate economic development and workforce needs with secondary and post-secondary education to create quality learning experiences that have career and training rewards
- Improve connections between students and families to opportunities eliminating barriers to student academic success
- Strengthen early childhood education to better prepare children to enter school, with quality learning experiences in preschool and early education programs
- Encourage greater business and community involvement in the school system to support parental engagement, mentoring, volunteering, and adopt-a-school programs
Beneath these strategies there are also a number of specific things any community member can do to help pitch in to the effort (including to sign the ONE by ONE Community Agreement!).
To find out out more, check out the full Jax2025 report, or start exploring where Jacksonville stands right now on a number of the key indicators at School Facts Jax.