S1 Ep5: Nonprofit Education Partners: The Judgment-Free Zone

Designing Education

Farah Jimenez, President and CEO of the Philadelphia Education Fund, joins Robert Balfanz to explore the function of local education intermediaries and examine the roles they play in designing the education systems we need to enable all students to succeed.

One of the unique features of education in the United States is how decentralized and localized the decision-making is. This has the ability to be a source of creativity and flexibility, which are necessary for innovation, but can also be a source of stagnation since roles are constantly shifting.

This constant shift has given rise to another uniquely American institution: the local education intermediary. With long histories in their communities, these organizations often support the development of new approaches and ideas. In this podcast, Ms. Jimenez discusses ways that one such organization has supported the efforts of a large urban school district to develop a college-going culture and help young people develop viable plans for postsecondary success for nearly forty years.