How can communities leverage an often untapped partner, faith-based organizations, in service of better educational outcomes for America's most vulnerable children? The Leadership Initiative for Faith and Education (LIFE) dares to imagine what it would be like if each of the ~50,000 public schools in the United States that are deemed "low income" was partnered directly to one or more of the 350,000 faith communities in the US to address specific needs such as literacy development, math fluency, or ensuring every child is known by a caring adult.

We'll explore the keys to an effective partnership through a powerful case study of a faith based nonprofit, ARISE2Read, and the Memphis-Shelby Country School District. Through this collective effort, literacy rates (as measured by sight word recognition) among participants improved 614% in a single school year. This case study, along with many others that are surfacing through LIFE's landscape analysis of partnerships between faith and educational institutions, is proving what's possible everyday.

Learning Question:  How can communities leverage an often untapped resource, faith based organizations, to establish effective partnerships with educational institutions that positively impact student outcomes?