Campaign for the Common Good Listening Tour

Teachers Rock!

Every day, in communities across the country, America's teachers put their hearts and souls into the important work of educating young people. We believe they deserve the encouragement, support and training they need to be great teachers. To kick off the Campaign for the Common Good, we're inviting people of all ages to share a story about a teacher who changed their life.

We'll share these stories with our partners at the local, state and national level to send a strong message of support for educators across the country who need our help right now. The future of our country depends on it.

Community Conversations

This fall, United Way is bringing together parents, students, teachers, community leaders and people from across the community to talk about their goals for for education. These Community Conversations will help United Way understand what the community wants when it comes to education and tap into people's passions and energy. With this knowledge United Way can be more effective, more relevant, and recruit more people to join the movement.

And it starts with you. What kind of community to you want to live in? What do you want education to be like in your community? How is that different from how you see things now? And, what are some of the things that need to happen to create the change we need?

We'll be discussing these and other questions all year long, and we want to know what you think.

Host Your Own Community Conversation and Then Tell Us What You Heard

Our partners in this work, The Harwood Institute, helped us create the Community Conversation Guide. It has all the tips you need to host your own conversation — whether it's with your own family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, or others in your community. Then tell us what you heard.

Step #1: Download the Community Conversation Guide.

Step #2: Host your own community conversation.

Step #3: Share what you heard. Complete this online form.

National Report and Town Hall: What Americans Are Saying About Education

Coming March, 2011

United Way is compiling the knowledge and stories that are discovered through these conversations into a national report, to be released in early 2011. The purpose of this report is to reflect back to you how you and your neighbors think about and talk about your communities, the challenges in education, and your hopes and dreams for your children. This will be a different kind of report – not an academic study but a collection of real people talking about the things that affect them every day. And we plan to carry your voice forward and to put it front of our nation’s leaders so that when it comes to what’s best for our communities for helping our children succeed, you are heard. And we hope by volunteering, lending your voice to these issues, and supporting this work in anyway you can that you will be our partner in this effort.

We’ll be rolling out the report in a major national town hall event that you will have a chance to be part of wherever you are. So stay tuned … details will be coming soon!