Billions to Gain Convening: Holding space for conversation and collaboration
Helios Education Foundation hosted students, educators, advocates, policymakers, and media and opinion leaders from across Arizona at a convening to discuss findings from its newest report, Billions to Gain, which demonstrates how increasing college enrollment and completion rates in our state can dramatically enhance lifetime earnings for individual Arizonans and contribute billions to Arizona’s economy.
This convening, like others that Helios hosts on education topics important to Arizona and Florida, reflects our belief in the value and power of civic discourse. Rigorous, inclusive conversations about improving education and the challenges we face as a state are vital if we hope to make progress on the issues that matter.
The convening, and the report that inspired it, also reflect principles that guide our research and policy work, informing how we think about our contribution to the public conversation about education. These include:
- Space for discourse and debate: The Helios Education Campus was built with convenings and education-focused events in mind. It is designed, in both a physical and metaphorical sense, to be a welcoming space for strategic dialogue and to be a space where common ground can be celebrated and dissenting points of view can be carefully considered, rather than shouted down. The Campus is a place for the education community to be a community, with all the convergence and divergence that entails.
- Research partnerships: Billions to Gain—based on custom analyses by Clive Belfield, a leader in the field of the economics of education—is itself a product of collaboration and dialogue. Produced in partnership with Education Forward Arizona, Billions to Gain took shape from countless conversations and perspectives regarding the scenarios, insights, and recommendations it presents.
- Understandable, actionable research: Helios research is designed to advance public understanding of the way college attainment can influence the future of Arizona and Florida. Similarly, Helios provides a variety of support materials, including a webpage for exploring data included in the Billions to Gain report, that highlight and explain key findings and potential action steps for the state are similarly designed to inform the public dialogue.
- Transparency and visibility: Members of the media are invited to attend and report on our convenings, and we hold webinars in advance to help journalists understand (and ask questions about) the issues, data, and perspectives on the research that frames each convening. Helios considers media to be a key partner in raising awareness of education issues and in communicating with the public about policies and decisions that impact students, families, and the state.
We are committed to these principles and to bringing together people who care about education because we believe that improvement is possible. Research, community dialogue, and convenings all bring us closer to achieving meaningful change that benefits students, families, and communities.