Collaboration is a process where two or more entities work together to realize shared goals by sharing knowledge, learning, and building consensus. It takes collaboration to make systemic changes that improve student achievement.
ARCHES provides grants and technical assistance to increase the success of regional collaborative work to close opportunity gaps and increase college readiness, enrollment, and completion rates for students from socio-economic and racial-ethnic communities with historically low college-going rates.
ARCHES also serves as a professional community in which members engaged in collaborative efforts to improve student achievement can learn from each other; identify and promote effective practices; provide professional development and technical assistance; mentor new collaboratives; share strategies to optimize efficiency and effectiveness; and advocate for public policies that lead to educational attainment and elimination of the achievement gap.
ARCHES was launched in 2005 as an initiative of the California Academic Partnership Program (CAPP) — a collaborative program involving all of the state’s educational sectors that is administered by the California State University, and the California Education Round Table – a voluntary association of the chief executive officers of all of California’s educational sectors and its programmatic arm, the Intersegmental Coordinating Committee (ICC).
Please find our publication: Enhancing Student Achievement through Regional Collaboratives: ARCHES’ First Five Years here.