While Arizona is often at the bottom of the list on most childhood indicators, Pima County doesn’t have to be.  By the year 2020, we want our community to be a great place for our kids to grow up and thrive.

The 2020 Vision Project is designed to empower the residents of Pima County to pave the way for a better future for our children.

The multi-year, community-based initiative focuses on the well-being of youth. With vision and commitment, Pima County can lead the way to a brighter future.

Voices for Education launched the 2020 Vision project in September 2007. The project draws on a wide range of community input to assess how well our county supports, educates, and engages its youth.  When children in our community become adults, to what degree are they ready for work, ready for school, and ready for life?

In order to specify how we want our community to look in the year 2020, Voices for Education and its partners are collecting input from parents, students, policymakers, and residents. The outreach efforts focus on assessing how we are serving children and youth in key settings--their schools, their homes, and their communities. Our sources for input include you and other community members through:

• Seven community town halls throughout Pima county;
• Focus groups among youth;
• Focus groups with teachers;
• A youth survey for 7th and 11th graders was distributed to all school districts in  Pima County in the Spring of 2009--these surveys are now being scanned over the summer.   We will have the initial data by Fall 2009.

 We have held 7 community meetings throughout Tucson and Pima County, cutting across political jurisdictions and bringing together policy makers, educators, students and parents to participate in a forward-looking discussion about issues affecting children and youth. We have made tremendous progress toward our goals of identifying youth-related needs in the community and creating action agendas.

 By Fall 2009, your information will help us: 

• Create a Pima County report card that lets us know how our children and youth are doing;

• Select three indicators that all of us will work towards  “moving the needle” on in Pima County during the two following years; and

• Develop and put into motion an action agenda aimed at ensuring that all of our children are ready for work, life and school by the year 2020.
• The top three indicators chosen at the town halls: 
• 1.  Increase Funding
• 2. Reduce class size
• 3. Increase teacher pay