![Stephen Goldsmith, former may Libby Schaaf, and Tulsa mayor Monroe Nichols laughing and speaking in front of a crowd](/sites/g/files/omnuum10826/files/styles/hwp_21_9__1920x825/public/datasmart/files/pmi_s25.jpg?itok=4UI3jFNJ) # Exclusive: Advancing Educational Attainment and Future-Proofing Policies with Mayor Monroe Nichols and Mayor Libby Schaaf Episode Seventy-Three April 23, 2025 [ Betsy Gardner ](/betsy-gardner) At a recent event held at Harvard University, the current Mayor of Tulsa Monroe Nichols and former Mayor of Oakland Libby Schaaf spoke to chiefs of staff and deputy mayors of 35 large US cities, and we're releasing a bonus question and answer session hosted by Data-Smart City Pod producer Betsy Gardner. Listen to hear how mayors can actually influence educational policy, how to future-proof initiatives, and why longitudinal data is so important in this work. Embed *Listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts. The following is a transcript of their conversation.* **Betsy Gardner:** The first question that we have is around future proofing. How do you build in the type of civic or political infrastructure so that when you are out of office, the person who follows you either has to or wants to continue this work? **Mayor Libby Schaaf:** I'd say there are three ways. Money, other systems leaders, and the community. We had a goal that by the time I left office, we would have enough money secured for one generation of children in Oakland to enjoy the full continuum of the cradle to career supports that the Oakland Promise provided. We were very fastidious in getting a financial modeler really costing out what that would look like and creating a financial goal that would allow us to achieve this within the eight years I was in office, and I'm happy to say we did it. Our goal was to get the voters to actually pass an additional tax for themselves, a 30-year parcel tax. The one that they passed ended up funding not only college access work that the Oakland Promise does, but also preschool. Then we also set about raising a $50 million quasi-endowment, something that would be invested and earned income, but would be spent down over 27 years. We accomplished both those goals. On co-leadership systems buy-in, I eliminated the mayor's Education Cabinet when I came into office, which surprised people. But instead, I put my energy into a joint powers authority that was co-governed by the Mayor, the Head of the County, and the School Superintendent. Then we added the private sector into that partnership. The poor head of that organization has four crazy bosses. Can you imagine? You think the job of a chief of staff is hard? That joint powers authority, and now it's called the Oakland Thrives Leadership Council, because all these other system leaders, including the private sector, the business community, the philanthropic community, are really bought into this vision. When one system leader changes, the rest carry on the work. Then finally, we really empowered the community to be the champions, to be the voice, to be the face of this initiative. We created Oakland Promise Ambassadors. Whenever we were in front of city council or the school board, we had students, parents, teachers telling the stories about the impact of this work. You better believe that they were not going to let this work go, regardless of who the mayor is. We not only gave them ownership in this title of ambassador, we gave them badges, we gave them t-shirts, we gave them merch, but every year we would publish an annual report and we'd list all their names. We really honored them. We put them on steering committees. We listened to their recommendations and suggestions for program changes. That co-ownership is what I like to say “F-proofs” your initiatives. **Mayor Monroe Nichols:** Yeah, I think there's so many things there that the mayor said that I think are so critically important. All those elements, like the public sector and the money along the systems leaders and the community, this co-governance environment really is what we used to call, and maybe still do, call an accountability structure so that we all understand that within our systems, within our responsibility, we all have some contribution to make as it relates to impact and outcomes for children and families. We all understand, we don't all have the same job to do. As the Mayor was going about the work around Oakland's Promise, her job was not necessarily to go into a classroom and teach kids how to read. There's a different role that she had, but somebody else had that role that was equally as important. It's so important that the Mayor and the Superintendent and these business leaders sat across the table from each other all aligned around the goal about what we wanted, what they wanted for children and youth in Oakland. I think that's the really important thing for mayors to think about, for chiefs of staff to think about. Have we created – and I think it's where mayors play a really important role – a shared vision as to what we even want for kids in this community? Then, how does that then drive how we invest? How does that then drive how we judge success or failure? How are we then checking in and communicating on what we did right? What went wrong? What is great? What do we still have challenges around? I think that really articulates the role of a mayor, is to create that shared vision, to call on people to come into it, to help us understand how we're successful or not, and to make sure that those other systems leaders, that we're holding ourselves accountable in certain many shape or form. I think what Oakland did is a masterclass. It's really interesting as we sit here on the podcast and on the panel earlier, you have a Mayor that's done it, who centered children and youth in Oakland and had so much success doing that. Then you have a Mayor in Tulsa who's brand new, and you're really starting that road. What's great when I hear Libby talk is that I'm like, "Okay, yeah, I'm bought into it.” We have systems leaders bought into it. It's a great example that it can work. I think that's the other thing that we all have to understand, this is not pie in the sky stuff. If you are focused, you build that culture of co-governance and accountability, and you invest, guess what? Outcomes are going to get better. It doesn't mean that you have solved every problem, but you're starting to take things off the list of problems that you had. I think that's what's so critically important to this work and how you, as the mayor says, “F-proof” things. **Betsy Gardner:** I think related to the question of “F-proofing” things, that brings us to…financing. You talked earlier about the financing aspects of this work. But, considering there's a changing administration and uncertainty around funding for cities, how can city leaders engage through new avenues for financing around these kinds of projects? **Mayor Monroe Nichols:** Yeah, I mean, I think one of the big things is I think this comes into where focus is so critically important. I think there's so much right now, the crazy thing, I was a legislator for eight years. You think federally, you're pretty far removed from constituents. When I was at the state capitol, there's still that level of disconnect. But when you're a mayor or city councilor, there's zero distance between you and people every day. You can afford to make cuts at the federal level. You can afford to make cuts at the state level. But, the things we do every day impact people's lives. Literally today we make a decision, it impacts somebody today. I think a big challenge that you have then is, “how do I focus and then understand where are the resources available to me to generate what I need to generate to do something?” Some of it is philanthropic at times, but some of it is also finding new inroads. There's a lot of work around fiscal mapping, for example, that's happening in communities across the country, going and finding the places where money is to serve the cause that you want to serve. Because eventually you may actually have to go, as Libby did, go ask citizens to basically invest in these things by way of a vote. Sometimes you got to compel the philanthropic community do it, which Libby has done, so there's usually a mix of the two. But I think it all starts, particularly in the environment that we're in now, with a real focus on what you want to do, understanding…because I mean, the first question I would have if I was in philanthropy, if a mayor came to me, I'd be like, "Okay, what's the city investing in these things?" Understanding, where are we spending our dollars to impact young people? How are we doing that toward those outcomes? What might we do in the future? What are we committed to doing in the future? But then, being able to align those resources around things that we know work really, really well. I mean, I think the financing should follow the strategy, and I think that's what we have out in front of us to figure out across the country, what is the true impact of lack of housing vouchers that are rolling through HUD that impact families that are in section eight housing or whatever the case may be? What's the true impact of the unraveling of a Department of Education? How does it impact the work that we need to do based on the outcomes we have here? How specifically do we need to attack outcomes that we know are impacting the folks in our community? I think a lot of it's real focus, right? There's so much noise. How do you focus in all that noise to understand this is what we have to generate to improve the outcomes that we care about for kids and families in this community. **Mayor Libby Schaaf:** On my side, I don't know if everyone is aware of the power of early savings for education. The research is so compelling that having even less than $500 in a college savings account for a young child has measurable impacts on their expectations of going to college, of their self-identity as going to college, on their early social-emotional development, on their math scores, their reading scores. I mean, the evidence is so compelling that just the knowledge that they have a college savings account has these tremendous upfront benefits. Then the other beauty is, if that thing is earning interest and you give it to a baby when they're born, it's $2,500 by the time that kid is actually going to college. I know the political incentives are not aligned for people to make these long-term bets, but we were able to sell our community on why this was worth investing in. That is a way to use one-time money, invest it very strategically in a way where it has these other effects along the child's life course, and it ends up being a lot of money for college. In addition to asking voters, philanthropy, trying to direct city funds, when your state has a year with a surplus, what a great investment to make. In California, because we had the Oakland Promise and we had all these proof points, and we had a big advocacy community that was ready for the moment, we were able to get the state of California to set up CalKIDS back in 2021. It is now the country's largest college savings account program in the country, automatically enrolled. Now it's almost 5 million children that have a college savings account that have these additional benefits, but also are going to have a lot of money because it's earning interest right now. Well, maybe not today…when the market is doing well, that is earning interest, and what a smart investment because it earns that interest over time. **Betsy Gardner:** Something that you both actually just touched on is the idea of evidence or the idea of directing limited funding to what you know works. Considering that there are so many metrics for evaluation, how do you choose what ones resonate? What are some of the initial proof points that you share both to the community and to the funders to keep up the momentum when these are these longer term cradle-to-career programs? **Mayor Monroe Nichols:** One of the things we used to do back in the day, and still do it, I guess, at Strive Together, is we started every conversation around these things with the data walk so we were all familiar with the baseline data that's out there right now. We could have a conversation about where we wanted to go. We have all this data where we know what the problems are. Are we admiring the problems or are we figuring out what are the best pieces of data that's going to tell us we're going in the right direction? I lifted up earlier the 4,400 kids at Tulsa Public Schools that have been evicted over the last three years. In the impact to attendance rates, 50% chronically absent after for the first month, 70% after the first year. We already know that's a problem. What is the impact on literacy, because obviously chronic absenteeism is a driving indicator for literacy rates? What's the impact on literacy if we cut eviction rates in half? Then the question is then what is within cutting literacy rate in half? What we found when the data was done is that 46% of those folks who were evicted actually didn't know they were on the eviction docket until they were notified by a nonprofit partner. There's literally people who didn't realize that this was it. A lot of these kids in the data tend to be younger, so their parents are younger, so they're really learning life. Just some of these early warning things that we have, how do we begin to take care of some of those to think about what's the then broader community level impact? Because one community level impact is, oh yeah, we cut eviction rates: well, kids went to school more. Kids went to school more, their literacy rates are better, and what we know about early literacy, direct impact on middle grade math and science. Middle grade math and science one of the leading indicators on not just high school completion but post-secondary entry and completion. We take out a sizable chunk of the challenge just by addressing the data that we have out in front of us that we know is a problem and reporting back on how successful it is. Imagine if you layer cutting the eviction rate on top of the work that Libby talked about as far as investing in kids going to college. Now you have this pathway by which we're making sure that more kids have a clear pathway to get into school in their early years and we're paying for them to go to college. The transformational impact of those things is something that I don't think can ever be overstated. I think some of it is starting with what you know about your community. One of the things that we're doing in Tulsa right now, particularly around the area of homelessness and also around housing, what does outcomes financing look like? Maycomb Capital is a great outcomes financing partner and they've done a lot of this work across the country where they'll bring some upfront capital, and then they basically get paid back when outcomes are achieved. You're really focused before you even jump into work, there's a conversation. This is where this co-governance structure that Libby talked about is so important. We all are clear on what the outcomes are and what we want to chase, and here are the things that we're going to pay for if they're successful. Then this outcome is a paid for success model, if it's not ultimately successful then that funder, Maycomb Capital in this case, takes a loss on it. The idea is you don't even go into work until you understand what those outcomes are, which might be different community to community. Like what might be driving education rates in even a section of your city, much less a whole other town, one might be eviction rates, another might be number of English language learners. One might be a whole set of things. I think it's really important for folks to get very intimately involved with, “what does the baseline data say about your community?” Then you devise a strategy and plans on how you deal with it. **Mayor Libby Schaaf:** In Oakland, we have this joint powers authority and collective action table, and we collectively set the data points that we will measure. In the education sphere, like for the Oakland Promise, the north star is a degree. That can be a four-year degree, a two-year degree, or a trade certificate. All of those can lead to a family-supporting career. But, we know that there are milestones along the way that show that a child is on track. That starts with kindergarten readiness testing. It starts with third grade literacy. It's eighth grade algebra. Finishing high school and finishing high school with – in California we call it your A to Gs (A-G) – so it means college ready. It means you're eligible to get into a California state university. You've taken the actual courses, gotten enough of a grade level that you are eligible to get into our state university system. We've seen along the way that we are making progress in all of these indicators. When you start an initiative, it's often hard when you're going out maybe raising money or putting public money into it, to build in a longitudinal study, especially a randomized controlled trial. But we've done that with our Brilliant Baby and it's structured in a way that we can potentially follow these children for the next 30 years. We're already seeing some incredible early indicators of these, again, the babies that just have college savings account. Then we're also studying the difference between the parents that accept our offer of a financial coach and the ones who don't. We're seeing huge outcomes in a feeling of financial security and agency. We're seeing higher scores on social-emotional tests for the babies. We're seeing higher expectations from the parents of what educational level their children will obtain. We're seeing reduced stress levels and more well-being for the parents. Those are just after 18 months of receiving that college savings account. This is so worth studying, and we are building on a body of evidence that already is just showing the incredible impact, how we are opening up opportunity for all of our children, and that means our communities, by investing early. **Betsy Gardner:** There is a reality that when you're doing these programs and you're investing in these communities, it's not always possible to invest in each community in the exact same way. How do you talk about or talk to neighborhoods that might not be getting the exact same investments or are perhaps not getting the investments at the same moment? **Mayor Libby Schaaf:** In Oakland, we put forward a plan and a vision to give every single child this best-in-class set of supports from cradle-to-career, city-wide, for one generation. We did the financial modeling of what that would look like. We set our funding goals to achieve that end, and we actually did that. Now, you cannot scale to that size overnight. We did start particularly in schools and communities that we thought the need was the greatest. In those early days, we were not only able to show the differential between the schools that we had put the programming and the supports in compared to similarly situated schools that didn't have those supports, we were able to show double-digit differences in high school graduation, in college matriculation, in college persistence. We were able to say, "And here is our plan, here is our path for bringing this city-wide." Now, next year, the Oakland Promise will celebrate its 10-year anniversary. I'm very excited. That will be our chance to show, you know what? We are starting to see that we're moving the needle city-wide. We have seen at least a 10% increase city-wide in the graduation rate, and double that in the college-ready graduation rate. Now, I'm sure you have the same frustration that I do: data is sometimes hard to get. The data around who has completed their degree is actually really hard to obtain, but I am determined to get that by next year because I want to celebrate this Oakland Promise and show that this investment has more than paid off. **Mayor Monroe Nichols:** Yeah, I think the big thing is, and Mayor spoke to it, she talked about data in need. I think part of it is, what does the data tell us about where we should start to get the most out of whatever investment that we're making? Where does that need exist and how we prioritize that need? Honestly, how are you then communicating that to other parts of the city? Why start here as opposed to everywhere else? I think that's a big part of it. I think all this stuff runs, I mean, I think I said earlier, the sun rises and sets on accountability, and that even starts in the way in which we come to start the work. Why are we doing it? Why are we starting a certain place? Why would we even pick something like college going or why even pick that? What about who we are says that? Then, why do you start in these areas? We just kicked off the neighborhood conditions index in Tulsa. We took every neighborhood across the city and it's prioritized from one to three just based on a number of different indicators. Everything from education outcomes to incomes to infrastructure, all these things. The goal is to take all the priority one neighborhoods and make them priority two neighborhoods for now. This idea that we can move them from one to the other, but it all starts with the data and communicating why is it that we're doing this work. What do we hope to achieve from it? Then, how do we communicate back to folks, let them know if we were successful or not? I think one of…we started this conversation; I think about future-proofing things. I think the long-term way in which you future-proof things, I think Oakland's Promise is going to be a really important example of this, help people that miss this, this idea that they are also now, since they've been invested in it for all this time, looking at longitudinal data, that's how you future-proof somebody. Because people said, "There's some people who probably didn't know about this 10 years ago," but now it's like, look at what it's accomplished over this amount of time, and we're communicating that back. That is actually how you answer the question of, why are you starting here versus this other place? It's like, this work all takes time, but if we start with data, we start with a focused conversation, we begin to be able to communicate the benefit of that in ways in which everybody can understand. **Mayor Libby Schaaf:** What I love, this focus on data. That, when people see the data, they understand the choices you make and you also earn their trust. We are on a learning journey. **Mayor Monroe Nichols:** That's right. **Mayor Libby Schaaf:** We are learning from this community so we can bring it to every community. To be sure that people see that happening and believe that that's going to happen, that is also really important. **Mayor Monroe Nichols:** Absolutely. **Betsy Gardner:** Thank you both so much for coming to this event and talking with our chiefs of staff and providing a podcast for our listeners so that more people can hear what you have to say. **Mayor Monroe Nichols:** Awesome. Thank you. **Mayor Libby Schaaf:** Great. Thank you. **Betsy Gardner:** Thank you both. ## About the Author ### Betsy Gardner ![Headshot of Betsy Gardner](/sites/g/files/omnuum10826/files/styles/hwp_1_1__100x100_scale/public/2025-05/Betsy%20Headshot%20resize.jpg?itok=k2OsSp1g) Betsy Gardner is the editor of Data-Smart City Solutions and the producer of the Data-Smart City Pod. Prior to this, Betsy worked in a variety of roles in higher education, focusing on deconstructing racial and gender inequality through research, writing, and facilitation. She also researched government spending and transparency at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Betsy holds a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Policy from Northeastern University, a bachelor’s degree in Art History from Boston University, and a graduate certificate in Digital Storytelling from the Harvard Extension School. See also:- [ Education ](/topics/education) - [ Project on Municipal Innovation ](/topics/project-municipal-innovation) Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#)