Collaborative Action for Equity and Opportunity provides a how-to guide for education, government, and community leaders interested in creating cross-sector systems of support for students. These collaborations strive to close achievement and opportunity gaps and to help children overcome problems stemming from poverty, racism, and other societal ills.

Based on a framework developed at Harvard’s By All Means Initiative, Paul Reville and Lynne Sacks walk readers through the process of jump-starting a successful collaboration between school, government, and community leaders. The authors describe how to form a local Children’s Cabinet to lead the effort, identify goals and strategies, and ensure the long-term sustainability of the collaboration.

In addition to a clear sequential set of implementation steps, Reville and Sacks provide field-tested tools, examples of communities that have undertaken this work, and specific strategies and guidance gleaned from their collaborations with more than thirty communities across the country.

Collaborative Action for Equity and Opportunity highlights the roles that school and municipal leaders play in creating comprehensive systems of support and opportunity for all children in a community.