For community leaders asking about the foundation of a thriving town, education is always the starting point. Not because schools are the only thing that matters, but because education, from a child’s earliest years through the adult civic learning of programs like CivicCon, is what makes everything else possible. Businesses invest where there is a strong workforce. Families move where there are good schools. Young people stay where they can see a future for themselves. Civic decisions get made better when the people making them know enough to weigh the trade-offs. Education is the foundation of all of it. A strong education system does four things at once. It trains tomorrow’s workforce. It attracts employer investment. It draws talent, because families relocating look closely at schools. And it creates upward mobility, the most reliable path from where a child starts to where they can go. Learning starts at birth. Education does not begin in kindergarten. Research from the University of Chicago shows that eighty-five percent of a child’s brain development happens in the first three years of life. The graduation rate a community will celebrate eighteen years from now is being shaped, right now, by how much time infants and toddlers spend in a language-rich environment. Pensacola learned this the hard way. Data showed its high school graduation rate tracking its kindergarten readiness rate almost exactly. That was not a coincidence. Children who arrive at kindergarten ready to learn are far more likely to finish school and go on to productive lives. Pensacola partnered with the University of Chicago and Dr. Dana Suskind’s Thirty Million Words Initiative and worked with the three local hospitals to reach every new mother, roughly 5,000 births a year, with materials on how simple daily conversation shapes a child’s future. A low-cost intervention with a lifelong return. Rock County has this work well underway. The Stateline Community Foundation’s Literacy for Life serves as a backbone organization for local zero-to-five initiatives, partnering with Janesville Early Literacy and community partners on the Read Talk Play Every Day initiative. Roughly twenty community stations across the county help empower parents as their child’s first and best teacher. A companion coalition, Thrive by 5 Rock County, co-chaired by Jessica Austin, convenes service providers from prenatal through age five to better understand local needs, identify barriers and service gaps, raise awareness, and develop collaborative strategies to strengthen early childhood supports across the county. Learn more at statelinecf.org/literacy-for-life, readtalkplayeveryday.com, and co.rock.wi.us/thrive-by-5. Education is a whole-community responsibility. It takes a village. Business leaders can offer internships and mentor young people. Retirees can tutor. Nonprofits can run after-school programs. Employers can partner with schools on curriculum, so students see how what they are learning connects to the jobs waiting at Blackhawk Technical College, Mercyhealth, SSM Health, and the manufacturers along the corridor. Every one of those partnerships raises the odds a child finishes strong. Janesville is fortunate. The School District has a 93 percent graduation rate, one of the numbers that helped convince Dollar General to build its logistics center here. Protecting and building on that number starts long before kindergarten, with the language-rich environments infants and toddlers grow up in. It takes everyone at the table: the Vision Forward Fund investors, district leadership, Blackhawk Technical College, local employers, and the parents raising the next generation of Janesville workers. The next layer: raising the Civic IQ. There is one more piece of education that gets less attention than it deserves. Civic education, not just for children, but for the adults making community decisions every day. Raising the Civic IQ is what it sounds like. A community where citizens have enough shared understanding to think well together about the decisions that shape their lives. It is not about turning anyone into an expert. It is about giving a whole community a common set of facts and a common language, so people can weigh trade-offs together instead of talking past one another. The format matters less than the commitment. A speaker series. A book study. A visiting expert. A well-run town hall. Each of them can do the work. Janesville has started down this road. The community has begun bringing in national voices, and the conversations that have followed show what happens when citizens engage with real expertise together. That momentum is worth protecting. Good plans stall when citizens do not understand them. Bad plans win when citizens cannot see what is wrong with them. A vibrant community depends on citizens who can tell the difference. Strong communities treat education as infrastructure. Not a program to fund when there is money left over, but a foundation to build on with every decision. The employers, educators, nonprofits, and public leaders featured in this issue are doing exactly that work. A vibrant Janesville will be built by an educated community, one classroom, one conversation, one child at a time. About Quint Studer: Quint Studer is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and leadership expert dedicated to helping organizations and communities thrive. He founded the Studer Group, which improved education and healthcare outcomes and earned the Malcolm Baldrige Award before its acquisition in 2015. His focus has long been community revitalization through the Studer Community Institute, which advances early brain development and leadership training, and the Center for Civic Engagement, which brings speakers to Pensacola on a wide range of topics aimed at educating citizens and raising civic IQ. His efforts helped revitalize Pensacola, Florida, driving significant growth and earning national recognition. He has authored 16 books, including The Busy Leader’s Handbook, a Wall Street Journal bestseller, and Building a Vibrant Community, a blueprint for creating great places to live, work, and play. A passionate teacher and mentor, he continues to inspire leaders and communities nationwide. A Vibrant Janesville Is Built by an Educated Community By Quint Studer ADVERTORIAL “Janesville has started down this road. The community has begun bringing in national voices, and that momentum is worth protecting.” ‘
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