The Building Bridges Initiative

Chords of change

By Jen Alexander

October 25, 2023

It was easy for me to say yes to being part of the Building Bridges Initiative because it connects to the work I do every day. I lead PIE Network, an organization that works to help connect, support, and catalyze the work of nearly 170 education policy and advocacy organizations across the country. As a Network, we share a commitment to making sure that every student—in every community—gets the education needed to achieve a future without limits. We’re driven by the belief that specific kinds of policy changes—the Network policy pillars—are needed to fulfill that mission. The Network is cross-partisan by design. Members’ work is rooted in the specific needs of their states and communities, and members bring to the table different backgrounds, identities, ideologies, coalitions, and strategies. At PIE Network, we come together across these differences to connect and learn, which is not always easy to do in today’s divided times. 

In my role at PIE Network, I talk a lot about working across lines of difference, not because we want everyone to agree, but because the vast majority of leaders do not have the luxury of only working with people with whom we agree. We have to work across lines of difference to change policy and get the job done for students.

I’m writing this blog post just after the PIE Network Summit. The theme for this year’s event was “chords of change,” which felt fitting for the event in Nashville (Music City!) and for the moment we’re in. Music is a big part of my life. I was a choir nerd in high school and in college, and I come from a family of musicians. (You should hear our family jam sessions during the holidays!) My love of music had me thinking about this theme, chords of change—why it matters to me, how it motivates me to lead the PIE Network, and how it drove me to participate in the Building Bridges Initiative.

Most great music has both major and minor chords. Major chords can be uplifting and make you feel happy. Minor chords can be haunting and make you feel sad, angry, or scared. Music needs both major and minor chords to have an impact. I think movements for change need both, too.

In our work, we often have to balance hope and despair. Sometimes it can feel like we’re drowning in despair. Turn on the news, and you’ll be hard-pressed not to want to cry or scream about the events unfolding in the world. Log onto social media, and you’ll find a dumpster fire of vitriol and “either/or”-isms. Read about what’s happening for students now, and you’ll see the dismal data on student outcomes and well-being in COVID’s wake and the widening of gaps that existed long before the pandemic. The consequences for our young people, our economy, and our democracy will be dire if we remain mired in polarization and are unable to turn things around for this and future generations of students. We talked about these minor chords—feelings of despair, fury over injustice, and the need for urgency—a lot at the PIE Network Summit. These minor chords also brought me to the Building Bridges table and kept me there.

But the major chords kept me at the Building Bridges table, too. We came together with heavy hearts about what’s happening in the world right now. We also shared moments of fellowship, laughter, and joy. We shared hope—a deep conviction that better is not only necessary but possible—that change is within our reach and the belief that what must be, can be achieved.

Our hopes—these major chords—were also a focus of the PIE Network Summit. We shared, studied, and celebrated advocacy campaigns and policy changes that I think embody what the Building Bridges Initiative wrote about in A Generation at Risk. For example, the PIE Network annual Eddies Awards—advocate-nominated and voted awards—featured outstanding policy and advocacy wins from the past year. These campaigns focused on:

• Improving data and making it more accessible to help stakeholders make decisions in the best interest of students.
• Fixing how we fund schools to more fairly and effectively meet students’ learning needs.
• Expanding students’ and families’ ability to access and choose quality schools, tutoring, and education options.
• Improving how we prepare, recruit, support, and staff a diverse corp of teachers and leaders to make the job more attractive, sustainable, and effective.
• Supporting students to improve reading, writing, and math as well as social-emotional health, and workforce-ready skills they’ll need to succeed.

You can read about these campaigns here. They provide just some examples of the kinds of changes that will be needed to break through partisanship and stagnation to improve student outcomes in the near term while we simultaneously begin putting in place the building blocks of a more responsive system that will help future generations of students address the challenges of the world to come.

I left the Building Bridges conversations just as I left the PIE Network Summit—inspired by leaders across the country who are working to shift power in favor of students, families, and the communities they serve. I deepened my commitment to hold the major and minor chords together—to work across differences, to balance hope and fury—so that we can enact long-overdue improvements in education that students need to succeed. I hope you’ll join us. 

Jennifer Alexander is the Executive Director of PIE Network.