Welcome to the web site of the Stark Education Partnership, Inc.

Located just an hour from Cleveland and minutes south of Akron (via I-77), Stark County, Ohio hardly seems suited to be a bellwether for anything. Granted, Stark claims to be the birthplace of NFL football and Canton, its largest city (with 83,000 residents), houses the Professional Football Hall of Fame. There was, of course, a certain county prosecutor by the name of William McKinley who later went on to become President of the United States, but these claims to fame are hardly earth-shaking news items for the county's 378,000 inhabitants who go about their daily tasks about as mid-America as mid-America can be.

In fact, so mid-America is Stark County that the New York Times sent reporter Michael Winerup to spend a year here prior to the 1996 elections. Stark, it seems, not only has a 100 year history of calling the election, it also calls the split. The 1996 election was not a disappointment, and Winerup's continuing series of articles gave Stark Countians a sort of uncomfortable national prominence for awhile.

Yet, the mythos of mid-America in Stark County is tempered by the same kind of rising social and educational problems that beset all urban and suburban areas nationwide.

In Stark County of the 1950's, with its steel mills and manufacturing centers, a high school diploma was not essential. The 1980's and 1990's have brought a different reality. Health care is now the second largest employer in the county; education is third. Stark County is also home to major international businesses such as the Timken, Diebold, and Hoover Companies. While a company such as Timken has offices and plants on five continents, its roots are in Stark County. Corporate offices and world headquarters are here.

These companies have made the transition to high technology and a highly skilled workforce. These are also companies that have tossed aside the malaise of the "rust-belt" and restructured their operations to compete in a global economy. The need for these companies is no longer just a trained local workforce; it is increasingly becoming a need for economic stability and high quality of life in the communities where their employees are based.

It was in this climate that the business and philanthropic communities in Stark County established an independent 501 C(3) (tax-exempt, not-for-profit) organization in 1989, known as The Stark Education Partnership, Inc. to help focus private sector resources to improve educational outcomes for all children in Stark County.

This web site chronicles some of our past achievements. More importantly, it tells what we are doing now in collaboration with a forward-looking county education service center and 17 districts who are on a quest to be second to none in the country.

We invite your questions and your comments and, more importantly, your interest. For Stark County, Ohio is indeed a microcosm of the country.

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