Cheatham, JenniferHolifield, Derrick2026-05-2620262026-05-262026Holifield, Derrick. 2026. Good Families in Redlined Cities: How Cradle-to-Career Intermediaries Must Organize to Scale Place-Based Systems Change. Doctoral Dissertation, Harvard University Graduate School of Education.32700498https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/42738895This practitioner inquiry examines how internal organizational alignment within the William Julius Wilson Institute (WJWI) at Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) shapes its capacity to deliver consistent, high-quality partnerships to places building cradle-to-career ecosystems to reduce poverty and expand economic mobility. Drawing on empathy interviews with staff members, an internal alignment pre-survey, participatory tool development as inquiry, and iterative analysis of organizational operations and artifacts, I examine the operational conditions shaping WJWI’s internal coherence during a period of rapid growth. The analysis draws on the water of systems change framework, organizational learning theory, and improvement science as complementary lenses. This work challenges the broader cradle-to-career field to invest in internal organizational coherence as an ongoing development strategy to meet the diverse needs of places across the country. I advocate for a set of standards and measurement tools that establish high-quality expectations while allowing place-based variation, and a multidimensional poverty measurement that captures the lived volatility families experience beyond income thresholds, as a starting point for dissecting the impediments to economic mobility across contexts. Most critically, continuous improvement is highlighted, underscoring that conceptual alignment around what cradle-to-career means is not the same as operational coherence in how cradle-to-career systems are supported and scaled. For families in historically redlined American cities, the gap between the two is not theoretical; it is a lived reality. Internal coherence is the precondition for systems change.application/pdfenClevelandCradle-to-career systemsEconomic mobilityEducational leadershipOrganizational learningSystems changeEducational leadershipOrganizational behaviorPublic policyThesis or Dissertation2026-05-26