The Top 5 Reasons To Advocate for Community Schools on Education Day

By Sabina Simon, Intern at the Institute for Educational Leadership 

While advocating can be immediately rewarding if your Representative or Senator takes your thoughts into account and immediately applies them to a bill or signs off on your legislation, it is more likely that you won’t see the immediate effects of your advocacy.

But don’t get discouraged! It is still important to meet with your member of Congress. That meeting can leave him or her with a lasting impression which you can build on with time.

To continue to inspire you to come out on Education Day, we have put together a list of 5 major reasons to advocate for the Community Schools Movement!

1. Build Awareness!
One of the many reasons to advocate is to spread the word about what community schools are capable of and to give others information that can help them begin to consider them as a viable option.  Many Representatives and Senators are so busy on Capitol Hill or in your state capitol that they don’t often get the chance to go out in the field and see the great things you’re all doing in community schools. On Education Day, you have the opportunity to bring your insights as a community schools practitioner to them so they can learn first-hand the wonderful things you’re doing, and see the positive results your work has on outcomes for kids. Your bill might not get passed and your member of Congress might not support your cause immediately, but the idea has been brought to the table, ready to be expanded and built upon so that eventually it can be implemented.

2. Community Schools Are Effective
Remember, you are advocating because you believe in what the community school movement is capable of! For example:

- Hartford Community Schools (HCS) brought their Connecticut Mastery Test scores (CMT) in reading up from far below average to better than the citywide average within 2 years of implementation!
- City Connects in Boston, Massachusetts found that the community school strategy not only brought up the average reading scores for ELL students and others in reading and math, but also that it helped students build strong and lasting work habits and academic effort in elementary grades.
-  After two years of being a community school, Bailey Elementary School in Providence, Rhode Island met AYP in math and reading for the first time in four years. Between 2007 and 2009, third graders in reading went from 27% to 41%; Fourth graders went from 28% to 59%; and, fifth graders went from 12% to 39%!

Remember your primary objective: BELIEVE IN YOUR CAUSE! Even if members of Congress do not support you immediately, these facts and figures will be difficult to ignore over the next few years.   

3. Personalize Your Message So That You Can Get What You ACTUALLY Want
Advocating in person is a great way to make your voice heard over the din of education policymakers who have other agendas. When you come to the Hill or visit your state capitol representing a school of real students, you have the opportunity to tell your personal story with your own language that cannot be misinterpreted or skewed. Members of Congress identify strongly with personal contact, and they understand the importance of their constituency, especially when you go and meet with them personally.

4. Begin Learning the Dynamics of Policy and Rubbing Elbows
Advocacy is great for networking of all kinds, whether it be with state legislators, Representatives, Senators, staff members or even other members of the Community Schools movement! Going to the Hill or your state capitol and advocating is a great way to see and begin to understand firsthand the dynamics of the Hill, legislation, and our Congress. Networking and building this knowledge base is essential for working in education policy, and if you want your voice to be heard, there is no better time to start than now!  

5. Education Day: A Chance to Show Our Solidarity!
The great thing about advocating with us on Education Day is that you WON’T BE ALONE! We will give you preparation, training, and all of the information you need to be able to get an appointment, make your message clear and compelling, and follow up with your member of Congress or state representative after the meeting. Being able to see everyone who is involved all together at one time will help solidify that you are doing the right thing.

So, what are you waiting for? Sign up and advocate with us today! Here is the link for more information on Education day: http://www.communityschools.org/aboutschools/educationday2013.aspx and Advocating: http://www.communityschools.org/aboutschools/advocacy_2013.aspx

A Lens for Social Justice – How Community Schools Guide New Teachers Through the Inequities Their Students Face

JoAnne Ferrara is the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Advising at Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY  and the co-author of two books: Whole Child, Whole School: Applying Theory to Practice in a Community School and Changing Suburbs, Changing Schools. 

The preparation of teachers coupled with the challenges schools face recruiting and retaining them are among the many issues confronting education leaders. Each year as teacher and educators prepare the new crop of professionals to enter high-needs schools, they are often concerned with the overwhelming obstacles they will encounter. Research on teacher retention in high poverty schools indicates that many leave during the first 3-5 years (Darling-Hammond, 2006, Ingersoll, 2001). New teachers often cite poor working conditions, lack of professionalism, and isolation among the reasons for their dissatisfaction. Furthermore, most new teachers feel inadequately prepared to meet the intensity of student needs in high poverty schools. 

Unless new teachers have pre-service clinical training in successful schools serving poor children, many novices will experience a sense of disillusionment. Their disillusionment further escalates once they realize that access to quality educational opportunities are often lacking for children in these schools. Our most vulnerable students soon realize that access to successful teaching and instruction practices are frequently determined by socio economic status. 

Imagine the dilemma new teachers face as they try to reconcile their ideology with the real-life challenges of the classroom. Upon leaving their teacher preparation program many novices are filled with wide-eyed wonder determined to impact the lives of students in their charge. After spending years on college campuses learning about the socio-politico context of education new teachers believe that schools should place students’ well-being at the forefront of all educational policies. Given the moral imperative by college faculty to become agents of change, these neophytes are frequently discouraged once they are employed by a school system with a different set of expectations. In many cases their enthusiasm to “make a difference” quickly diminishes when working in schools where veteran teachers have either forgotten or ignored the broader social aspect of education.

Luckily some new teachers are prepared in community schools, steeped in a tradition of civic responsibility, equity, and leadership. In community schools new teachers build a rich context for viewing education through a social justice lens. During these early years when teachers are beginning to create their professional identities and sense of purpose, the awareness of socio-political inequalities impacting students often spur them to take action. When teachers view themselves as agents of change, a sense of social responsibility begins to emerge.  In doing so they seek to transform the ways in which schools and teachers address educational inequities. Implementing the kinds of equity minded practices found in community schools requires a school-wide commitment to providing the supports which foster responsive practices. Simply put, with a shared set of beliefs about the role of education, community schools help new teachers develop a responsive pedagogy which in essence is the moral and ethical work of teachers. 

References

Darling-Hammond, L. (2006).  Powerful teacher education: Lessons from exemplary programs.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Ingersoll, R. (2001). Teacher turnover and teacher shortages: An organizational analysis. American Educational Research Journal, 38(3), 499-534.

 

Even When Correct, the Experts Aren’t Nailing the Point

 By Daniel Rehor and Danna Khabbaz, interns at the Institute for Educational Leadership

People who understand that children’s academic success is influenced by elements both inside and outside the classroom seem to know that partnerships and coalition-building are the best solutions to addressing these elements but can’t quite seem to articulate the exact strategy for implementing them. Well, the term for that strategy is “community schools.”

A series of Capitol Hill briefings honoring Black History Month and entitled “Helping the Poor and Maintaining the Middle Class” addressed the challenges facing low-income citizens that deter socio-economic mobility within the United States. The presenters understood that education is crucial to socio-economic mobility and that when children have access to certain key support structures in their environment, their academic success improves.

In the words of Dr. William C. Bell of the Casey Family Program, “Place matters.” Dr. Bell, who spoke at one briefing, understood that schools are incredibly influential in the success of children, but academic buildings constitute just one community element influencing children’s success.

Deputy Secretary of Education Tony Miller spoke about the U.S. Department of Education’s current goals and agenda. What stuck out was Miller’s admission that promoting education cannot remain the sole job of education leaders but must receive support from all leaders. A holistic support system that promotes student success from many angles, engaging all avenues to do so, will yield the largest benefits for children.

Other presenters spoke about efforts to encourage local enterprise investment, much like the Chicago Community Loan Fund. David Pope, President of the Village of Oak Park in Illinois, urged other town leaders to foster environments for economic success, not just within their own neighborhoods but also for their entire region. Glenn Martin of the Fortune Society addressed the need to invest in academic opportunities for the incarcerated so they don’t simply slip back into old habits in their old communities.

All of the speakers promoted a multifaceted approach to neighborhood development and urged this approach as a means for promoting the economic success of its’ citizens. Community schools address exactly these goals and in the process foster rich learning experiences that help children achieve academically, which ultimately impacts the long-term economic success of a neighborhood.

The presentations’ themes align with the values of the Coalition for Community Schools. In order to strengthen our shared message of mobilizing and aligning communities’ resources to promote the opportunities and success of their citizens, it would be most effective to use similar language when describing our efforts. Conversations that address neighborhoods’ improvement and empowerment plans ought to include the term “community school.”

Daniel Rehor is a graduating senior at SUNY-Brockport

Danna Khabbaz is a graduating senior at Georgetown University