The Coalition for Community Schools Blog

Focusing on Early Childhood in the Windy City

2011-12-09T09:43:00.000-08:00

By Reuben Jacobson, Senior Associate for Research and Strategy

Marty and I headed to Chicago this week for a convening of practitioners from schools, districts, cities, counties, states, and nonprofits to discuss what a birth through third grade system might look like. Community school leaders from Multnomah County, OR, Evansville, IN, Cincinnati, OH and Tulsa, OK spoke about the community school as the vehicle to support deeper connections between the early childhood community and schools. Strengthening the continuum of supports across the grades into early childhood continues to be a growing area of work for community school systems around the country. You can read about some of these activities on the Coalition’s Linkages to Learning page.

While we were there, we presented at the Illinois Federation for Community Schools’ Stakeholder Symposium on Linking Community Schools to Early Childhood Programs. The Federation assembled coordinators, lead partners, and early childhood representatives to learn more about how to connect community schools to early childhood opportunities in order to improve student learning. We spoke about the growing work around early childhood/community schools linkages, specifically around transitions, curriculum/pedagogy alignment, family engagement, building a continuum of services, access, expanded learning opportunity, use of data, and co-location and integration. Attendees started a great community conversation about how they can better organize to support these linkages, how to overcome barriers, and how to align instruction. Federation Associate Director Melissa Mitchell indicated to the group that the rich conversation was just the beginning. We look forward to learning and sharing more about Chicago’s efforts to support its youngest students as they continue to develop their strategies.

Community Schools: Proving 'Collective Impact' Works

2011-12-05T14:07:00.000-08:00

By Martin J. Blank, Director of Coalition for Community Schools

There comes a time when many fine examples of how to improve learning and life conditions for our children and young people hits a ceiling. They cannot get to scale because, as exemplary as they may be, they have an “isolated impact” on the issues. While collaboration may be part of their strategy, they often fall short of achieving deep changes in prospects for the young, especially those who are poor.

That is why some funders and community leaders are retiring their search for a silver bullet for an approach called “collective impact.” A recent article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review describes collective impact and how it works. The elements of collective impact are consistent with what those of us supporting the growth of community schools have been practicing for a long time. We agree with the article’s authors that “fixing one point on the educational continuum – such as better after-school programs – wouldn’t make much difference unless all parts of the continuum improved at the same time.”

Indeed a comprehensive understanding of the problems we face in educating our children is at the heart collective impact strategy. At the Coalition for Community Schools, we see the challenge of educating our children as a collective responsibility. School systems alone cannot deal with the myriad of factors that influence student learning.

Currently, some people engaged in the debate about what more it will take to educate our children often seem to push only one and at best two levers to improve education – teacher effectiveness and testing. We argue that our children surely need strong teachers and principals and an engaging curriculum, but they also need a range of opportunities from prenatal care to college and career readiness, the sort of support that enables all children to succeed. To do this we must act collectively.

The five basic elements of collective impact go far beyond collaboration and do not call for additional funding, but, rather, efficient use of what is available. Cincinnati’s community schools movement, which in fact began 8 years prior to the advent of Strive, as well as efforts in Tulsa, Evansville, Multnomah County (OR) and other communities, have put these elements into practice, and they are seeing results. In their well-organized efforts, local community school leaders have:

· Agreed on a common agenda. Leaders from across sectors – schools, health and social service agencies, youth organizations, higher education, faith-based and neighborhood groups and business/civic groups – let go of their individual agendas, and built a shared vision for improving achievement through community schools.

· Used shared measurement systems. For community schools, this means much more than academic achievement. Their metrics consider many factors that influence student success including: attendance/chronic absenteeism; health indicators such as asthma and obesity; student motivation and engagement; and parental involvement.

· Organized mutually reinforcing activities. Collective impact in community schools demands quality instruction in the schools, complemented by a set of opportunities from other sectors. These may include health and mental health services, after-school programs, mentoring, internships and apprenticeships. Families and neighborhood residents participate in adult education classes, ESL programs, job training, leadership development and cultural programs.

· Emphasized continuous communications. In community schools, the voices of those who have a stake in the outcomes – students, parents, educators and the community – are respected and given formal and informal means for being heard. These stakeholders, and the public, learn about the work and its results through newsletters, community meetings, websites and the media.

· Organized backbone support organizations. A collective impact initiative requires dedicated staff to coordinate the effort. Community school systems have an analogous approach, using intermediary organizations to drive their joint work. The intermediary could be a school system, or just as often local government, a United Way or another non-profit agency plays this role. A similar arrangement occurs at the school site where community partner organizations often hire community school coordinators to glue together the work of the school and its partners.

The fact that community school strategy involves work at both the school and at the community levels is particularly important. Collective impact in education does not happen just because community leaders and partners articulate a set of desired metrics. It happens when community leadership see schools as primary places for joint community action; when they empower educators and community partners to create the conditions for learning together; and, when they hold people accountable for results.

The Coalition’s new guide, Scaling up School and Community Partnerships, demonstrates how building a system of community schools can lead to collective impact. It makes clear that the place to begin marshaling communities behind schools is by setting a powerful shared vision, the first tenet of collective impact. It argues that collective trust among school and community partners is the fuel for the joint enterprise.

Cincinnati created a shared agenda in 2000 under the leadership of then school board member and former Governor John Gilligan. His idea for community learning centers (aka community schools) has led to a cross-boundary leadership team that includes educators and leaders of community partners who focus on many aspects of a young person’s life at Cincinnati’s schools. That vision is getting results and now aims to make every school a community learning center. That would be a collective impact worth replicating everywhere.

The Voice of an Experienced Community Educator

2011-12-05T12:15:00.000-08:00

Haywood Wadsworth, a junior at Michigan State University is an intern with the Coalition for Community Schools. His grandmother was a community educator in Flint in the 1960s and 70s. Haywood spoke with her about her experience. Here is his summary of her thoughts.

Odena Wadsworth was hired by Flint Community Schools in 1951 as an elementary school teacher. After twelve successful years of teaching, with mounting environmental and racial problems, she was transferred from instruction to pupil personnel to work with the community using the Whole Child approach. This was a major challenge considering the surrounding economic and social environment, but it gave her the chance to work with problems that hindered the academic and social growth of children. With additional training, knowledge, and skills she became a social service field worker with the Title I program. This enabled her to link resources within the neighborhoods using the school as a community hub.

The first strides of community education happened in Flint, Michigan in 1935. Its purpose was to give young people an opportunity for supervised recreation. School buildings were used for recreation after school hours through a grant from the Mott Foundation of $6,000 to fund programs in 5 Flint schools. This brought children and young people in off the street and involved them in constructive activities within the school. Recreation programs grew to include children and adults in all schools across the district, paving the way for growth and continued programs and services. These expanded programs were not only recreational but were also educational, cultural, social, and medical. In 1950 a large scale building project began with a need for extra classrooms and more space to launch a community education initiative.

Flint school district then became known as the community schools district. During this time, Flint was transforming thanks to major migration from the south and other states from people looking for employment in the auto manufacturing industry. This caused rapid population growth resulting in the development of various urban issues and disparities. Prior to the 1970’s, students were exposed to conditions and possessed attitudes that needed to be checked before reaching unsolvable proportions. Flint became overwhelmed with community, social, and economical problems.

Carpenter Road Elementary School, the community school Odena worked in, was situated in a very diverse area with a significant lack of parental involvement. To carry out the goals of the Flint Board of Education Odena focused on implementing the following core values:

1. Student preparation and total community development; organizing a parent group to open channels of communication for diverse members of the school community.

2. Work towards positive human and race relations; incorporate after school activities to expose students to different forms of diversity.

3. Utilize all available human and financial resources to ensure economic, civic, and social growth.

One strategy that Odena used to achieve these goals, she had parents of different ethnic groups take a month out of the school year to provide each with individual an opportunity to learn about, understand, and appreciate the values, customs, and history of his/her own culture. This increased staff and student morale leading to a rapid increase in parental involvement along with community engagement within the school.

The community school atmosphere continued in this building until Odena left the social service field worker position to work as a district wide social worker. Sadly to say, without leadership and active community participation, the community began to deteriorate and parental involvement decreased. According to Odena, “Educators must stay active and transition with the times in which we live. The community school strategy was very successful at this time because Flint was undergoing many social problems due to migration of diverse backgrounds to the area for the manufacturing industry. In current times, educators must learn that engaging and connecting community with the school is essential to helping students reach their maximum academic, social, health, and civic functions. Lack of leaders in the community that are willing to use the school as a community hub is the largest issue.”

Community School Leaders Press Toward the Future

2011-11-22T12:49:00.000-08:00

At the recent annual Coalition’s partners’ meeting, held at the American Federation of Teachers headquarters, community school leaders paid tribute to Joan Devlin, Senior Associate Director at AFT a pioneer in the community school movement and also focused on what lies ahead.

Joan Devlin, who will be retiring before the new year, vehemently pushed for the creation of the Coalition, always stressing that the community school strategy offers a vital support to teachers, said Coalition Steering Committee Chairman Ira Harkavy. Joan was honored with a plaque for her years of service and contribution.

Thanks to the work of the Coalition’s founding members and partners, the work of community schools continues to spread in communities such as Indianapolis.

Jim Grim, Director of School and Community Engagement with the award-winning George Washington Community High School (which partners with IUPUI’s newly-created Center for University-Assisted Community Schools), told partners that advocates in Indianapolis have been holding local forums promoting the work of community schools.

“We had some (attendees) that were a part of the choir and some that weren’t,” Jim said of a recent state-wide community school forum held in Indiana.

Federal education policy was also a hot topic at this meeting. Partners gained insight into how they can shape future community school initiatives as federal policy makes its way through Congress, through a federal policy panel.

Juliann Andreen with Senator Orin Hatch (R-UT) and Maria Worthen, education advisor for Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA), stopped by the partners’ meeting for a discussion on the status of the latest ESEA legislation.

At times, partners seemed discouraged by the lack of bipartisanship to get the bills passed and lack of specific language that incentivizes community and family involvement in schools. But the Congressional staffers urged partners to send their office more feedback on the bill. They specifically asked for ideas on how the bill could “incentivize partnerships.” This is exactly the kind of feedback we are ready to give!

Coalition staff will continue to work with both local and national partners to formulate a broad statement to send to the HELP committee – harkening back to the Coalition’s ESEA Framework, which lays out eight policy recommendations to keep in mind as Congress reauthorizes ESEA. This statement has close to 80 signatories!

Partners are also helping plan the Coalition’s 2012 National Forum in San Francisco in May.

As Coalition Director Marty Blank noted, “Our partners are our most important resource in any work we do.”

Rethinking Early Childhood Education through the Community Schools Prism

2011-11-10T09:00:00.000-08:00

Recent studies and research have shown that inequitable educational experiences and outcomes, such as chronic absenteeism and lower test-performance often have roots that begin as early as infancy. The importance of early childhood education was underscored in a new study from The Center for Public Education released in early November. The report concludes that preschool and full-day kindergarten in tandem is the best combination for reading proficiency by the third grade – a pivotal checkpoint in a child’s development.

In the report, Senior Policy Analyst Jim Hull, noted that students who were behind in reading by the third grade were four times more likely to leave high school without a diploma.

The benefits of preschool, Head Start, and kindergarten programs on a student’s success in those early grades are often considered individually.

Connecting these early childhood education program systemically to achieve these desired results is another story.

“Some kids can actually lose some of the advantages of a high quality preschool experience when they get to kindergarten because the schools aren’t ready for them and transitions into the early grades aren’t as smooth as they could be,” said Kwesi Rollins, Director of Leadership Programs at the Institute of Educational Leadership.

The Linkages Project, generously supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, focuses on correcting the disconnect between early-childhood programs and elementary schools by linking early-childhood programs with community schools.

Three sites were chosen - Multnomah County, OR, Albuquerque, NM, and Tulsa, OK – to demonstrate how community school initiatives are uniquely positioned to be effective vehicles for promoting a seamless transition from the early years to through the early grades with its proven approach of connecting students and parents to necessary resources through extensive partnerships and collaboration.

The sites shared a common framework and desired outcome but not necessarily a specific road-map. “What anybody was supposed to do was extremely amorphous,” according to Jane Quinn with the Children’s Aid Society, a partner in the Linkages project. At a recent meeting at IEL in Washington, DC, the Coalition for Community Schools convened the Linkages Advisory Board to receive After little more than two years of work, the advisory board, comprised of several national early childhood education and community schools experts, found that the work is coming together quite tidily.

The outcomes from the program so far have been profound. Educators in Multnomah County, Ore, which encompasses Portland, found that nearly one in five county students were chronically absent in kindergarten through third grades. One in three students were chronically absent in kindergarten. These data points are troubling indicators of future success. Through Linkages, they are addressing these issues.

Participants from Tulsa found that before Linkages, communication between pre-school education and kindergarten teachers was virtually non-existent as students moved on to grade school even if the early-childhood program was situated right next to its primary community school. Through the Linkages initiative, the Tulsa group implemented transition teams that broke down the silos between head start and kindergarten teachers, allowing information-sharing about individual students to pass from school to school. Tulsa’s community school transition teams will evolve to focus not just on the building-to-building transition but grade-to-grade across the system. Eventually, students’ failures and shortcomings can no longer just simply be written off as the fault of the student’s previous teacher.

Forging partnerships between schools, early-childhood education programs, and community and family agencies and organizations to promote real linkages between local and state leaders is a major facet of the project. The Albuquerque Public Schools, Bernalillo County and City of Albuquerque Community Schools Partnership (in New Mexico) has bolstered the case for the growing community school movement in Albuquerque. Serendipitously, Albuquerque’s partnership has pushed the development of the community schools solution and early-education linkages simultaneously.

Meanwhile, back in Multnomah, the Linkages team has developed a full-fledged outreach campaign throughout its network of community schools, focused on the importance of attendance in kindergarten and the early grades, especially for its diverse immigrant population. More than 200 people showed up at two conferences the group held on the issue last year. As a result of the outreach, several SUN schools have added chronic absenteeism to their data dashboard and are developing strategies to address this critical issue.

“They’re inventing solutions to some of the problems they’re running into,” Quinn said after the meeting.

Broader, Bolder Approach to Federal Education Reform

2011-11-04T08:03:00.000-07:00

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill were busy debating the latest version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act Thursday Oct. 20. Just a few blocks away in downtown Washington, education advocates were simultaneously pushing ideas for more-encompassing and comprehensive education policy reform.

Speaking on a panel discussion titled “Federal Funding for Broader Bolder Approach to Education: How ESEA and pending legislation affect (limit) comprehensive reform” sponsored by the Broader Bolder Approach to Education, panelists said that for too many years, education reform has narrowly focused on student testing as a gauge for success. That begged the question: How can education policy can affect a broader approach to reform?

The panelists included Institute for Educational Leadership President and Coalition for Community Schools Director Marty Blank, Molly McCloskey from ASCD Whole Child Initiative, founder of Forum for Youth Investment ‘Ready by 21’ initiative Merita Irby, and National Assembly for School-Based Health Care President Linda Juzsczak (all Coalition partners).

Each elaborated on why schools alone cannot turn the tide on educating children, especially for disadvantaged students. So many factors outside a traditional school system’s control, such as health, lack of community support, and fewer enrichment opportunities affect individual students’ paths to success.

The panelists and moderators pointed out several promising pieces of legislation currently on the table that could clear the path for bolder educational system, including the Supporting Community Schools Act, the Full Service Schools Act, the DIPLOMA legislation, Promise Neighborhoods legislation, and the Early-Learning Challenge Grant. Linda pointed out that there has been a significant increase in school-based health centers.

It’s an encouraging sign that more-comprehensive approaches to educating and nurturing the nation’s children are being considered – that there is a greater belief and recognition in addressing the whole child.

As Marty pointed out, more incentives for partnerships need to be anchored into education policy (read more about the Coalition’s recommendations for ESEA here).

Garnering the political momentum to get these substantive reforms will take even greater collaboration, especially on data sharing across agencies such as HUD and other social service agencies, Molly McCloskey said.

Even still, panelists said that success will not be gauged through how much better students perform on standardized tests alone but community and social gains as well.

"We in the education field do a disservice when we look at kids as 'brains on a stick'," Irby said.

Scaling Up School-Community Partnerships Webinar Series Kicks Off Wednesday

2011-10-31T13:15:00.000-07:00

This is just a reminder that first session in the Scaling Up Guide Webinar series is Wednesday Nov. 2 at 12 p.m. EDT. It’s not too late to register.

“A school, an intermediary, a community: What does a scaled up system of community schools look like?” breaks down the structure and dynamics of community school system. In this interactive webinar, participants will learn core principles for a system of community schools.

Guest presenters include Darlene Kamine, director of the Community Learning Center Institute in Cincinnati, and Leslie O’Hare Sorenson, resource development administrator for the Ontario-Montclair School District in San Bernadino, Calif.

Also, sign up for the rest of the webinar series which continues through December:

Nov. 16: Session 2 - Getting going: Deciding to scale up

Nov. 30: Session 3 - Develop an operating framework and planning for scale up

Dec. 14: Session 4 - Scale up for sustainability and implementation

Community Schools Crossing Boundaries to Help Students Succeed

2011-10-13T11:22:00.000-07:00

Guest Post by JoAnne Ferrara and Eileen Santiago

The focus on student achievement is at the heart of all community school initiatives. In our respective roles as department chair and principal, we have found the best way to address that work is by creating collaborative opportunities for our constituent base so that student learning is everyone’s business. Community schools, with their network of partner organizations, provide the perfect arena for cross boundary leadership. Given that individuals come with a varied set of skills and professional orientations, the co-location of services and sharing of resources within community schools make it easy for them to work cooperatively. Bridging the prescribed institutional roles fosters a sense of unity and strengthens our common goal of student success. When partners are deeply committed to providing supports for students, and everyone takes responsibility for positive student outcomes, a “can do“ culture is born.

This focus on student achievement is especially true in community schools that have had the foresight to partner with a local college and have formed a relationship with a professional development school (PDS). Over the past ten years, the Thomas A. Edison Community School in Port Chester, NY has maintained many partnerships with community organizations in serving students, families, and faculty. An extremely beneficial link has developed between the school and its higher education partner, Manhattanville College. Located just a short distance from the school, the college has supported the school’s work to improve student outcomes. For instance, they provide ongoing job-embedded professional development for teachers at the school site, making it easy for staff to benefit from the expertise of college faculty. They offer individual tutoring and enrichment programs for students during and after school hours as part of college’s on-site teacher education courses. The college also facilitates the placement of the student teachers who have shared their creative talents in the classrooms. These initiatives evolved as part of our mutual attempt to meet the needs of our respective students, resulting in unique opportunities for our constituents to engage in boundary-crossing leadership to address student learning.

Leadership is both shared and multi-faceted within the community school setting. It is shared with the community partners who - together with the building principal and school staff - strive to make the school’s mission of supporting the whole child a reality. It is multi-faceted in that community schools are well positioned to have leaders spring forth from unexpected places. At Edison, parents and adult caregivers have emerged as community leaders and advocates for this approach to education. By doing so, they have become part of the district leadership team that is helping to spread the community school philosophy district-wide. Teachers have moved beyond their roles within the classroom, working closely with college faculty to shape their programs, by helping to design new courses or selecting materials to enhance course content while also benefitting from the services they bring to the school site. Student teachers and teacher education candidates participate in leadership roles, during the day or after school, by designing activities that promote student learning. Our community school’s emphasis on character development and service learning has afforded elementary students the opportunity to grow and demonstrate their own leadership potential within the classroom, within the school, as part of their local community, and as part of the global community.

In our work, which has spanned more than a decade, we have found that those leadership opportunities for constituents, so necessary in addressing student outcomes, can be made possible within the fundamental structure of community schools. Without a doubt, leadership in community schools requires not only the leaders’ credentials, but also the ability to provide individuals with opportunities to develop their own leadership skills, and move institutions and systems towards a greater good.

Dr. JoAnne Ferrara is the Chairperson of Curriculum and Instruction at Manhattanville College. Eileen Santiago, served as principal at Thomas A. Edison Full -Service Community School in Port Chester, N.Y. before she retired.

True Education Reform: Community Schools And Collective Impact

2011-06-21T11:09:00.000-07:00

Guest Post by Richard Buery

Richard Buery is the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Children’s Aid Society (CAS), an independent, not-for-profit organization established to serve the children of New York City. CAS, one of the Coalition’s partners, houses the National Center for Community Schools. This center offers technical assistance to budding community schools across the nation.

A recent article in the prestigious Stanford Social Innovation Review assessed the merits of a change strategy known as "collective impact," which the authors (John Kania and Mark Kramer) describe as "the commitment of a group of important actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem." Of particular interest to Kania and Kramer is the issue of education, which they describe as having "thwarted attempted reforms for decades," often because individualized interventions -- operated in silos -- were not powerful enough to move the achievement needle. The authors recognize that fixing one point on the educational continuum won't make much of a difference unless all parts of the continuum improve at the same time.

This is a powerful message for both policymakers and practitioners. Policymakers often pit early childhood funding against programs for adolescents, rather than recognizing and investing in the obvious: that young people need supports and opportunities all along the road to productive adulthood. Similarly, practitioners often resist the urge to partner with other sectors and to share accountability for results. A notable exception to this isolationist phenomenon is a reform strategy called community schools, an approach through which community organizations partner with public schools to promote student achievement.

Community schools differ from traditional schools in several respects: they are open longer hours (often well into the evening, on weekends and holidays, and throughout the summer); they offer more services, supports, and opportunities for students and their families; and they bring together an array of partners that share accountability for results. Typically, community schools operate from a framework that can best be described as a "developmental triangle," a model that connects the school's core instructional program to enrichment opportunities during out-of-school time (before and after school and during the summer months) and to a set of services designed to remove barriers to students' learning, such as medical, dental, mental health, and social services. Community schools bring additional human and financial resources into schools and align these resources with the schools' goals for student learning and development. Across the country, the kinds of community resources that partner with their local schools include health centers, social service and youth development organizations, mental health agencies, and community development groups. Often one of these partners serves as a lead agency, ensuring that the work of the various community resources is well coordinated and fully aligned with the school's goals.

Community schools are producing powerful results. The organization I direct -- The Children's Aid Society in New York City -- has commissioned a variety of independent evaluations of community schools we operate in partnership with the New York City Department of Education. These schools have consistently shown positive results around academic achievement, student and teacher attendance, parental engagement, positive school climate, and school safety. And a recent analysis of community school evaluations nationally, conducted by the Coalition for Community Schools, documented similar results. Working in deliberate and long-term partnership with their local schools has required community resources to change their practice in fundamental ways. Many after-school providers have strengthened the academic components of their work, making sure that they are providing students with multiple opportunities to practice their academic skills during the non-school hours. In addition to providing tutoring and homework help, these organizations intentionally embed opportunities for students to use their reading, writing, and speaking skills in theatre programs; they promote critical thinking skills through chess clubs; and they sneak math and science content into sports and culinary arts programs. Mental health providers will work closely with children's teachers to make sure their clients are staying on track academically during periods of personal or family crisis; and they will make sure they are scheduling appointments in ways that do not cause students to miss core academic classes.

Community schools also pay attention to transitions -- addressing school readiness issues as children enter elementary school; preparing young adolescents for the social and academic differences they will experience in middle school; supporting ninth graders as they face the rigors of high school; and helping older adolescents plan for post-secondary success.

The Stanford authors note that successful collective impact organizations share five characteristics: common agenda; shared measurement systems; mutually reinforcing activities; continuous communication; and supportive infrastructure. Mature community school initiatives across the country, many of which have operated for 15 or more years, have learned how to operationalize these principles -- and to demonstrate the power of collective action.

Evidence shows that education reform can be achieved only by truly reforming the current education system. The current silos that exist among the agencies and organizations responsible for the healthy development and education of American youth hinder true progress and reform. America's education system ranks far behind developed countries across the world; policymakers and educators take note: through collective impact we can radically improve American education and ensure that the next generations of Americans are world class leaders.

Better Together: Community Schools Turn Heads

2011-05-19T08:33:00.000-07:00

Why this recent spate of stories about community schools? I have a couple of thoughts.

First, the country is facing enormously difficult economic challenges, and these challenges mean that the everyday realities of many families and many children have changed. It's like the Depression for too many. We know from research and experience, the long-term, life-changing impact that the Depression had on people's lives. Every day, all over the country, kids are hungry; families are in stress because of foreclosures and lack of rental assistance, among other things. All of these problems are immediate. Daily, schools are the place where all of these issues show up – affecting their efforts to educate kids. So the question becomes: how does the community come together to solve the long-term repercussions of recession? Community schools become the answer for many.

Community schools also are attracting more attention because our teachers are speaking up. They are responding to the critique of reformers, who say that education is only about what happens in the classroom, overlooking indeed- perhaps ignoring- the reality of young people's lives. As more teachers speak up, communities are beginning to listen to the challenges that exist. Other folks also are pushing back against the rhetoric that suggests that if only we could put a qualified teacher in every classroom all children would succeed. As more people speak up, the logic of the community school strategy makes more and more sense. People are recognizing that the school is the place around which the community can unite to make things happen for our children.

Finally, I think people like to hear stories about how schools and cities, United Ways, YMCAs, health centers, neighbors, and families are working together. We have become so individually oriented in our society that, in my judgment, we have lost our sense of common purpose. Community schools represent a return to that sense of working together for the common good, a return to the problem solving character of our democracy where people and organizations bust out of their silos and find ways to work collectively.

We are better together - and that's what community schools are about!

--Marty Blank, President, Institute for Educational Leadership and Director, Coalition for Community Schools

Two From Ed Week

2011-03-09T12:01:00.000-08:00

Two important commentaries from Education Week.

1) Hugh Price, former president of the National Urban League, writes that communities are the missing link in school reform.

2) David Kirp, Professor at the University of California - Berkley, and author of Kids First: Five Big Ideas for Transforming Children's Lives and America's Future, argues that all policies and budget decisions should be made against the Golden Rule: "Every child deserves what’s good enough for a child you love." He writes,

"The Golden Rule standard isn’t about charity or acts of noblesse oblige. All children, not only those who grow up without money, deserve the kind of support that gives them their best chance to learn and grow. They would benefit from the chance to acquire the skills and resiliency necessary to meet the challenges that life invariably throws at them. What’s needed isn’t a one-size-fits-all program, but support that can meet children’s particular needs—support that’s family-centered, effective, and unwavering."

Kirp recommends community schools and others place-based strategies as one of his Big Ideas in his latest book.

Duncan Highlights Community Schools in Recommendations to Governors on how to Spend on Education in the “New Normal”

2011-03-08T06:28:00.000-08:00

by Reuben Jacobson, Senior Associate for Research and Strategy, Coalition for Community Schools

On March 3rd Secretary Duncan sent governors a letter addressing how to effectively use education funds during these tough fiscal times, or what he refers to as “The New Normal.” With the letter, he included three documents on “some options on the effective, efficient, and responsible use of resources in tough budget times.” These include: Flexibility in Using Federal Funds to Meet Local Needs, Smart Ideas to Increase Educational Productivity and Student Achievement, and Advancing Student Achievement Through Labor-Management Collaboration.

In Smart Ideas, the Secretary highlights the community schools strategy as a way to leverage alternative sources of funding, local partnerships, and resources. The guidance recommends that SEAs and LEAs:

Leverage alternative sources of funding. States and school districts can seek funds from philanthropic sources wherever possible to support education programs and initiatives, but in addition to those funds, districts can look to other city or county funds and services to help meet the needs of the whole child. Many community schools have been successful in tapping these alternative resources to provide students with health and other supports. The integration of high-quality social services and family and community supports into schools can increase achievement and student outcomes while better leveraging the resources that are already being spent on such services.

Leverage local partnerships and resources. State and local health and human services agencies, departments of public safety and parks and recreation, community-based organizations, businesses, and other entities have a significant stake in the success of our children and youth. Many have long provided academic and enrichment opportunities in the form of before- and after-school programming, apprenticeships, nursing, or counseling support. Breaking down barriers and better aligning and utilizing community resources may also help school systems identify and access low-cost services or facilities. Pulling in external services and resources to support learning can effectively maximize opportunities for students.

He also recommends working collaboratively with stakeholders in making decisions about budgets. Shared ownership and collaborative leadership are core characteristics of the community schools strategy. He states,

…engaging in productive dialogue with teachers, principals, unions, and other stakeholders will ensure that input from all involved stakeholders informs relevant decisions and increases the likelihood of successful and sustained implementation….Thoughtful engagement is a recognized best practice and, by working collaboratively, collective interests can overcome differences.

The Secretary’s suggestions parallel the Coalition’s findings in a recent report, Financing Community Schools: Leveraging Resources to Support Student Success, which demonstrates how communities are using resources in smart and effective ways. Communities highlighted in the report and around the country represent an effective use of the community school strategy for leveraging financial, political, organizational, and other resources to improve results for children, families, and communities…a smart idea in “The New Normal.”

The President's Budget and Our Work

2011-03-01T08:26:00.000-08:00

Community schools aren’t a program they are the way we do business.
~Dr. Vince Bertram, Superintendent of Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation

The President’s 2012 budget is on the floor and being debated in Congress. During these uncertain financial times State houses and school districts across America are looking for efficient ways to spend their dollars, while still producing positive outcomes for their students, families, and communities. Recently, three community school initiative leaders (from Evansville, IN; Multnomah County, OR; and Cincinnati, OH) visited Washington, DC to brief Congressand the U.S. Department of Education to share how they do business. They shared how they are using the community school strategy as a vehicle to address their fiscal realities and the results they were producing.

The overriding policy recommendation that was consistent across all three districts was the need federal funding streams to be more flexible. This would enable them to effectively implement the community school strategy.

Stay tuned for more on these briefings in our March 2011 Newsletter! We will share, videos, photographs, and along with a synthesis of the briefings.

Learn more about how they are braiding federal, state, and local funding to implement the community school strategy, in the Coalition’s new publication: Financing Community Schools: Leveraging Resources to Support Student Success.

~ Shital C. Shah, Manager of Policy & Partnerships, Coalition for Community Schools

It Takes a Community: The Secret to Fixing Our Nation's Schools

2011-03-01T08:09:00.000-08:00

Click here to follow Martin J. Blank's Huffington Post blog

With education topping his agenda, President Obama sent a powerful message during last month's State of the Union address: No school is an island. "Education," Obama said, "begins not in our classrooms, but in our homes and communities."

"We know what's possible for our children," he continued, "when reform isn't just a top-down mandate, but the work of local teachers and principals, school boards and communities."

As someone who's fought for community-based schools for more than two decades, I couldn't agree more.

The President's words were a great start, but there is more to the message. Had he devoted more of his speech to education, here's what the President might have said:

Yes, a rigorous education coupled with family and community supports are key to educating all of our children. No one can dispute the power of great teachers and an engaging curriculum, accompanied by afterschool enrichment, wraparound health and social services, real family involvement and the chance for students to contribute to their communities. We can and we must work to educate the whole child -- and impact the whole family -- particularly those from underserved communities.

I know that our schools cannot do this alone. Families and community organizations must step up. My administration has been learning what success looks like from school and community leaders.

They are organizing community schools that serve as neighborhood hubs, open year-round with longer hours and linked with local organizations to provide a range of opportunities, from tutoring, enrichment, mentoring and health services for children to evening classes for parents and neighborhood residents. These kinds of schools are driving student achievement and neighborhood revitalization; promoting family involvement in school; and strengthening community bonds.

Given our nation's fiscal challenges, we have no choice but to organize public, private, and community resources more effectively and collaboratively. A recent report from the Coalition for Community Schools shows that for every $1 that the school system invests in a community school, the community invests an additional $3. That's real leverage. According to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, the return was even greater during his tenure organizing 150 community schools in Chicago.

And the research is clear: students in community schools learn better, attend school more, and are healthier.

The Lane Middle School in Portland, Ore. shows what's possible. Lane is one of 60 Schools Uniting Neighborhoods (SUN) community schools organized through a partnership of Multnomah County, the city of Portland and six school districts.

Lane works with higher education institutions, public agencies and community-based organizations to provide homework assistance, tutoring, sports and arts activities, and youth empowerment and leadership groups. The school links students and families to individualized social services and connects with them through a family engagement coordinator. A school-based health center, operated by Multnomah County, cares for students and their families. A dedicated staffer mobilizes these resources and integrates them into the school, allowing educators to focus on academics.

Principal Karl Logan reports that Lane is the first school in Oregon to move beyond federal benchmarks and has since received a state award for closing the achievement gap. Logan considers the SUN community school as a pillar of Lane's success.

We know the formula works elsewhere, in places like Chicago, Cincinnati, Evansville, Hartford, Kansas City, Montgomery County (MD), Tulsa, and rural communities as well.
To replicate and build on these successes, I want to send a clear message that we all share responsibility for our children's future, and ask Congress to offer incentives, such as grants and policy reforms that move schools and community partners toward collaborations that focus on results.

Let's modify top-down educational mandates such as No Child Left Behind to unleash the power of communities to adapt school models to neighborhood needs. State and local government, schools, and private supporters must allocate funds to schools for staffers to coordinate these critical partnerships and encourage community participation.

Washington will provide invaluable leadership. But the beauty of the community schools model, and the key to its sustainability, is that it originates from the grassroots.

Just as community schools nurture partnerships among educators, advocates, and citizens, I pledge a new level of partnership between Washington and communities nationwide to build on the promise of this approach: healthy kids, healthy families, and healthy communities. The only way we'll get there is by working together.

Sputnik and Community Schools

2011-01-31T09:03:00.000-08:00

“This is our generation’s Sputnik moment” said President Obama in his State of the Union address. Speaking about education, he then said, “So the question is whether all of us –- as citizens, and as parents –- are willing to do what’s necessary to give every child a chance to succeed.”

The responsibility for children succeeding, he continued, “begins not in our classrooms, but in our homes and communities.”

Hearing his charge, I couldn’t help but wonder just what this call for responsibility meant, for our work to bring school and communities together.

So what is the connection between Sputnik and community schools? More than you might imagine.

When I think about the impact of Sputnik and what it meant for our Nation, I remember the rockets and astronauts that made the long journey into space. Yes, these were individual people and isolated rockets, but they were supported by coordinated support systems, including flight controllers, equipment specialists, and numerous scientists and technicians. Each had a pivotal role in collectively ensuring a safe passage for the astronauts. More importantly our society mobilize its assets toward a shared goal…putting a man on the moon
Fast forward to today.

I think about how those working on community schools are trying to building a space station here on earth by creating places where multiple systems – education, social services, health, community development – can safely dock, thrive and develop. We work on creating connections and relationships between homes, schools and communities. Just as space stations cannot succeed without crucial connections and support - neither can schools. Docking in space can be difficult. Connecting on Earth is not always easy, but it’s essential.

Young people need nurturing at home, support from their communities and learning and development opportunities, enrichment and social supports in school.

When we are at our best – in our Sputnik moments – we harness all the assets, energy, imagination, potential and possibilities in our society to help our young people succeed, with schools at the center of it all.

The challenge confronting our society is figuring out ways to reconnect -- to dock -- the people, organizations and institutions that are committed to the success of our children. We must change the way we think about the relationship between home, school and community.
This is the work the community schools have been doing for two decades and more. Much of what we know and have learned is outlined in our recent finance paper.

Let’s build a new kind of vehicle – one right here in America that brings us together and wins the future. Ours is an American vision … retooled for the 21st century when collaboration is vital to our success. We know how. We are ready.

Marty Blank

Thanks to Brent Schondelmeyer my good friend at the Local Investment Commission in Kansas City for inspiring this blog.

Waiting...Waiting...

2010-11-10T10:46:00.000-08:00

So are we all really waiting for Superman to ‘save’ America’s young people and reform our school? As far as I can tell he was a wonderful comic book character and fun to watch on TV…but not real. So I'm not waiting for Superman nor are the many people I know across the country who are part of efforts to reconnect schooling and community and return our schools to their rightful place as centers of community where we all pitch in and work together to help young people succeed; where we nurture our young people not only as workers, but equally important as future family members and citizens of our democracy.

The focus on charter schools and busting teacher unions set forth in the film Waiting for Superman is but one more example of a shortsighted, silver bullet approach to change that permeates too much of education reform today. Of course we need highly qualified teachers and some provisions of teacher contracts should change. Our friends at the AFT and NEA have been negotiating such contracts placing high priority on the full participation of teachers in decisions about teacher evaluation and incentive pay. But we must remember another fact that President Obama mentions often: teachers are the most important in-school factor (with principal leadership not far behind); but family engagement and family circumstances are the most important out-of-school factors and that family and community simply cannot be overlooked in education reform discussions.

We cannot forget that schools – whether regular, magnet, alternative, charter or otherwise -- are creatures of their local communities. That is what makes them uniquely American. They are supported by local tax payers, and nurtured by the work of individual citizens working collectively. At their best our schools, our community schools, bring together all of us to help our young people learn and succeed and build stronger families and community.

There can be no question that our young people need the very best teachers in our classrooms, and charter schools have emerged as a viable part of the mix. However, to suggest that all we need is charters and better teachers simplifies the reality in the lives of young people; the reality that many of our educators and our students face every day. And the truth is that many charter school operators know this reality too…that’s why three of the 11 new grantees under the federal Full Service Community Schools Program are charter organizations, including the widely known Green Dot organization.

For advocates of community schools the challenge of educating all of our children is simply more complex than what Waiting for Superman suggests. It is indeed about how we bring all of our assets and resource together – our educators, our community organizations, local government, higher education, community-based organizations and individual citizens – in a joint effort to improve the life chances and opportunities of our young people

General Colin Powell said it best on NBC’s series of EducationNation programs. Powell said “We are Superman,” reflecting the vision of the America's Promise Alliance. Powell made clear that he shares the belief of the Coalition for Community Schools that it takes all of us to help our young people.

As the conversation about Waiting for Superman continues we urge advocates for community schools to be there, to speak out and to make clear what it really takes to educate all of our children.

-Marty Blank

Lessons from the Chilean Miners

2010-11-08T12:24:00.000-08:00

Just a few short weeks ago the whole world watched as Chile rescued 33 men from deep underground. It was a stunning moment reflecting that nation’s capacity and will, the strength and soul of the miners and their families and the ability of leaders in government and business to work together. As I watched and shared the joy of the rescue I could not help thinking about and old adage from the work that I have been doing form the last 15 years: top-down and bottom-up.

Top-down and bottom-up in the world of community schools and social policy suggests that the students, families and neighborhood residents who are striving to see succeed must be active agents of change in their own lives, in their schools and in their communities. Policymakers cannot do their work in isolation from these constituents. The task for policymakers is to create the conditions that will enable local people who are struggling to succeed. Policymakers must not only finance vital supports and opportunities, they must also set in place policies that provide incentives for organizations and agencies to collaborate to attain common goals. In formulating these policies they must listen carefully and continuously to the voices of students, families and community residents, and be accountable to them. And they must model this kind of cross-boundary collaboration themselves.

In Chile all the efforts of the government and the many other nations and corporations and individuals who built and used the machinery to drill the holes and who so brilliantly used new technologies to save the miners ...all of that capacity would not have meant much in the absence of the will of the miners, their leadership and organization, and the love, commitment and advocacy of their families. Had the miners at the bottom not had worked together, and not harness the support of their families; had Chile’s leaders not worked collaboratively with the miners and with other resources, the story might have been very different. Everyone needed to be on board. They were…and the results show what can be accomplished when everyone works together.

So as we work in communities across America whether it is for Community Schools, for Promise Neighborhoods, or for other community and school change strategies, let’s remember that the so-called tops and bottoms must work together, that people will support what they help to create; that policy and practice must support and empower. This is not an easy task at a time of scarce resources when people want quick fixes and quick results. But it is absolutely essential to our goals of helping all young people be ready for college, career and citizenship.

-Marty Blank

Not excuses, reality

2010-09-27T13:25:00.000-07:00

Valerie Strauss has important points to make about the absence of poverty from the school reform narrative that has been dominant in the media and school reform policies lately. She notes that today President Obama and Matt Lauer jumped over the issue of poverty in favor of a school reform narrative that rests on charters, teacher quality, and accountability. Let's hope that the education reform debate can expand to include all the factors that impact outcomes for students.

Marty Blank live at Center for American Progress

2010-09-22T06:55:00.001-07:00

Coalition for Community Schools Director Marty Blank and Adeline Ray from Chicago's Community Schools Initiative will be speaking today at the Center for American Progress on "Innovative Strategies for Community Schools." You can watch live (12:30 EST) here. The CAP website will also feature two new reports on community schools.

Our Community, Our Kids, Our Future

2010-09-10T08:32:00.000-07:00

We wanted to share this great blog post from the Soapbox Cincinnati written by P.G. Sittenfeld, Director of Community Engagement for The Community Learning Center Institute.

Cincinnati Public Schools is creating campuses that strengthen the link between schools and communities. These schools, known as Community Learning Centers (CLC), act as hubs for community services, providing access for students and families to health, safety and social services, as well as recreational, educational and cultural opportunities. CPS is garnering national recognition for its work to create these Community Learning Centers district-wide, not just in isolated neighborhoods. The goal of Community Learning Centers is to support student achievement, revitalize neighborhoods and maximize the community's return on their financial investment.

Click this link to read the blog posting:
http://www.soapboxmedia.com/blogs/posts/0907pgsittenfeldblog1.aspx

Click this link to go to the CPS Community Learning Centers website to find out more about this initiative: http://www.cps-k12.org/community/CLC/CLC.htm

Americans want Comprehensive Support for Struggling Schools

2010-09-02T09:53:00.000-07:00

Last week Phi Delta Kappan and Gallup released their Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools. Media headlines led with a story that the public rejects President Obama’s education reform agenda. And in fact, the majority rejected the turnaround strategies offered to persistently failing schools. When asked how to improve a consistently poorly-performing school, only 17% said the school should be closed and reopened with a new principal, 13% said the school should be closed and reopened as a charter school, and 11% said the school should be closed and the students moved to a high-performing school.

The majority of the public (54%) believes that the best solution for improving a poor-performing school is to keep the school open with the existing staff and to “provide comprehensive outside support.” That’s more than three times the number of respondents for any of the school closure options.

While the poll didn’t define “comprehensive outside support” for participants (we have our own ideas of course: partnerships with community organizations, social services for students and families that support the conditions for learning, etc.), it is clear that Americans believe that with more comprehensive support, schools can improve. That belief runs counter to existing policies where poorly performing schools are required to fire teachers and principals and may even turn over control of the school to a charter management organization. We certainly believe that when a school is persistently failing dramatic changes must be made. But like most Americans, we also wonder whether we shouldn’t try to provide more support first.

Reuben Jacobson

What must we do to Close the Achievement Gap?

2010-09-01T13:58:00.000-07:00

In August two stories came out demonstrating that despite their positive press and achievement gains for minority students the past few years, the New York City (NYT) and DC (WPost) school districts have regressed in their efforts to close the achievement gap. We applaud the school districts for their relentless emphasis on instruction and their mission to reduce the achievement gap, and wish that their strategies had worked. However, we think that the strategies are too narrow and will only take a district so far when poor children, those at the bottom of the achievement gap, face numerous barriers to learning. New York and DC are beginning to see the limits of their reforms.

Urban school districts must acknowledge that closing the achievement gap demands that we pay attention to both in-school (e.g., quality of teachers and curriculum) and out-of-school (e.g., social, health, and economic conditions) factors. A school reform strategy that rests solely on academics, without addressing the myriad needs of our school children and their families, will not succeed at scale. Rather, school districts must work with community partners, CBOs, faith-based institutions, higher education, health and mental health agencies, and neighborhood groups to develop comprehensive solutions for the complex challenges of educating all students.

Washington Post reporter Bill Turque closes his article on DCPS with a response from University of California at Berkeley professor Bruce Fuller. He writes that Fuller

Said that although good schools and good teachers can make a difference in the lives of poor children, the persistence of the achievement gaps may also suggest that there is a limit to their reach.

[Quoting Fuller:] "Part of this hitting the wall [on closing the achievement gap] may be the troubling fact that we may need to somehow attack family poverty before we see greater progress in closing achievement," Fuller said.

We urge policy makers at all levels to recognize that the problems facing our urban children are complex. While improving achievement outcomes starts in the classroom with strong instruction, these complex problems require a comprehensive solution if we want our youth to graduate high school ready for college, career, and citizenship. Community schools offer a comprehensive strategy that impacts both achievement and poverty. We can and we must do both.

Reuben Jacobson

Deciphering the Administration's Priorities

2010-08-26T12:02:00.000-07:00

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post recently wrote an article claiming that, in short, President Obama’s education policies are a continuation and expansion of President Bush’s policies that emphasized testing. John Podesta, President of the Center for American Progress responded in the Post that the President is using a variety of policies that challenge the “status quo.”

We think that John Podesta got it right: President Obama has a robust education reform agenda that is broader than testing.

However, we also think Dana Milbank is right: the President has used the bully pulpit to emphasize a limited set of reform strategies, especially more testing.

So where’s the disconnect? We think it’s in the messaging. The Administration has offered a limited set of priorities in public appearances and the media. At the same time, they have been quite willing to very publicly challenge teacher unions, civil rights groups, and anyone else they claim is protecting the so-called “status quo.”

Yet, less known is that they have a broader strategy that supports comprehensive approaches to school reform. The Administration supports and has sought funding for comprehensive strategies such as community schools and Promise Neighborhoods. They are also working to create stronger collaborations across federal agencies (e.g., HHS, Department of Agriculture, HUD) to ensure that our youth and families have the supports and opportunities they need to be successful.

Further, they have allocated a great deal of money to support local innovations through i3, RTT, and SIG. Districts, states, CBOs, and higher education institutions will have resources to develop innovative strategies that meet local needs of students, families, and communities. In Evansville, IN, one school is using its SIG grant to engage the community, to provide more time for student learning, and to provide social services for families and students. In Massachusetts, their winning Race to the Top application includes funding for “Integrated community support for students’ social, emotional, and health needs.” Secretary Duncan said, “Grant programs unleash creativity and innovation.” The Administration is counting on and funding local innovations that go beyond testing to improve outcomes for students.

We hope that the President and Secretary will highlight these innovative strategies to fully shed light on the reforms they truly want – reforms that go beyond an over-reliance on testing. Unless they do so, the strategies that they’ve chosen to highlight thus far will continue to send the message to Milbank and many others, including key supporters of the President who expected change in education policy, that the Administration is stuck in producing more of the same. The Administration must use their bully pulpit to vocalize a broad results-based framework that includes achievement, but also other outcomes we care about for our children including health and employment. We need a comprehensive set of strategies to solve our most complex problems. The President and Secretary, believers in a comprehensive approach, need to do a better job communicating that to an education reform community looking for direction.

Reuben Jacobson
Shital C. Shah

Community Schools Support Immigrant Students, Strengthen Democracy

2010-08-18T07:27:00.000-07:00

Guest Post by Carlos Azcoitia

Carlos M. Azcoitia is a member of the Steering Committee of the Coalition for Community Schools. He is an assistant professor of educational leadership at National- Louis University in Chicago, and the founding principal of John Spry/Community Links High School in Chicago.

Immigration and community-focused schools reflect and strengthen the core values of democracy in America. Both are just and wise investments.

Our country was founded on the principles of freedom and economic and educational opportunities. All immigrant groups have contributed to these ideals. Yet, history sadly repeats itself as new immigrants face resistance. The draconian measures advanced in Arizona and legislative initiatives in other states are the antithesis of what our country is all about.

Due to economic pressures, immigration remains in the public eye. Dominant populations have always demonstrated a high level of anxiety while immigrants are arriving, yet everyone recognized their important contributions to America. Immigrant-bashing continues to prevail nowadays, regardless of the myriad contributions to our system of free enterprise by documented and undocumented residents. In the past, immigrant groups from Europe, Ireland and the Mediterranean were suspect on issues of public safety, religious and economic grounds.

However, as immigrant groups acculturate to the American way of life, the pessimism subsides—until new issues emerge and immigrants become scapegoats for a variety of social and economic ills. Latino, Asian, European and Caribbean immigration in its great majority is grounded on the value of hard work, family and faith commitments and the adaptation to America by learning English and most of all paying taxes.

The story of our community school exemplifies the attributes of all immigrant groups who aspire to the American dream in search of educational and economic opportunities.

It is estimated that immigrant youth will make up a third of young Americans in 2040. We need to focus on their educational and economic success for the well-being of our country. Therefore, the Dream Act, as it has been proposed in Congress, needs to be addressed. Although unsuccessful in the past, it will provide equitable educational opportunities for successful students who have served their country well.

Community schools are a successful approach for addressing the needs of immigrant families. The driving force is a simple premise: Education does not occur in isolation from the rest of a student’s life. Other factors – family, community, non-profit organizations, businesses, and university partners – play an extremely important role in a child’s successful education.

Schools cannot escape their interdependence with outside factors that influence whether students learn. Community schools seize opportunities to connect students and families to resources and support. By expanding their boundaries, community schools will become stronger and will engage parents and the community. They have the power to become the focus of the community, connected to daily lives and experiences, and thus can share the educational responsibility with other responsible partners.

Our pre-k through secondary community school in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood, which serves immigrant families with documented and undocumented children, has flourished. Spry Community School has excellent attendance, above-average achievement growth and is aiming for a 100 percent graduation rate and enrollment in post-secondary education. Spry is a school that is open six days a week, with a year-round schedule and longer school day, and where families learn together to improve the quality of life in their communities, city, and country. At Spry, immigrant students excel academically, socially and emotionally.

Our students are advocates for issues they regard as vital, and become involved in planning what they will be doing. Whenever they are involved with applying ideals such as fairness, equity and justice to their world, their engagement is more powerful. Therefore, service learning opportunities enrich the curriculum and provide leadership development as students address community needs. All high school students serve as tutors in the primary grades. They participate in workshops to enhance their skills as reading buddies and increase their knowledge of the teaching of reading. This experience also conveys the message that they are role models in their own community. Internships in agencies surrounding the school expand their experience as they serve other members of the community. Their involvement in other community activities has included advocacy for a neighborhood public library and for a playlot for preschool children, and participation in peace marches in the community. Students also realize that their engagement makes a difference, and they are connected to others through mutual work on common goals.

Our community school provides a variety of extended learning opportunities for immigrant families. Family and community engagement are fostered through high school equivalency classes, English as a Second Language instruction and literacy groups. A partnership with a health agency allows the school to offer health fairs, conferences and services to families. This collaboration culminated with the opening of a school-based clinic with Alivio Medical Center. Parents working as literacy leaders teach other parents and community residents. Home gatherings emphasize financial education, neighborhood improvement, immigration rights and community safety.

So once again, we need to revisit history with role models like Jane Addams, whose incessant quest to support families at Hull House in Chicago set the pathway for our responsibility to serve immigrant families. Another model is John Dewey, who envisioned and implemented programs so schools could become social centers to develop well-rounded citizens. A third model is Leonard Covello, an Italian immigrant and principal of Benjamin Franklin High School (a community school in East Harlem, New York City), whose primary responsibility was to assist students and their immigrant families to adapt to American society.

These champions of our democracy invigorated and energized our community values by including immigrant families in their quest for self-help and self-determination in order to contribute to the well-being of others.

Every immigrant journey has represented the hopes of our democracy, where prosperity, freedom and educational opportunities are advanced. Immigrants have arrived, both documented and undocumented, and willing to serve our economy in difficult jobs. Our country needs the political courage to face the reality of documented and undocumented immigrant youth and families, so they can regularize their status and continue their journey of self- improvement and broaden their contributions to our country.

The Black-White Achievement Gap: How Community Schools can Help

2010-08-16T13:24:00.000-07:00

By Samantha Smyth, Summer Intern 2010

A recent report, “The Black-White Achievement Gap: When Progress Stopped”, from The Educational Testing Service, by Paul E. Barton and Richard J. Coley, explores the persistence of the Black-White achievement gap for students in the United States. The report highlights contributing factors to the fluctuations in the gap and attempts to find reasoning behind the narrowing of it between the 1970’s and the 1980’s. One of the strongest themes presented in the report is the decline of stable communities in which many poor Black families live. The researchers note the importance of “identifying approaches to uplift whole neighborhoods in terms of their economic and social capital, their school quality, and their recreational and health infrastructures.” (p. 37). The community school strategy provides the structure to facilitate these changes in the community.

Through our work at the Coalition, we have found that community schools seek to reinvigorate the communities (through family and community engagement) to help create a level playing field for all students and families. They do so through partnerships between local businesses and nonprofits, such as the Boys and Girls Club, YMCAs, United Ways, etc. The schools do not undermine the role of teachers and faculty at schools, but rather hope to provide a level of transparency, and accountability of the community, for the achievement of its students. The ETS report shows “community links … offer an account for some of the observed differences in rates of improvement and virtually all of the differences in stagnation rates” (p. 20).

The report goes on to argue that the ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ proverb is a key factor in closing the achievement gap. We agree. Communities and neighborhoods have lost the notion of a village in the United States - despite research that shows that without strong communities as support, children will not succeed academically or socially in schools. The Coalition and its partners know that for strong schools we need strong communities and vice versa. The report points out how true this is by showing that in the poorest neighborhoods there has been “an increasing concentration of poverty” (p. 19) leading to deteriorating conditions.

The report points out that impoverished neighborhoods lack social capital. This is a problem because “shortages of social capital in neighborhoods make efforts to improve the performance of schools difficult … even when there are serious efforts to improve schools and raise student achievement” (p. 33). Community schools serve as a vehicle for helping communities organize existing, and create more, social capital. For example, some community schools offer “safe passages” to school, in response to high levels of violence and gang activity where parents and students don’t feel safe walking to school.

Research provided in the report shows that early childhood education is a foundation that many children in poverty lack. The research “strengthens the proposition that much of the achievement gap opens before children enter the first grade” (p. 18). Community schools in Portland, OR; Tulsa, OK; and Albuquerque, NM are linking early childhood programs to the early grades, providing preschool and support for families in poverty with young children. Partnerships with the community provide such resources and opportunities.

Reducing the Black-White achievement gap is a formidable task, but community schools can help provide an integrated approach to ensuring all students receive quality education and access to social capital. Successful initiatives can be found in cities, such as Chicago and New York City, with large, concentrated communities of lower class families. Click here for research on community schools.

What do you think? We'd love to hear your thoughts!

Searching for Common Ground

2010-08-02T13:46:00.000-07:00

Education is a civil right. However, over the past week different groups have offered varying perspectives on how to secure this right. Responding to their perceptions that aspects of the President’s education agenda were moving in the wrong direction, several civil rights organizations released a counter proposal suggesting that the President abandon some of his policies (e.g., Race to the Top). The Obama Administration met with civil rights leaders about their concerns and both Secretary Duncan and President Obama publicly pushed back on the framework at the National Urban League’s conference. As the debates over manifestos and policy agendas continue, the Coalition feels it’s important to share with you the areas where we see common ground.

The civil rights framework cites community schools as strategy to provide opportunities to learn to ALL students. They state, "The best approach to school turnaround is to reinvent low-performing schools as community schools, offering high-quality programs, strong instruction, and wraparound services." (Click here for more.) We agree. Community schools across the nation (e.g., Cincinnati, Tulsa, Kansas City, New York City, Portland (OR), and South King County, WA) are producing positive results for our youth.

While the Administration isn’t always as explicit about their support for community-based strategies, we see areas of agreement between the Obama Administration’s education reform strategy with the aforementioned groups. The President recognizes the important pieces we need in place to ensure that our youth succeed: schools, parents, communities, and social supports. He said,

“It’s [education] about investing in that school’s future, and recruiting the whole community to help turn it around, and identifying viable options for how to move forward.”

Clearly the President understands that complex problems require comprehensive strategies like community schools. However, a challenge still remains. Despite the Administration’s calls for more parent and community engagement, along with high standards, accountability, and quality teachers, education reform continues to be dominated by a false “either/or” debate. We believe that without question, our schools need qualified teachers and strong principals. But, just as surely, our young people and their families need more connections, more support, more opportunities, and more learning time to be successful.

In contrast, the community schools strategy is a “both/and” proposition. As we’ve said before in The Community Agenda for America’s Public Schools, the Coalition and its partners will continue to advocate for this broader vision – and we urge you to do the same. Through this vision we will continue to create the conditions for learning to ensure that all students graduate high school ready for college, career, and citizenship.

As your community members, networks, and policy makers debate what happened this week, we encourage you to emphasize that we don’t have to choose either high standards OR support for students and their families. We can and we must do both. And the President agrees. He said to the National Urban League,

“…to paraphrase Dr. King, education isn’t an either/or proposition. It’s [education] a both/and proposition. It will take both more focus from our parents, and better schooling. It will take both more money, and more reform. It will take both a collective commitment, and a personal commitment. “

The time is now and we must seek common ground. It is clear, that neither schools nor social supports alone can achieve the results we want. Together, parents, community leaders, community based organizations, educators, and students, must engage in the work of improving the lives of our nation’s youth.

Debate on Community/Parent Involvement...

2010-07-30T13:22:00.000-07:00

Response to Ed Sector Post in Re: to the National Journal debate on community/parent involvement

Community schools are the strategy for shared governance and accountability between schools and community partners. Rob Manwaring says that a “framework for shared governance and accountability when there are community partnerships” is missing from the debate about community and parent involvement. He suggests that in the Harlem Children’s Zone, Geoffrey Canada is the governance and accountability structure. But in community schools initiatives, which can be found in a numerous communities around the country, structures for shared governance and accountability drive the work of the school and its partners. In Cincinnati, where there is major community schools (community learning centers initiatives) there is a cross-sector steering committee including leadership from the school district, United Way, community foundation and other institutions; Activities and programs at each Community Learning Center (CLC)are each governed by Local School Decision Making Committees, comprised of parents, business and community leaders, and school staff. CLCs develop a result-based framework that guides partnerships and activities. In Multnomah County Oregon which includes Portland, a Coordinating Council governs the Schools Uniting Neighborhoods Initiative. Chaired by staff of the Chair of the County Commission, the Council includes state, school district and non-profit leaders.

In these and other places leaders are developing results-based accountability frameworks that cut across academic, physical, social and emotional factors for students and include indicators related to families and community well-being as well. They are using these frameworks to make both the school and community partners accountable for shared results.

We recommend that Secretary Duncan and Congress help educators, communities and parents turn around schools by providing incentives for the kinds of cross-institutional governance structures and accountability arrangements modeled by community schools initiatives. Community schools are the structure, the vehicle, for capitalizing on community and parent engagement to improve outcomes for students.

A Partner's Perspective on Brookings Report...

2010-07-28T13:11:00.000-07:00

So as to give you a variety of views on issues concerning and relating to community schools, from time to time we will include blog posts from our dedicated and broad array of partners from across the country. We are excited to share this very first one from the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care (NASBHC)! Their posting is in response to the Brookings Institute report, The Harlem Children’s Zone, Promise Neighborhoods, and the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education.

July 28, 2010

The Brookings Institute’s recent report, “The Harlem Children’s Zone, Promise Neighborhoods, and the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education,” correctly questions the best ways to impact student achievement, but is utterly wrong in its conclusion that: “There is no compelling evidence that investments in parenting classes, health services, nutritional programs, and community improvement in general have appreciable effects on student achievement in schools in the U.S.” School-based health care has an impact on student achievement, and deserves a strong federal commitment.

The National Assembly on School-Based Health Care (NASBHC) is the national voice for the nation’s nearly 2000 SBHCs and the children they serve. Founded in 1995 to promote and support the SBHC model, NASBHC’s mission is to improve the health status of children and youth by advancing and advocating for school-based health care. SBHCs provide critical health services directly to students with chronic and acute conditions, like asthma, in order to keep them in the classroom. SBHCs also offer mental health services that focus on improving the student’s emotional health to help them cope with issues such as stress and bullying, and help prevent high-risk behaviors such as drugs and alcohol.

Research increasingly shows that kids who have access to high quality, comprehensive health services in their school often have better academic success:

• A 2009 report issued by the Oregon Department of Human Services Public Health Division found that more than half (53%) of surveyed school-based health clinic (SBHC) users reported they did not miss a class while using the center services, while a majority (75%) estimated they would miss one or more classes if they had to leave their school to access health services.

• A 2010 study in the Journal of School Health by Maureen Van Cura (Vol. 80 pg. 371-377) also found that students not enrolled in an SBHC lost 3 times as much seat time as students enrolled in an SBHC, concluding that: “SBHCs have a direct impact on educational outcomes such as attendance.”

• A 2010 study in the Journal of Adolescent Health by Walter, Kerns, Lyon, Bruns & Cosgrove showed that low-income students with access to SBHCs services – including medical and mental health services – had lower discipline incidents and showed a stronger increase in their GPA than those without access to such services.

• A 2010 study in the Journal of School Health by Jessica Strolin-Goltzman (pg. 153-159) found that access to a SBHC was associated with greater satisfaction among students, parents, and teachers in the areas of academic expectations, communication, and school engagement. The author concludes her study by stating: “Perhaps by helping to eliminate the barriers that affect lower-performing students’ readiness to learn, while improving student and parent engagement, SBHCs can partner with schools to reach their performance and accountability goals.”

In fact, partnerships between SBHCs and schools are part of what make community schools such as the Harlem Children’s Zone so successful. SBHCs are an integral component of the model of community schools that incorporates many elements to help drive the success of its students. Community schools understand the importance of not just addressing the issues within the classroom, but also the issues that kids deal with outside the classroom.

SBHCs work with the schools and the communities in order to promote a more holistic approach to success that has been proven to work in various communities, including the Harlem Children’s Zone community.

NASBHC is proud to be a member of the Coalition for Community Schools, which provides youth development, community planning and development, family support, health and human services, government and philanthropy as well as national, state and local community school networks.

Linda Juszczak
Executive Director
National Assembly on School-Based Health Care

Can Communities And Parents Help Turn Around Schools?

2010-07-22T15:39:00.000-07:00

The Coalition for Community Schools applauds Secretary Duncan’s call for increased family and community engagement in the business of improving schools. The Secretary has provided the education community an opportunity to craft a cogent community engagement strategy that mobilizes the array of individuals, institutions and other stakeholders that are invested in the success of our schools and have the resources to fuel achievement. We know that strong schools require strong communities and that strong communities require strong schools. Community leaders and residents must have a voice in the decisions that affect student achievement and also must pool their resources to work towards better outcomes for youth.

In our experience the community schools approach is the most effective and efficient vehicle to incorporate the community in the work of the school. Community schools bring together schools and community partners (community-based organizations, family, health and mental health agencies, higher education institutions, and others) to support student success. They are built on five pillars: strong early childhood development experiences, comprehensive services for student and their families, after school and other extended learning opportunities, deep parent and community involvement, and an engaging, real world curriculum. Across the country, schools and communities in Kansas City, Chicago, Tulsa, Cincinnati, and other places, have chosen community schools as the vehicle for family and community engagement, ensuring that our youth graduate high school ready for college, careers, and citizenship.

The community school strategy is used across the country as the vehicle for family and community engagement. In Cincinnati, the district has engaged every neighborhood in a discussion about the future of their schools. Through deep conversations with residents, parents, and local institutions, Cincinnati’s communities helped decided what strategies schools should use, how to make the most of community assets, and how to rebuild aging school buildings. Cincinnati has continued to engage the community by making every school a community school. In Chicago, which has a long history of community control over schools, community schools partner with lead agencies in their communities to mobilize resources towards improving student outcomes. In Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania, an anchor institution, works with communities to improve the conditions for learning at schools while also strengthening communities.

The Secretary and Congress can help communities and parents turn around schools by including specific language for family and community engagement through community schools in all the Titles of a reauthorized ESEA. These principles are currently reflected in the Full-Service Community Schools Act introduced by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) as well as the recently introduced DIPLOMA Act by Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

When families, schools, and the community mobilize for results using the community schools strategy, communities are strengthened, families are engaged, and schools improve.

Coalition's Response to the Brookings Institute Report

2010-07-21T13:03:00.000-07:00

The lucid critique of the Brookings Institute report by Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children Zone nips in the bud an effort to once again create a false dichotomy between effort to improve the academic performance of students and the need to address an array of social- emotional and family and community circumstances that research tells us DO influence student performance. Surely we need high quality teachers and engaging instruction, but research also tells us that social supports are also needed for our youth to succeed in school and in life.

The evidence is clear. Students who suffer from health and economic barriers do worse in school. Charles Basch’s recent report, Healthier Students are Better Learners, connects health issues to academic achievement and Paul Barton’s Parsing the Achievement Gap: Baselines for Tracking Progress demonstrates similar results.

We can only get these results when youth are provided with the supports they need to learn. No matter how exceptional the curriculum and instruction are, the fact of the matter is that a hungry student will have trouble concentrating (how many adults can accomplish this feat?) and a student with poor vision will not be able to see the chalkboard.

As a country it is time we move beyond the “either- or” arguments if we are to truly address the realities that face our students and families. Community schools are doing this every day to ensure high academic performance. Bailey Elementary – a community school in Providence, RI – boasts an improvement in 3rd grade reading, from 27 % proficiency in 2007 to 41 % in 2009. Providence Public School District’s Superintendent, Tom Brady said, “Teachers can’t do it alone. Unless community organizations begin to address some of the myriad social issues affecting a child’s academic progress, urban schools in particular will never fulfill their promise.”

This type of socially just education reform will move our country in a direction where EVERY student graduates high school ready for college, career, and citizenship. The Coalition (www.communityschools.org) will continue to work closely with the Harlem Children’s Zone to make sure this happens. The Coalition is an alliance of over 150 partners including the Harlem Children’s Zone.

Marty Blank
President of the Institute for Educational Leadership and Director of the Coalition for Community Schools

The Obama Era Has Arrived – Themes for Change in Education

2009-01-27T07:46:00.000-08:00

It was indeed amazing to see our great democracy transition to the Obama era on January 20th, 2009. I hope that all of you around the country felt the same energy and the sense of possibility in your communities that I did standing on Pennsylvania Avenue. We all have reason to celebrate.

During the Inaugural weekend I also had the opportunity to visit briefly with the new Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. The fact that he gave me a little hug and told me that "now we have to make it happen", reaffirmed for me his commitment to community schools. In his words at his confirmation hearing ‘the more our schools become centers of community and family life, the better our children can do.” He is looking for our help to move this agenda forward. There are two themes I see as being of particular concern to the new Administration where community schools can help.

The first theme is responsibility -- parental responsibility for their children’s education and shared community responsibility for our youth. Community schools must work harder to involve parents and empower them to be deeply involved in their children’s education and to provide safe and supportive environments for their development. Community schools are lighthouses for the shared responsibility our new President seeks. The economic recovery program

The second theme is civic engagement. Schools are a natural focus for the Administration’s efforts to engage more Americans in the work of our democracy – this is another vital dimension of community schooling. We must create places where everyone is engaged in educating our children as democratic, caring, creative citizens.

As the Coalition pursues these themes and seeks greater visibility and support for our shared vision in the Obama era we will need your experience and wisdom even more. So I ask that you react to the themes I have suggested and tell us more about what we should be doing at the federal level.

We will continue to share our thinking with you and the broader education world through this blog and expect that your comments will continuously enrich our dialogue.

With great hope for the future,

Marty Blank

Director, Coalition for Community Schools