Daily
postings from the Keystone State Education Coalition now reach more than 1900
Pennsylvania education policymakers – school directors, administrators,
legislators, legislative and congressional staffers, PTO/PTA officers, parent
advocates, teacher leaders, education professors, members of the press and a
broad array of P-16 regulatory agencies, professional associations and education
advocacy organizations via emails, website, Facebook and Twitter.
The Keystone State Education Coalition is
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These daily
emails are archived at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
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Congrats to all the folks running Philly’s
Broad Street Pittsburgh Marathon
today!
PA Ed Policy Roundup Cinco de Mayo Special
Edition:
Community Schools:
real reform without vouchers, charters, tax credits or closing neighborhood
schools
Coordinating the provision of individually tailored support, remediation
and enrichment services for students in high poverty school districts; services
that their peers in well funded suburban districts take for granted. The Community Schools strategy is designed to
transform a school into the hub of the neighborhood by organizing a wide range
of programs and services around a common vision to serve students and families.
At the May
1, 2013 Education First Compact Meeting in Philadelphia Philadelphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools
(PCAPS) has included the Community Schools model in their alternative
plan for Philadelphia’s Public Schools.
What are Community Schools?
A community school is both a
place and a set of partnerships between the school and other community
resources. Its integrated focus on academics, services, supports and
opportunities leads to improved student learning, stronger families and
healthier communities. Schools become centers of the community, open to
everyone, all day, every day, evenings and weekends.
Community schools represent a
strategy, not a program. Partners and stakeholders come together to agree on a
set of results for children that they will achieve together. They develop a
coordination system to share leadership and connect children and families with
opportunities, services, and resources. They share accountability for results.
They transform schools and communities.
Last
November I posted about the City Connects program in Boston as an example of
this successful alternate approach to school reform that does not involve
charters, vouchers, tax credits or closing schools. City Connects uses the resources of more than
200 local community agencies to deliver tailored supports for 8,900 students.
Here’s a link to a similar successful program in Cincinnati
Community
Partnerships — Transforming Schools and Revitalizing Neighborhoods
CPS Community Learning Centers
Communities and schools are
strongly linked — one seldom succeeds if the other fails. Schools need families
and communities that are involved in the education of students; communities
need schools that serve as centers of neighborhood life.
Cincinnati Public Schools has
created campuses that strengthen this link between schools and communities.
These schools, known as Community Learning Centers (CLC), serve as hubs for
community services, providing a system of integrated partnerships that promote
academic excellence and offer recreational, educational, social, health, civic
and cultural opportunities for students, families and community. Over the past
ten years, this model has drawn national attention for successfully engaging
community partnerships in school buildings. CLCs offer health services,
counseling, afterschool programs, nutrition classes, parent/family engagement
programs, early childhood education, career and college access services, youth
development activities, mentoring and arts programming. The Board of Education
implemented a policy that all district school buildings be CLCs and developed
written guidelines for the establishment of partnerships.
Here are 2 good short video pieces about the Cincinnati
It's never
too early for a good start in education
American
Public Media Marketplace May 9, 2012 Video runtime 6:07
Kai Ryssdal: Money
is one of the biggest things that decide how well kids do in school --
socioeconomic status, to be clinical about it. If you want poor kids to succeed
in school, the theory goes, you've got to do something about poverty.
In Cincinnati , Ohio
From the Education Desk at
WYPR, Marketplace's Amy Scott has the first of two stories on poverty and education.
Tackling
poverty along with reading and arithmetic
American
Public Media Marketplace May 10, 2012 Video runtime 6:10
Kai Ryssdal: Education
is the great equalizer. It's historically the path out of poverty in this
country. But how do you get poor kids to do well in class if they're not getting
enough to eat at home? Or they need glasses? Or their parents can't help them
with their homework at night?
What if you took care of a lot
of the stuff that's supposed to happen outside school in school?
In the second of two stories on
education and poverty, Marketplace's Amy Scott takes us to a school in Cincinnati
Community Schools: The Mediterranean Diet and school
reform
What does the Mediterranean Diet tell us about school
reform? Martin Blank tells us in the following post. Blank is president of the
Institute for Educational Leadership and director of the Coalition
for Community Schools, an alliance of organizations in education K-16,
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. The coalition envisions a future in which
schools are centers of thriving communities where everyone belongs, works
together, and succeeds.
Please consider sharing
and discussing the Executive Summary with your elected officials and other
education policymakers.
Community Schools: A
Handbook for State Policy Leaders
Improving Student Learning/Strengthening Schools, Families
and Communities
Coalition for Community Schools
This handbook is designed to help state leaders—Governors
and their policy advisers; State legislators and their staffs; State Boards of
Education; Chief State School Officers and staff in State Education Agencies;
and directors and staff in state agencies that serve children, youth, and
families—to form vital connections between schools and communities to improve
student learning. It also will be useful to the work of policy leaders in
cities, counties, local school districts, and philanthropy.
Executive Summary (5
pages): http://www.iel.org/pubs/handbookexecsummary.pdf
Full Handbook (36 pages): http://www.communityschools.org/assets/1/AssetManager/handbook_state_policyleaders1.pdf
“Let us help you bring the power of the
community to your school.”
The Children’s Aid Society
Over the last 17 years, The Children's Aid Society's National Center Baltimore , Boston , Chicago , Cincinnati , Portland and St.
Paul
In Pennsylvania :
The Community School
A Community Building
Partnership of the United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley
A recent publication of the Coalition for Community Schools
states that, "Community Schools recognize that many factors influence the
education of our children and that we must work to mobilize the assets of the
school and the entire community to improve educational, health, social, family,
economic, and related results. Community Schools function as active agents of
change in the lives of students and families and their communities. Leaders of
community school initiatives know that success in school, strong families, and
healthy communities are intertwined."
“The time has come to
broaden the debate about accountability to include shared responsibility for
the success of our children. Community schools offer a means to eliminate the
achievement gap by educating the whole child and providing our neediest
students with the supports they need to succeed.”
Community Schools: American Federation
of Teachers
The Issue: Too many students come to school with needs that impede
their ability to thrive academically. If we really want to close the
achievement gap, we must supplement their regular coursework by addressing
factors that are beyond the control of teachers and schools yet have a direct
effect on student outcomes. Important factors such as healthcare, social
services and parental involvement are too often divorced from school life,
although they are critical to student success. These supports are even more
crucial at a time like the present, when a struggling economy puts even greater
pressures on families.
The Solution: We propose transforming some of the schools serving our
neediest students into community schools that bring together, under one roof,
the services and activities that our children and their families need. With the support of mayors and/or other
government leaders, local agencies and community groups, community schools
could provide students the services beyond instruction that they need to reach
their potential. A variety of federal, state and local funding streams could be
drawn upon for these services.
School buildings would be open all day and evening for
tutoring, homework assistance and recreational activities. Medical, dental,
recreational, counseling and child care services would be available to meet the
community's needs.
Community schools would create an inviting environment for
parents and other adults by offering parents customized supports such as
English language instruction, employment counseling, citizenship programs and
GED programs. Having these programs and social services in schools could
encourage parents to get more involved in their children's education, and help
to stabilize families so they can better support their children's learning.
Community schools are not a new concept. They have their
roots in the earliest, richest traditions of public education. The time has
come to broaden the debate about accountability to include shared
responsibility for the success of our children. Community schools offer a means
to eliminate the achievement gap by educating the whole child and providing our
neediest students with the supports they need to succeed.
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