The simultaneous release of two reports on school-community partnerships by the Center for American Progress (CAP) is a good indication that the community schools strategy continues to move to the forefront of education reform.
Achieving Results through Community School Partnerships, authored by Atelia Melaville and the Coalition’s Martin Blank and Reuben Jacobson, highlights successful strategies for building partnerships championed by school district and community leaders in community school initiatives. The other report, Lightening the Load, written by CAP’s Theodora Chang and Calyssa Lawyer, delves into four ways community schools make teaching more effective.
A near-capacity audience gathered for a roundtable panel event in conjunction with the release of the reports at CAP’s headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C. Wednesday (Jan. 18) morning for a deeper discussion on the reports. The panel included Blank, Oakland Unified School District Superintendent Tony Smith, Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools Assistant Superintendent Tony Majors, and Cincinnati Federation of Teachers President Julie Sellers.
“When adults are not in good relationships, it’s the kids who suffer,” said Oakland (CA) Unified School District Superintendent Tony Smith during the panel discussion.
Smith has garnered a lot of attention from local and national press for his ambitious plan to convert the embattled Oakland public school system into a full-service community school district. “We are all in this together as a city and a community. We need to link all our resources together around our children,” Smith said.
Teacher unions in Evansville, Ind., Syracuse, N.Y., and Cincinnati have bought-in to the community schools concept because they are convinced that the services and enrichment activities found in community school support teachers inside the classroom by optimizing conditions for teaching, make curriculum more relevant and engaging, and create conditions for learning that enable children to succeed.
“I don’t think we could give up the resource we have now (with community schools),” Sellers said.
You can find the reports and the event video here: http://www.americanprogress.org/events/2012/01/partnerships.html