Ever since the spring of 2008, when then-candidate Obama voiced his admiration for Geoffrey Canada and promised to replicate the Harlem Children’s Zone in other cities across America, I have been eagerly following the Promise Neighborhoods Initiative. It has not been an easy job. The planning stages of the project have generally taken place behind closed doors, and, well, let’s just say that the news media has had a lot on its plate lately.
One thing seems clear: nothing is happening in a hurry. The administration has requested $10 million for next year to help prospective Promise Neighborhood grantees develop proposals, but the money has not yet been guaranteed. In the meantime, the Harlem Children’s Zone has been hosting visits during which interested parties can take a closer look at how its “web” of services functions to support local kids and families.
I suppose, given the extraordinary ambition of the Promise Neighborhood Initiative, that such legwork is reasonable and even wise. Sigh.
What most excites me about the project is the shift in thinking that it represents. Over the last decade, efforts at education reform have focused almost exclusively on raising standards and strengthening systems of accountability. The party line has become that of “no excuses”: if students cannot read or compute on grade-level, schools just have to push them harder and longer to get them up to speed.
Now, however, more and more people seem to be recognizing that the issue is not quite that simple. With visionaries like Canada leading the charge, a faction has sprung up around the belief that the achievement gap will be closed only when excellent schools work in tandem with systems that address the many non-academic factors that keep students, families, and communities from thriving.
The vision that Canada schemed up represents the ultimate in collaboration: a set of schools and a seamlessly integrated network of programs and services that together form a “conveyer belt” to usher kids safely through to college. In neighborhoods as poverty-stricken as Harlem, this may well be the only way to sustainably change education outcomes, and communities, for the better.
There are other ways to go about orienting schools around the non-academic needs of students and families, however. I have encountered several of them myself, and while none are so grand or exhaustive as Canada’s model, they still can make an important difference.
First, there is the relatively simple tactic of co-locating schools and service organizations. The power of this possibility struck me the other day, when I stopped by one of the smaller branches of the San Diego Public Library. As it turned out, the library’s entrance lies about 20 feet from that of the local middle school. I sat in the foyer and watched a lively after-school scene unfold: parents wandering in to browse the latest selection of paperbacks, students typing papers at the computer stations, and a group of second-language speakers working with an English tutor in a corner.
The relationship between the school and the library has many shared benefits but requires few extra resources on the part of either institution. Brilliant! It strikes me that with a bit of planning the model could be replicated with libraries, after-school programs, and even health clinics. Of course, this is easier said than done – but compared to the billions associated with the Promise Neighborhoods Initiative, the cost of moving existing organizations onto school campuses seems trifling.
The idea of co-location already has more than a few advocates, the chief of whom is none other than Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan. During his tenure as CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, Duncan transformed 150 public schools into what have become known as “community schools” – schools that become local hubs by staying open for extended hours and allowing partner organizations to share their facilities. The project has resulted in higher achievement levels and graduation rates at the schools in question, prompting Duncan to reflect that the project was “the best money I spent.”
Schools can forge beneficial partnerships with local organizations even without moving anybody around. I saw an incredibly successful demonstration of this when I visited two of the Big Picture Learning Company’s schools recently. The schools, which I wrote about for this site and for an article in Wiretap Magazine , collaborate with a wide array of local businesses so that students can complete internships in their fields of interest. The situation benefits all parties: the students gain confidence and skills, and the businesses gain free help and an opportunity to give back to their local communities.
What interests me is that in the cases of both the San Diego Library and the Big Picture Learning schools, success hinged on a willingness to see boundaries as permeable. In the first case, somebody had the wisdom to base a decision on the fact that libraries and schools serve similar purposes despite organizational distinctions. In the second case, the schools had to forge connections with organizations that lie outside the world of education – and these organizations had to re-imagine themselves as actors in the educational domain.
In my opinion, this is the kind of thinking that might get us somewhere when it comes to education reform.
Luckily, I am not alone in my conviction. For the make-it-real-or-forget-about-it crowd, there is Geoffrey Canada and the growing number of community leaders hoping to follow his lead. And for those who believe that all kinds of local partnerships can help, there is the community schools movement, which has been slowly gaining momentum.
The best way to gun for the cause might be to publicly support the Full-Service Community Schools Act of 2009 , which would authorize Congress to release $200 million per year for five years to fund federal grants for partnerships between school districts and community-based organizations. The bill is currently slotted for consideration by the House Committee on Education and Labor, and those of us who believe in the possibility that it represents need to make some noise to our lawmakers.
As for Promise Neighborhoods, we will just have to hurry up and wait.
Sarah Fine spent four years working at a charter school in southeast Washington, D.C. Her work has appeared in Education Week, Teacher Magazine, and The Washington Post.
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