Schools & Community Development Publications
|
|
The Community Developers' Guide to Improving Schools in Revitalizing Neighborhoods (2008) Jill Khadduri, Heather Schwartz, and Jennifer Turnham This paper shows community developers how to work with school systems to improve individual schools. Researchers distilled lessons from community development practitioners working to improve elementary schools as part of neighborhood revitalization projects in 12 low-income communities across the country. The paper describes how to be an effective advocate for individual school change as an outsider to the school system, but one with a long-term interest in the neighborhood. |
|
|
Policy Roadmap for Expanding School-Centered Community Revitalization (2008) Jill Khadduri, Heather Schwartz, and Jennifer Turnham This paper is the third in a series of three commissioned by Enterprise Community Partners as part of a collaborative project on school-centered community revitalization. The purpose of the project was to develop practical guidance and policies to encourage community developers to incorporate improved schools into their neighborhood revitalization strategies. Enterprise and other like-minded community developers call this model "school-centered community revitalization." This final report presents a set of policy recommendations to test and expand the concept of school-centered community revitalization. |
|
|
Putting School and Community on the Map (2006) Leslie Fenwick This monograph summarizes the work of the Mechanicsville Community Learning Collaborative (MCLC), a five-year school-anchored community development initiative based in Atlanta, Georgia. MCLC focused on systematically transforming the lives of children who attend Dunbar Elementary School. This pilot initiative employed a comprehensive community development strategy based on Dunbar being a point of leverage for community change in Mechanicsville and vice versa. This report explores the work that can be done, and the results that can be achieved, at the intersections of community building, school reform, and neighborhood revitalization. |
|
|
Reconnecting Schools and Neighborhoods (2007) Jill Khadduri, Heather Schwartz, Jennifer Turnham of Abt Associates, Inc. This paper provides an introduction to school-centered community revitalization. Part 1 presents the case for integrating school improvement into community development, drawing on the academic research linking school and neighborhood quality as well as early results from school-centered community revitalization projects across the country. Part 2 presents the core components of school-centered community revitalization, including both school-based activities and neighborhood-based activities. The final part of the paper illustrates the diverse approaches currently being taken to improve schools and neighborhoods, drawing on the experiences of eight school-centered community revitalization initiatives in five cities. |
|
|
Schools, Community and Development: Erasing the Boundaries (2005) Tony Proscio This report describes the remarkable results of efforts in four neighborhoods in three cities to connect community-based revitalization initiatives with school reform programs in the same neighborhoods. In some of the most challenged communities in Baltimore, St. Louis and Atlanta, low-income children, schools and neighborhoods are making real progress as a result of these coordinated approaches. |