Growing economic and racial inequality are impacting many
children’s health and welfare, as well as educational and life success.
To address these inequalities, policymakers increasingly look to
community schools as an effective approach for supporting students and
their families in neighborhoods facing concentrated poverty. Through
partnering with community agencies, community schools integrate
academics and collaborative leadership with health and social services,
youth and community development, and family and community engagement. A new study
from the Learning Policy Institute finds that, when implemented well,
these schools help students overcome such challenges, improving their
educational outcomes by removing out-of-school barriers to learning.
The report, Community Schools as an Effective School Improvement Strategy: A Review of the Evidence,
was produced in collaboration with the National Education Policy
Center. It synthesizes the findings from 143 rigorous research studies
on the impact of community schools on student and school outcomes. Its
aim is to support and inform school, community, district, and state
leaders as they seek school intervention and support strategies under
the Every Student Succeeds Act and consider community schools as a
strategy for providing high-quality education that promotes greater
equity. It will be released December 14 at a symposium in New York City on community schools hosted by Teachers College Columbia University and the Children’s Aid Society.
The report finds that, while
community schools vary in the programs they offer and the ways they
operate, four features—or pillars—appear in most community schools:
- Integrated student supports,
- Expanded learning time and opportunities,
- Family and community engagement, and
- Collaborative leadership and practice.
"The conditions that
these pillars enable are those that decades of research have identified
as school characteristics that foster students’ intellectual, social,
emotional, and physical development," said Jeannie Oakes, a report
co-author and LPI Senior Fellow, and Presidential Professor Emeritus in
Educational Equity at the University of California, Los Angeles.
"Because of that, state and district policymakers can consider community
schools as a highly effective, evidence-based intervention for schools
identified as low performing under the Every Student Succeeds Act."
Oakes co-authored the report along with Anna Maier, LPI Research and
Policy Associate; and Julia Daniel, a doctoral candidate at the
University of Colorado Boulder.
"This is exactly the kind of
study that the community schools field has been waiting for—one that
pulls together all of the existing evaluation research and frames the
very positive findings in the context of national education policy. The
strong implications for greater equity make the study's conclusions all
the more compelling," said Jane Quinn, Director of the Children's Aid
National Center for Community Schools.
The report and accompanying brief
include examples of effective community schools across the country,
from Oakland to Tulsa to Boston, providing pragmatic research-based
lessons for policy development and implementation. The report also
recommends further rigorous research into community schools to establish
a better understanding of the conditions under which the various
elements of the community schools strategy are most effective.
Find the new report, Community Schools as an Effective School Improvement Strategy: A Review of the Evidence, by Jeannie Oakes, Anna Maier, and Julia Daniel, at: https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/community-schools-effective-school-improvement-report
Find the accompanying brief, Community Schools: An Evidence-Based Strategy for Equitable School Improvement, by Jeannie Oakes, Anna Maier, and Julia Daniel, at: http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/equitable-community-schools
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