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Community schools create opportunities for engaged and rigorous learning rooted in the assets and needs of students, families, and the larger community. As COVID-19 forced schools to close and shift to distance learning, teachers at two Los Angeles community schools adapted and created community-based learning projects that address issues currently affecting students’ lives.
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This resource, from the Partnership for the Future of Learning, provides a comprehensive policy guide for implementing and sustaining community schools. It includes detailed information on the four key pillars of comprehensive community schools and features communications and policy development resources, including model legislative language and policy examples from across the United States.
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Fifty years after the Kerner Report, our nation still struggles with persistent disparities in child welfare, educational opportunities, and economic outcomes—but there is still hope for change. In this Education and the Path to Equity blog, Christopher Edley, President of the Opportunity Institute, and Linda Darling-Hammond discuss the potential of community schools to overcome the entrenched inequities of today’s education system.
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Access to deeper learning—classes in which students are engaged to think deeply and develop the skills and abilities they’ll need for college and work—is a central equity issue for our time, says Dr. Pedro Noguera in this LPI Blog. In this interview, Noguera discusses the role of deeper learning in providing all students with an equitable and empowering education and what it will take to “scale up” deeper learning practices.
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Family and community engagement is one of the four pillars of high-quality community schools, yet school staff often struggle to build a culture that includes ongoing engagement and creates partnerships that cultivate trust and respect. In this blog, LPI Research and Policy Associate Anna Maier highlights two community school initiatives successfully bridging the gap between home and school and shares the compelling evidence of the impact of effective engagement on student and school success.
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Education policymakers working to address the impacts of growing economic and racial inequality on students often look to community schools as an effective approach for supporting students and their families in communities facing concentrated poverty. This report, which synthesizes findings from 143 rigorous research studies, finds community schools can improve outcomes for all students, and especially those facing lack of access to high-quality schools and out-of-school barriers to learning.
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Education policymakers working to address the impacts of growing economic and racial inequality on students often look to community schools as an effective approach for supporting students and their families in communities facing concentrated poverty. This brief and related report synthesizes findings from 143 rigorous research studies and finds that community schools can improve outcomes for all students, especially those facing lack of access to high-quality schools and out-of-school barriers to learning.
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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. These infographics examine each pillar to provide a look at community schools in action.
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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. 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.
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In addition to providing students and families with much-needed services and supports, well-implemented community schools can be a successful strategy for whole-school transformation. That's the finding of a recently released brief, Community Schools: An Evidence-Based Strategy for Equitable School Improvement, published jointly by the Learning Policy Institute and the National Education Policy Center. This LPI Blog post features a Q&A with the study authors, who detail their approach and findings, describe the four interdependent features of community schools, and discuss how well-implemented community schools can be used as a targeted and comprehensive intervention for school improvement under ESSA.
