Schools Plus

This great GOOD piece on "The Coming Paradigm Shift in Education Reform" opens with the reality that "the reform conversation usually focuses on school-centered solutions." The article goes on to explore the efforts of the “Futures of School Reform,” a three-year-old collaboration of 20 prominent education experts who have come to the consensus that our nation's schools will never achieve the goal of universal student proficiency until non-school factors are taken into account.

There are so many false dichotomies in education policy debates. The best example was the debate about two manifestoes written during the 2008 presidential campaign: The Broader, Bolder Approach and The Education Equality Project. Both manifestoes targeted the same goal of improving educational outcomes particularly for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, but neither piece cleanly aligned with political parties – a typical occurrence in the educational world. The distinctive difference between the two proposals was on the question of whether schools should take on some of the responsibilities generally left to community organizations and social work agencies such as health care and psychological services.

Although I did not realize it at the time, my own journey to this work began with community solutions. Seven summers ago, I had the opportunity to teach at SuperKids Camp, a literacy and enrichment camp for inner-city third and fourth grade students in the City of Baltimore. SuperKids is run by the Parks & People Foundation, which works with the city and its school system to provide summer learning opportunities to combat summer slide and provide low-income children with enrichment opportunities they may not otherwise experience.

My SuperKids volunteering experience set me on the career trajectory that led me here today -- exploring Chicago's neighborhoods through community service, studying school redesign and urban education policy in the American Studies Program at Northwestern, and beginning to build university-community relationships through asset-based community development at NU's Center for Civic Engagement and HKS' Student Public Service Collaborative.

Effective cross-sector partnerships exist to support youth across the country, and I'm sure I'll learn more about them as the summer progresses, but for now, it's important to remember the reality of where we are right now:

Four million youth in America are disconnected from school and work. The social safety nets supporting these young adults are so often fragmented and tunnel-visioned. Any game-changing efforts in this arena must integrate existing community assets and resources across sectors more effectively to connect young adults to education and career pathways.

We must challenge communities across America to convene and collaborate to reconfigure how organizations function together and challenge all Americans to engage in sustained and meaningful community service to renew our nation's promise and revitalize our nation's civic health.



PS -- One week until my internship begins!