Reviewing The Success Of Full Service Community Schools In The Us

Originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, this expanded text provides new insights into the successful, sustained implementation of Full-Service Community Schools (FSCSs) in the United States. Reviewing the Success of Full-Service Community Schools in the US documents the experiences of students, teachers, and communities involved in the establishment and growth of FSCSs. By considering how successful this reform strategy has been in meeting the needs of underserved communities, the text illustrates the potential these schools have to transform students’ learning and outcomes. In particular, the studies illustrate the value these schools have in supporting low-income students and students of color. At the same time, by interrogating the defining pillars of FSCSs – expanded learning opportunities, integrated services, family and community engagement, and collaborative leadership – chapters identify challenges that if left unattended, could limit the transformative potential of this reform strategy. This groundbreaking text will be of great interest to graduate and postgraduate students, researchers, academics, professionals, and policy makers in the fields of Educational Change and School Reform, Multicultural Education, Sociology of Education, Education Policy, and School Management and Administration.

Ferrara, Jacobson, and their colleagues illuminate how community schools become a comprehensive, place-based strategy that both supports high-quality teaching and learning and addresses out-of-school barriers to success.

Drawing on rich case studies of Baltimore City and Boston, this volume identifies policy factors and processes critical to the successful district-wide adoption of community schools. By applying the Multiple Streams Model (Kingdon) to comparative analysis of policy determination and the narratives of local stakeholders across a 16-year period, chapters illustrate the role of federal legislation, funding, and buy-in from coalitions, community leaders, and local advocates in ensuring policy adoption in Baltimore City. In contrast, Boston’s more limited reforms are explained in light of local challenges and hindering dynamics. Ultimately, the volume offers key recommendations for stakeholders to drive successful policy uptake in urban school districts. Offering a new analysis of policy for community schools, this volume will be of interest to students, scholars, and researchers with an interest in school reform, as well as urban education.

This document reports on a study of a model full-service community school and explains the kind of services provided, staffing considerations, ways of involving community partners, governance arrangements, and parent involvement. It considers the barriers to creating this kind of school and explores ways to fund programs. The narrative offers a snapshot, in fall 2001, of Molly Stark Elementary School in Vermont, but it is also an apt description of similar schools. It focuses on experience, documented and anecdotal, to present the concept. The first part of each chapter focuses on what is going on in other educational settings over the country. The second section uses examples from Molly Stark school where quality instruction is combined with extended-day and extended-year services, health and social services, and parent education and support. The document also examines the prognosis for community schools and considers how they should be sustained. Appendices provide a community-school assessment checklist, a community needs assessment or appearance survey, child-care programs handbook, request for consultation, sample after-school program forms, sample communications with parents about after-school programs, and sample job descriptions for families of employees. (Contains 74 references.) (RKJ)

Services for families and children are rightfully the focus of intense scrutiny and debate, and there is a clear need to establish a knowledge of which services work well. This volume provides a comprehensive overview of research evidence from the UK and USA on the effectiveness of selected child welfare interventions. It addresses the challenges of measuring effectiveness in child welfare and explains the policy context for child welfare service delivery. Leading international contributors summarize the evidence of effectiveness in each core area, and consider the impact on children's development, parenting capacity and the wider community. Critically, the book also draws out the implications of the evidence for policy, practice and service delivery as well as for future research. This book is essential reading for policy makers, practitioners and commissioners of services in child welfare as well as students and researchers.

Robert F. Kronick is a professor in the Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling at the University of Tennessee.

Provides information on programs, research, publications, and services of ERIC, as well as critical and current education information.

This book echoes and enhances the generative, dialogic, knowledge-building process that took place at the AMLE 2021 conference, reflecting the way in which middle-level researchers work collaboratively and draw ideas and inspiration for their studies from prior research and accounts of practice, as well as their own experiences in the field. Each of the five sections features a recent study presented at the roundtable session at the 2021 AMLE conference, accompanied by two companion pieces offering different perspectives on the work. In the latter, the authors enrich and extend the original research by incorporating feedback from the conference session discussions, revisiting their findings and conclusions, considering alternative approaches to further research, and proposing new or clarified implications for practice. Addressing themes across theoretical frameworks and diversity of research design, and with topics ranging from music education to teacher agency and the productive struggle, the volume crucially presents and discusses recent innovations in the field with a view to prompting future research questions and deeper inquiry. As such, it will benefit researchers, doctoral students, and academics in the fields of middle level education, educational research, and specifically research methods in education. Those interested in teaching and learning, and adolescent development more broadly will also benefit from this volume.