If I Make This School Better, I Can Change the World! Um, right?

June 3, 2008 11:45 AM

I'm looking for some research or (last resort) anecdotal stories about the effect of improved/improving schools on communities/neighborhoods.

I'm putting together a project that would try and encourage local community members to adopt classrooms/teachers in an urban school.

I'd like to be able to describe to people other than parents how improving a school can help to improve a community. I have a hunch that it helps with property values, but I don't have the data to back that up. Effects on crime? Effects on local businesses? Etcetera, etcetera.

Unfortunately, I'm working from home these days and don't have access to the good old university database that I'm used to. And it's been difficult to find what I need on Google.

Anyone have leads on where to look for this type of research, if it exists?

posted by jeanmari to society & culture (8 comments total)

Leads: Joanne Jacobs has a blog that I think has linked to many such stories over the years. The blogs she links to are also good places to look for this. She wrote a book about something close to what you're asking about, but I am not sure that the focus was on community involvement.
posted by prefpara at 12:07 PM on June 3, 2008

Over in West Philly, UPenn opened up a public school that they assist, Penn Alexander. Googling for more information led me to this article about rising property values. Search for more about UPenn's public-school assistance for other stuff UPenn does.

I also found what looks like some UPenn education student's paper (PDF) on this, though, and I think it bears quoting here:

Moreover, the school, which has proven to be one of the most outstanding public schools in the district, draws from a small neighborhood area directly around it. Its geographical selectivity has driven up real estate costs in the neighborhood and forced out many residents who were promptly replaced with wealthier Penn faculty and staff. Penn Alexander is a great public school, but it is still within a terrible public school system.

This fact, the weakness of the Philadelphia public school system itself, is what none of these three strategies manages to attack. All three make “special” schools, or, in the case of Say Yes, “special” students, who really did nothing except be born in the right year. Sweeping, systemic change is the only kind that can really make a dent in the city’s public schools, and Penn, by creating schools like Penn Alexander and getting behind programs like Say Yes, isn’t doing much to help. This is not to say Penn Alexander or Say Yes are bad for Philadelphia schools. Rather, there is an issue of sustainability to think about. Long after George Weiss’s money is gone and the University stops giving $1,000 per student per year to Penn Alexander, there will still be hundreds of thousands of students in Philadelphia who need education.

That pretty much reflects my experience from when I was teaching in Philadelphia. I heard great things about Penn Alexander, but they didn't really matter to the kids in my classrooms deeper in West Philly, who didn't get the same kind of funding, assistance, and classroom sizes. Great for Penn Alexander, neutral for everyone else.
posted by Greg Nog at 1:07 PM on June 3, 2008

No help, but interest. Mrs. Doohickie teaches in such a school. They have a couple of large-scale corporate sponsors, although they lose one of them at the end of the year due to a corporate relocation. The principal is meeting with local community and business leaders, and any good info that comes from your project would be helpful to this particular school I think.
posted by Doohickie at 1:08 PM on June 3, 2008

Check out 826 Valencia (www.826valencia.org) and Dave Eggers (www.ted.com/index.php/pages/view/id/163) I don't know how much help that will be but his talk from the TED awards inspired me!
posted by sisflit at 2:12 PM on June 3, 2008

I came in here just to recommend Dave Eggers.
posted by flibbertigibbet at 3:10 PM on June 3, 2008

This is in the Chicago Public School system, within a neighborhood that has tremendous ethnic, religious and socio-economic diversity. The school is surrounded by small, independently owned shops and businesses which are really feeling the impact of the mega-stores on the fringes of Chicago.

It's not a high risk or failing school, and it will be my daughter's school someday. It's also not a charter school or a school with a huge amount of financial resources. Close to 20% of the students speak English as a second language and almost 80% of them are considered low income. But it has an attendance rate close to 95% and an almost non-existent truancy rate. The teachers are dedicated and passionate.

Systemic change in the Chicago Public School System is out of my reach. I don't think I would survive such an endeavor. I've worked with them before.

My goal is to not raise property values here (it's the city, they're already high). My goal is to enlist local neighbors, business owners and community organizations in adopting classrooms. If I have to sell that kind of program to community members who don't have kids by citing increasing property values, decreasing juvenile crime and increasing opportunities for local business, I'll do it. Is there an opportunity for a mutually beneficial relationship between the school and the local businesses? I think there might be.

At the very least, I'd like to be providing funding and donations for those extra things that make a teacher's life easier and don't force them into compromising or reaching into their own pocket all of the time. At the most, providing funding for some of the positions and programs that the CPS administration is taking away next year (because of budget issues).

All of this was inspired by my "secret fairy godmother" work I did for a tiny school with no budget in Rogers Park years ago. They gave me a wish list, I asked my business colleagues for in-kind donations (paper, cardboard, art supplies, computer equipment) and money to try to address some of the items on the list. I wasn't able to grant all wishes, but I was able to pull off some surprises on a small scale. Now, I'm wondering if I can pull off some surprises on a larger scale :)
posted by jeanmari at 4:00 PM on June 3, 2008

I say Dave Eggers project

Schools are not great about recruiting people to help within the schools but if you can get a Big Brothers / Sisters or Mentor Program going with businesses in the area or retirees, they develop a vested interest in the school. Maybe the students are making AYP and don't necessarily need tutoring, however they probably need something to do after school that is not playing video games or sitting in front of the TV. With a batch of community members, they can do enrichment activities, start a writing club, play chess, learn about local history, the sky is the limit!

Once there is enough positive talk in the community, the donations will pour in.
posted by sisflit at 5:09 PM on June 3, 2008

I love the idea of using Eggers for the students. And...

I'm also really invested in providing support for these teachers so they can better serve the students. These are great teachers working hard with very little in a school that is overcrowded and where intense diversity keeps them on their toes (rumor has it that there are over 20 different languages spoken by the children in this school).

If the sponsor-a-classroom model is even accepted, there is still a lot of work to be done. For example, there is creating a mechanism or process for gathering sponsorship funds, dispensing them to classrooms, accounting for how they are being spent and the results being accomplished, reporting back to sponsors. After selling the idea at all, that is a project that is pretty large in scope. Especially since this is a low tech, immigrant community.

The parents in the community (and some grandparents) are pretty active in volunteering currently. It's just such a large school for an overcrowded city neighborhood! Almost 950 students in grades K-8.
posted by jeanmari at 6:15 PM on June 3, 2008