This report is the result of the participation of hundreds of students, families, school educators, and researchers who dedicated their time and energy to investigating the critical role that families and communities play in ensuring students and schools can flourish. It is a culmination of over two years of collaborative research and hundreds of…

Schools connect students with peers and mentors, channel youthful energy into productive pursuits, teach essential academic skills and knowledge, and give overwhelmed parents room to breathe and work. Adapting to the challenges of COVID-19 gives America's schools the opportunity to provide what is uniquely possible in the schoolhouse while seeking…

The Alliance for Excellent Education understands that the first step in improving any rural high school is to encourage and support the active engagement of students, parents, teachers, the community, and business leaders. This guide is designed to give parents and community members some suggested ways to begin thinking about whether their local…

This enlightening handbook offers current, international perspectives on the conditions in communities, contemporary practices in schooling, relevant research on teaching and learning, and implications for the future of education. It contains diverse conceptual frameworks for analyzing existing issues in education, including but not limited to…

Educational reform poses problems for administrators in rural areas who have limited time and resources. This guide offers a process that can be used by rural administrators to engage the community in activities that will enhance children's success in the classroom and in their adult lives. Section 1 discusses the importance of community…

The 20-year history of Monroe County Community College (MCCC) is traced in this publication. After an introduction to the methods employed in developing the portrait of the college, chapter 1 discusses MCCC's beginnings. This chapter reviews the background to the expansion of community college education across the nation, the state and local…

The Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990, which champions arts education as an integral component of a holistic curriculum and assessment process, encourages schools to make use of resources from the community, including arts and cultural organizations, artists, folklorists, and craftspeople. This broadened approach to education provides…

This book aims to help parents, community members, and educators find resources, design school options, and take action together to improve small rural schools in ways that meet community and student needs. Chapter 1 discusses the virtues of smallness, outlines basic assumptions about the role and nature of good education, examines the…

Changing population patterns, inflated housing costs, and cuts in school financing have forced many school districts to face school closures and school consolidation as a way of maintaining solvency. This report reviews the literature on school consolidation with attention to the fact that the need to consolidate now faces elementary schools as…

This book analyzes how community-based organizations in low income urban neighborhoods can promote reform of their local public schools. Chapter 1, "Reassessing the Declining Urban Neighborhood," discusses the sources of urban decline in terms of a structural relationship between "haves" and "have-nots." Chapter 2,…

This anthology looks at arts partnerships which integrate community arts and cultural resources with schools. It also explores the structural, operational, and philosophical adaptations which take place within arts organizations and schools when they become engaged in the process of developing a healthy, responsive relationship. Finally, it…

This paper helps community partners envision a system of community schools and understand the changes needed to make it a reality. Information in the paper is adapted from a study by the Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago and the Center for Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington. The study…

This training model is designed to assist educational personnel and interested citizens in the implementation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the attainment of sex equity in education. The manual is especially designed for members of community groups, parents, and other persons not employed by the school system. Materials…

A unique collection of photographs and personal letters, journals and diaries, newspaper clippings, official reports, readers and textbooks, mail-order catalogues, architectural plans and diagrams recreate the flavor of the Canadian one-room school and the rural communities it served from the 1840's to 1960's. The emphasis is on the human…

This guide is designed to help community members have productive conversations about how schools and communities can work together to meet the challenge of educating youth in today's society. The foreword presents a rationale for community discussions regarding improving education, and the introduction highlights new challenges facing schools. The…