External developments and intra-professional needs, challenges, and opportunities recommend a workforce research and development agenda. In particular: (a) new models for schools necessitate customized, evidence-based curricula and school/community programs; (b) the effectiveness of every curriculum and program depends on workforce readiness,…

COMPASS-AIM is a set of processes and tools used by participants in a research-practice partnership (RPP) to improve organizational capacities and individual and team competencies for organizational learning and improvement. The "COMPASS" team includes teams of teachers and school leaders who work with a university researcher and expert…

Community collaboration models expand conventional school improvement planning, which tends to be walled in, building centered, and bracketed by school and district boundaries. These community models enable educators, social workers, and other school professionals to form sustainable, strategic partnerships with families, community agencies,…

Amid unprecedented novelty, complexity, turbulence, and conflict, it is apparent that a new education system is needed. Focused on a new outcome--postsecondary education completion with advanced competence--heretofore separate systems for early childhood, K-12 schools, and postsecondary education are being joined in P-16 pipelines and…

A new genus of district and school improvement models entails partnerships with other organizations and new working relationships with families, community leaders, and youths. The Ohio Community Collaboration Model for School Improvement (OCCMSI) is one such model. It enables partners to leverage family and community resources for learning,…

Conventional school improvement models traditionally involve "walled-in" approaches. These models focus primarily on academic learning strategies in response to standards-based accountabilities. Although positive outcomes have been documented, expanded school improvement models such as the Ohio Community Collaboration Model for School…

Challenges confronting children, youth, and families in the current socioeconomic environment are examined, and the role of the university-assisted community school in addressing them is explored. Comprehensive, collaborative change strategies that support and strengthen families and nurture children and youth in addition to providing education…

This brief is designed to promote collaborative leadership in the work of transforming low performing urban schools into successful schools. The brief is organized into several topics, which include framing the challenge (concentrated disadvantage, concentration effects, and savage inequalities); encouraging educators and partners to promote the…