ERIC Number: ED658644
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2022-Sep-24
Pages: N/A
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Investigating the Promise of Integrated Student Supports: Evaluation of the Community School Model in Tennessee
Matthew Truwit
Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness
With a growing consensus that students require more than purely academic support, schools across the country have increasingly adopted the community school model, a comprehensive approach to education focused on holistic student development. In these schools, centrally located site coordinators leverage partnerships with local organizations to offer individualized services to students, families, and neighborhoods (Moore et al., 2017). By providing a wide range of targeted supports both academic and non-academic, community schools aim to mitigate or even remove many of the obstacles to learning faced by students -- particularly those from lower-SES backgrounds -- in their schools, homes, and communities, thus resulting in improved educational (and even life) outcomes. Community schools have grown significantly in prominence in recent years, with more than 5,000 now in operation across the country (Blank & Villarreal, 2015), largely as part of school turnaround work in urban settings serving large populations of students in poverty (Dryfoos, 2005; Valli, Stefanski, & Jacobson, 2016). However, despite the model's rising prevalence, evidence of its impacts is mixed, with reviews of research arguing for cautious optimism. While the evidence base suggests that adoption of the model tends to improve academic measures like grades, test scores, graduation, and attendance (Moore et al., 2017; Maier, Daniel, Oakes, & Lam, 2017; Valli, Stefanski, & Jacobson, 2016), findings are also frequently nonsignificant or null, and many questions remain about exactly how effective community schools are. As a result, existing literature calls for research that investigates a broader array of outcomes, a more diverse sample of community schools, and the heterogeneity and temporal variation of impacts to better understand how and when the community school model is most effective. This study does all three, examining the plausibly causal effects of a broad range of community schools in a new, statewide context on a wider and less frequently studied spectrum of student, teacher, and school outcomes while also aiming to identify the circumstances under which community schools have the greatest impact. I focus on the roughly 100 community schools operated under six different provider models across the state of Tennessee, relying on statewide administrative data since 2012. I employ generalized difference-in-difference models to estimate the credibly causal impact of community school model adoption on a wide range of outcomes, including the (1) attendance and academic growth of students and the (2) retention and satisfaction of teachers. Furthermore, I also study the ways in which these causal estimates of the model's impact vary over time with special attention to the methodological considerations involving staggered adoption of treatment. Results suggest that adoption of the community school model appears to marginally improve student academic growth and teacher retention, with less consistent evidence for student attendance and teacher satisfaction. Furthermore, these effects are most concentrated in years further from adoption, particularly after what appears to be an early but brief period of transitional turmoil, suggesting the benefits of either continued exposure or improved implementation over time.
Descriptors: Community Schools, Integrated Services, Job Satisfaction, Teacher Persistence, Educational Strategies, Causal Models, Influences
Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness. 2040 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208. Tel: 202-495-0920; e-mail: contact@sree.org; Web site: https://www.sree.org/
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE)
Identifiers - Location: Tennessee
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A