Leveraging Community Schools for Community Development: Lessons from Baltimore's 21 st Century School Buildings Program

Abstract

This study leverages data collected from a study of Baltimore's 21^st Century School Buildings Program to understand the potential of a school facilities investment to catalyze community development. We leverage a school-community partnership typology to examine partnerships at 21CSBP schools in three neighborhoods. We found that schools provided critical resources to their school and place-based communities and were linked to community development efforts. We argue that community development partnership models are possible when schools and their partners view their work as going beyond the schoolhouse door. The study extends the field's understanding of the interdependence of school and neighborhood improvement.

Keywords

community schools community development school-community relations

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

21st Century Schools Baltimore. (n.d.). Mission . https://baltimore21stcenturyschools.org/mission

Anyon

(2005). What “counts” as educational policy? Notes toward a new paradigm. Harvard Educational Review, 75(1), 65–88. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.75.1.g1q5k721220ku176

Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance. (2019). Vital signs . https://bniajfi.org/

Benjamin

(2012). Suburbanizing Jim Crow the impact of school policy on residential segregation in Raleigh. Journal of Urban History, 38(2), 225–246. https://doi.org/10.1177/0096144211427114

Biddle

Mette

Mercado

(2018). Partnering with schools for community development: Power imbalances in rural community collaboratives addressing childhood adversity. Community Development, 49(2), 191–210. https://doi.org/10.1080/15575330.2018.1429001

Blank

M. J.

Johnson

S. D.

Shah

B. P.

Schneider

A. N.

(2003). Making the difference: Research and practice in community schools. Coalition for Community Schools.

Bower

C. B.

Rossi

(2019). How do promise neighborhoods’ strategies align with research evidence on poverty and education? Education and Urban Society, 51(9), 1172–1201. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013124518784651

Brown

(2021). The black butterfly: The harmful politics of race and space in America. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Brownlow

G. K.

(2013). Building schools and community connections: Outreach and activism for new schools in southeast Los Angeles. In Schools and urban revitalization: Rethinking institutions and community development (pp. 185–203). Routledge.

10.

Coalition for Community Schools. (n.d.). What is a community school? https://doi.org/10.1016/S0033-3506(98)00278-9

11.

DeMatthews

(2015). Making sense of social justice leadership: A case study of a principal’s experiences to create a more inclusive school. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 14(2), 139–166. https://doi.org/10.1080/15700763.2014.997939

12.

Dryfoos

(2002). Full-service community schools: Creating new institutions. Phi Delta Kappan, 83(5), 393–399. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172170208300515

13.

Durham

R. E.

Connolly

(2016). Baltimore community schools: Promise & progress. Baltimore Education Research Consortium.

14.

Erickson

A. T.

(2012). Building inequality the spatial organization of schooling in Nashville, Tennessee, after brown. Journal of Urban History, 38(2), 247–270. https://doi.org/10.1177/0096144211427115

15.

Erickson

A. T.

(2016). Making the unequal metropolis. The University of Chicago Press.

16.

Family League of Baltimore. (2020). Communty schools and out-of-school time . https://familyleague.org/community-schools-and-ost/

17.

Galindo

Sanders

Abel

(2017). Transforming educational experiences in low-income communities: A qualitative case study of social capital in a full-service community school. American Educational Research Journal, 54(1_suppl), 140S–163S. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831216676571

18.

Good

R. M.

(2019). Neighborhood schools and community development: Revealing the intersections through the Philadelphia school closure debate. Journal of Planning Education and Research. 0739456X1983976. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456X19839769

19.

Green

T. L.

(2015). Leading for urban school reform and community development. Educational Administration Quarterly, 51(5), 679–711. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161X15577694

20.

Green

T. L.

(2018). School as community, community as school: Examining principal leadership for urban school reform and community development. Education and Urban Society, 50(2), 111–135. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013124516683997

21.

Green

T. L.

Gooden

M. A.

(2014). Transforming out-of-school challenges into opportunities: Community schools reform in the urban midwest. Urban Education, 49(8), 930–954. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085914557643

22.

Heers

Van Klaveren

Groot

Maassen van den Brink

(2016). Community schools: What we know and what we need to know. Review of Educational Research, 86(4), 1016–1051. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654315627365

23.

Herriott

R. E.

Firestone

W. A.

(1983). Multisite qualitative policy research: Optimizing description and generalizability. Educational Researcher, 12(2), 14–19. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X012002014

24.

Holme

J. J.

Castro

A. J.

Germain

Haynes

Sikes

C. L.

Barnes

(2020). Community schools as an urban school reform strategy: Examining partnerships, governance, and sustainability through the lens of the full-service community schools grant program. Educational Policy, 36(3), 520–549 . https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904820901479

25.

Hopson

(2014). Why are studies of neighborhoods and communities central to education policy and reform? Urban Education, 49(8), 992–995. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085914557646

26.

Horsford

S. D.

Sampson

(2014). Promise neighborhoods: The promise and politics of community capacity building as urban school reform. Urban Education, 49(8), 955–991. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085914557645

27.

Irby

D. J.

(2015). Urban is floating face down in the mainstream: Using hip-hop-based education research to resurrect “the urban” in urban education. Urban Education, 50(1), 7–30. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085914563183

28.

Jean-Marie

Ruffin

Burr

(2010). Leading across boundaries: The role of community schools and cross-boundary leadership in school reform. In Horsford

S. D.

(Ed.), New perspectives in educational leadership: Exploring social, political, and community contexts and meaning (pp. 217–238). Peter Lang.

29.

Keith

(1996). Can urban school reform and community development be joined? The potential of community schools. Education and Urban Society, 28(2), 237–268. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013124596028002008

30.

MacGillis

(2016). The third rail. Places Journal. March 2016. https://doi.org/10.22269/160321

31.

Mayger

L. K.

Hochbein

C. D.

(2019). Spanning boundaries and balancing tensions: A systems perspective on community school coordinators. School Community Journal, 29(2), 225–254.

32.

Mckoy

D. L.

Vincent

J. M.

Bierbaum

A. H.

(2011). Opportunity-rich schools and sustainable communities: Seven steps to align high-quality education with innovations in city and metropolitan planning and development. Center for Cities & Schools University of California.

33.

Miller

Wills

Scanlan

(2013). Educational leadership on the social frontier: Developing promise neighborhoods in urban and tribal settings. Educational Administration Quarterly, 49(4), 543–575. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161X12471531

34.

Milner

H. R.

(2012). But what is urban education? Urban Education, 47(3), 556–561. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085912447516

35.

Milner

H. R.

(2015). Rac(e)ing to class: Confronting poverty and race in schools and classrooms. Harvard University Press.

36.

Milner

H. R.

Lomotey

(2021). Introduction. In Milner

H. R.

Lomotey

(Eds.), Handbook of urban education (2nd ed., pp. 1–8). Routledge.

37.

Noguera

Syeed

(2020). City schools and the American dream 2: The enduring promise of public education. Teachers College Press.

38.

Oakes

Maier

Daniel

(2017). Community schools: An evidence-based strategy for equitable school improvement. Learning Policy Institute & National Center for Education Policy.

39.

Patterson

K. L.

Silverman

R. M.

(2013). Institutions and the new normal for community development. In Schools and urban revitalization: Rethinking institutions and community development (pp. 3–13). Routledge.

40.

Rothstein

(2015, April 30). From Ferguson to Baltimore: The fruits of government-sponsored segregation. LSE Blogs.

41.

Saldaña

(2016). The coding manual for qualitative researchers. Sage Publications, Inc.

42.

Sanders

Galindo

Detablan

(2019). Leadership for collaboration: Exploring how community school coordinators advance the goals of full-service community schools. Children & Schools, 41(2), 89–100. https://doi.org/10.1093/cs/cdz006

43.

Shiller

J. T.

, & The Teachers Democracy Project. (2020a). Clients or partners: The challenge to engage families in Baltimore’s community schools. Urban Education, 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085920954897

44.

Shiller

J. T.

, & The Teachers Democracy Project. (2020b). Critical perspectives on community schools: Looking across cities to gain perspective. Urban Education, 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085920954901

45.

Taylor

H. L.

McGlynn

Luter

D. G.

(2013). Public schools as neighborhood anchor. In Patterson

K. L.

Silverman

R. M.

(Eds.), Schools and urban revitalization: Rethinking institutions and community development (pp. 109–135). Taylor & Francis.

46.

Theodos

Hangen

Meixell

(2019). The Black butterfly: Racial segregation and investment patterns in Baltimore. The Urban Institute.

47.

The Reinvestment Fund (2018). Market Value Analysis: Baltimore.

48.

Trujillo

T. M.

Hernández

L. E.

Jarrell

Kissell

(2014). Community schools as urban district reform: analyzing Oakland’s policy landscape through oral histories. Urban Education, 49(8), 895–929. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085914557644

49.

Valli

Stefanski

Jacobson

(2016). Typologizing school-community partnerships: A framework for analysis and action. Urban Education, 51(7), 719–747. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085914549366

50.

Valli

Stefanski

Jacobson

(2018). School-community partnership models: Implications for leadership. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 21(1), 31–49. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2015.1124925

51.

Warren

M. R.

(2005). Communities and schools: A new view of urban education reform. Harvard Educational Review, 75(2), 133–173. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.75.2.m718151032167438

52.

Warren

M. R.

(2013). Public schools as centers for building social capital in urban communities: A case study of the Logan Square Neighborhood Association in Chicago. In Patterson

Silverman

(Eds.), Schools and urban revitalization: rethinking institutions and community development (pp. 167–184). Taylor & Francis.

53.

Welton

A. D.

Freelon

(2018). Community organizing as educational leadership: Lessons from Chicago on the politics of racial justice. Journal of Research on Leadership Education, 13(1), 79–104. https://doi.org/10.1177/1942775117744193

54.

Whitehurst

G. J.

Croft

(2010). The Harlem Children’s Zone, promise neighborhoods, and the broader, bolder approach to education. Brookings Institution.

55.

Wolf-Powers

(2016). Understanding community development in a “theory of action” framework: Norms, markets, justice. Readings in Planning Theory: Fourth Edition, 15(2), 324–347. http://doi.org/10.1080/14649357.2014.905621