Coordination Among Schools, Families, and Communities

Prospects for Educational Reform

Edited by James G. Cibulka & William J. Kritek

Subjects: Education
Series: SUNY series, Educational Leadership
Paperback : 9780791428580, 456 pages, April 1996
Hardcover : 9780791428573, 456 pages, April 1996

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Table of contents

Introduction
William J. Kritek, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Section I: Models of Coordination: Implications from Field Research

1: The Kentucky Family Resource Centers: The Challenges of Remaking Family-School Interactions
Claire Smrekar, Vanderbilt University

2: Visible Differences and Unseen Commonalities: Viewing Students as the Connections Between School and Communities
H. Dickson Corbett, Bruce WIlson, and Jaci Webb, Research for Better Schools

3: Conflict and Consensus: The Bitter and Sweet in a Community-School Coalition
Paul E. Heckman, W. Reed Scull, University of Arizona; and Sharon Conley, University of California, Santa Barbara

4: The Best of Both Worlds: Connecting Schools and Community Youth Organizations for All-Day, All-Year Learning
Shirley Brice Heath and Milbrey W. McLaughlin, Stanford University

5: Educating Homeless Children: One Experiment in Collaboration
Rebecca L. Newman and Lynn G. Beck, University of California, Los Angeles

Section II: Organizational and Management Issues Surrounding Coordination

6: Structure and Strategies: Toward an Understanding of Alternative Models for Coordinated Children's Services
Robert L. Crowson, Vanderbilt University and William Lowe Boyd, Pennsylvania State University

7: The Principal and Community-School Connections in Chicago's Radical Reform
Mark A. Smylie, Robert L. Crowson, Vanderbilt University, Victoria Chou and Rebekah A. Levin, University of Illinois at Chicago

8: Schools as Intergovernmental Partners: Administrator Perceptions of Expanded Programming for Children
Carolyn Herrington, Florida State University

9: Institutional Effects of Strategic Efforts at Community Enrichment
Hanne B. Mawhinney, University of Ottawa

10: School-Business-University Collaboratives: The Economics of Organizational Choice
Patrick F. Galvin, University of Utah

11: Reforming American Educational Policy for the Twenty-first Century
Deborah A. Verstegen, University of Virginia

Section III: Evaluation and Critiques of Coordination as a Reform

12: We're Not Housed in an Institution, We're Housed in the Community: Possibilities and Consequences of Neighborhood-based Interagency Collaboration
Colleen A. Capper, University of Wisconsin-Madison

13: Schools and Community Connections: Applying a Sociological Framework
Gail Chase Furman, Washington State University and Carol Merz, University of Puget Sound

14: Connecting Schools and Communities Through Interagency Collaboration For School-Linked Services
Debra Shaver, Shari Golan, and Mary Wagner, SRI International

15: Beyond Consensus: Mapping Divergent Views of Systems and Power in Collaboratives
Maureen W. McClure, Bruce A. Jones, and Eugenie Potter, University of Pittsburgh

Conclusion: Toward an Interpretation of School, Family, and Community Connections: Policy Challenges
James G. Cibulka, University of Wisconsin-Madison

About the Editors and Authors

Index

Addresses a relatively new emphasis in the educational reform movement, the attempt to improve linkages between schools, families, and communities in the delivery of support services to children.

Description

Improving the connection among schools, families, and communities has emerged as a recent focus of the education reform movement posing many challenges for educators, social service professionals, community activists, and parents. This book provides information on the diverse goals of the coordinated services movement and the problems of reconciling competing goals within the movement. The political environment surrounding coordinated services reforms is discussed, including efforts to scale-back the scope of "the welfare state. "

Different models of coordination are presented, such as Kentucky's Family Resource Centers, the Nation of Tomorrow project in Chicago, a community-school coalition in Philadelphia, community youth organizations, and programs for the homeless as well as organizational and management issues surrounding coordination drawn from programs throughout the United States and Canada.

James G. Cibulka is Professor and Chair of the Department of Education, Policy, Planning, and Administration at the University of Maryland. He is co-author of The Politics of Urban Education in the United States, and is editor of Educational Administration Quarterly. William J. Kritek is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Administrative Leadership at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and is Senior Associate Editor of Educational Administration Quarterly.

Reviews

"This book helps us think about what might properly constitute a democratic school mission. It illustrates the potential for school constituents to play a larger role in shaping policy and practice. It presents coordinated services as a way to alter the institutional politics of schooling.

"Given the growing numbers of people working in the service sector, the resources directed at this area, and the calls for greater efficiency throughout social services, all in the midst of increasing social problems, I think professionals in diverse occupations will find this work illuminating. " -- Kathleen Densmore, San Jose State University