Jeremy Mohler, communications director for In the Public Interest, an organization that fights privatization of public services, reports on the growing adoption of the community schools model, which brings families and communities closer to schools. Frankly, this approach makes a lot more sense than turning public money over to private operators and charter chains, some of which is siphoned away by for-profit managers.
If a full year of school during a pandemic taught us anything, it’s that public schools are pillars of their communities.
Educators and staff have stepped up in ways they never could’ve imagined, from delivering lunches to coordinating vaccines.
What really shone through is that public schools following the community school strategy were some of the most resilient. (Don’t know what a community school is? Here’s an explainer video.)
Here are just a few examples:
- By May of last year, Southside K-8 School in the town of War, West Virginia, had delivered nearly 40,000 books to students sheltering at home.
- By September, Los Angeles’s 93rd Street Steam Academy, located in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, was distributing food to 300 families twice a month.
- Enos Garcia Elementary in Taos, New Mexico, has been providing families with food, clothing, assistance with paying bills, basic computer training, and English as a second language (ESL) classes based on needs assessments school staff conducted when the pandemic began.
- Club Boulevard Elementary in Durham, North Carolina, used an innovative app to communicate with parents as the local school district navigated moving between online and in-person schooling. This streamlined the school’s distribution of computers to students and tech support concerning education technology.
- Arrey Elementary in rural New Mexico has been providing COVID-19 health information and testing services to its surrounding community. In May, it coordinated with the local health department to administer vaccines.
Meanwhile, funding and support for the community school strategy is growing.
President Biden is proposing $443 million for community schools in his education budget, 15 times the current level of federal spending.
California used $45 million in federal COVID-19 relief to start a competitive grant program for expanding community schools. Cincinnati’s school district used the relief to offer students summer learning programs that address learning loss due to the pandemic.
We should use this summer break to reimagine not only what public education looks like but also the role of public schools in their communities.
Community schools are a promising strategy. Especially given the widespread trauma and instability so many have experienced over the past year.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Asking seriously, does the Biden plan for Community Schools involve social impact bond investing/Pay for Success using student generated data, such as benchmarks, etc. for investors, venture capitalists, and Wall Street to “measure” success?
The term sustainability has been used in education recently to refer to sustainable funding through partnerships. It sounds like this will apply to Community Schools. Sounds like making a dangerous deal with the devil.
A very good question! We would have to read the fine print in order to determine if the program will pay for real community needs and not some venture capital scheme.
A lot of people see the good, but don’t question the rest. I am grateful for President Biden’s win over Trump, yet he must feel that he needs to keep Wall Street happy for not only this term, but to keep Dems in the White House ahead. I say just be forthright with the public and tell us the cons, as well as the pros. This “some community schools are good” stuff makes it all the more confusing and feels like gas lighting, even if it isn’t intended to feel that way.
Community schools are an example of how public schools could break with the ed reform echo chamber and not just “be permitted to continue to exist” but really move positively with a different vision for education- one that isn’t
Public schools have to comply with ed reform dictates on testing and school ranking and teacher measurement schemes, that is true. But public schools DON’T have to follow the rest of the agenda.
Has ed reform really served public school students well? If not, why are we still following along? Instead of asking people who DON’T value public schools what public schools should or can do, what if we instead found and asked people who DO value public schools? Isn’t that likely to work out better for public school students?
We could just be confidently pro public schools and pro public school students. We don’t want to be charter schools or private schools- we can go our own way.
A charter school chain would never go to the opponents of charter schools for advice or guidance on how they run their systems. Why are we following the directions of people who spend 90% of their time promoting charters and vouchers and bashing our schools? How is that “student centered”?
Instead of using “public schools” as a pejorative, as it’s used in ed reform, what if we embraced the fact that our schools are public, have a REALLY long history (some good, some bad) and are, we believe, a better model than privatized systems?
Charter proponents advocate for charters. Voucher proponents advocate for private schools. All ed reformers advocate for a privatized, contract system of schools.
We can advocate for public schools. That’s permitted.
we should have been and should now be aggressively lauding and honoring the many, many, many (I could go on) public schools which have done wonderful things for the nation….just go back to before the concept of free public school existed
After retiring from. education, I helped set up about a dozen Community Learning Centers in the Milwaukee area. All connected to public schools. That was the connection between the community and the school. All worked as a team!
NEA and UFT are part of this, but so are many who cannot be trusted. I went to the video link Diane provided and searched the organization who created it. It’s called the Partnership for the Future of Learning. They have a couple of videos regarding funding, but don’t reveal a single thing. Here is the site: https://futureforlearning.org/focus/school-funding/
A number of the organizations below are for privatization of public ed and replacing teachers with ed tech. I have many concerns and urge for complete transparency regarding the Community School model as a whole. Simple question: Is Wall Street investing in outcomes (hence the reason for benchmark tests, etc.) a part of President Biden’s Community School plan?
Perhaps the charter school bubble has broken and investors are looking for a new way to get out school tax dollars in private pockets.
https://futureforlearning.org/who-we-are/#partners
Bay & Paul Foundations
S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
Ford Foundation
Foundations for a Better Oregon
Grable Foundation
Walter & Elise Haas Fund
Edward W. Hazen Foundation
The Heinz Endowments
William & Flora Hewlett Foundation
W.K. Kellogg Foundation
National Education Association
NEA Foundation
National Public Education Support Fund
Nellie Mae Education Foundation
Sandler Foundation
Schott Foundation
Southern Education Foundation
Stuart Foundation
The community school model does not have any connection to EdTech or privatization. The only foundation on your list that rings alarm bells is CZI, but not everything they do is bad. Missing are the Waltons, Charles Koch, DeVos, and the dozens of billionaires who are dedicated to privatization. I list almost all of them in SLAYING GOLIATH. Check the list.
Your warning bell is well-advised, although Diane’s input suggests privatization interests haven’t yet latched on. Why we need community schools reflects our hole-filled safety net, especially around healthcare, but also housing & food. IF we nudge this cruise-ship toward community schools in a big way—i.e., get fed funds around it—the usual sharks will circle and feed. Those community schools that have succeeded so far seem to be ground-up efforts by the community, i.e., municipal social orgs relocating around schools & establishing efficient communications/ services, then perhaps getting modest state grants to support. I like you am leery of fed funds attaching, as DC is so connected to Dem neoliberal/ privatizing interests.
Thank you, Diane. Does the Community School model involve pay for success/social impact bond investing?
I am unaware of any connection between the community school model and social impact investing. The list of sponsor agencies, with the exception of CZI, is not associated with the privatization world.
How much control will the partners have over the school compared to the community? When does it quit becoming a public school? The Request for Application mentioned above includes charters. There are charter schools now called community schools. I think it’s a way to privatize public schools while doing kind things for people. It is tough because social services are needed.
“Here’s an explainer video.”
Another video with goddamned annoying music in the back/foreground. One of the reasons I tend to not watch videos like that these days. For those of us with hearing issues that music tends to override the spoken word, making it very difficult to understand.
From what I could tell the video might as well have been from private charter school advocates claiming that they are “community schools”.
The state of Ohio calls its charter schools “community schools.” Every state that has authorized privately-managed and privately-owned charter schools calls them “public schools.” I can call a camel a horse, but it is still a camel. The movement for authentic community schools has nothing to do with privatization; when it does, it is a hoax.