School-Community Partnerships in Support of Student Learning

• NCJ Number: 193904
• Author(s): Martin J. Blank; Elizabeth L. Hale; Naomi Housman; Barbara Kaufmann; Barbara McCloud; Monica Martinez; Laura Samberg; Sharon Walter; Atelia Melaville
• Date Published: 2001
• Length: 52 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
• Corporate Author: Institute for Educational Leadership
• Sale Source: Institute for Educational Leadership
• Publication Format: Book (Softbound)
• Publication Type: Program/Project Evaluation
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study, the second of two on the governance of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC), describes the growth and development of collaborative decision making in four of the initial grantee communities after 2 years of funding.

Abstract

Funded by the U.S. Congress for $40 million in fiscal year 1998 and increased to $846 million in fiscal year 2001, the 21st CCLC program's immediate objective, as determined by the U.S. Department of Education, is to help school districts create community learning centers that will provide stimulating, safe, and cost-effective after-school, weekend, or summer havens for children, youth, and their families. The U.S. Department of Education provides a flexible source of funding that, when combined with other school and community resources, can permanently redefine the ways in which multiple institutions in the community work together in support of student learning. The experience of the Institute for Education Leadership, which has worked on the governance of the 21st CCLC since it inception, strongly suggests that collaborative governance is necessary both to build effective school-community initiatives and to transform 21st CCLC's from successful after-school programs to a sustainable system of community schools; however, this current study of grantee programs found that in the second year, formal, cross-sector governing bodies created expressly for the 21st CCLC grant have functioned weakly at the community level, if at all. Also, a 3-year grant period and an emphasis on programming have left grantees little time or incentive to develop long-range governing strategies. Cross-sector teams generally do not receive sufficient cross-sector guidance and policy support from community-level governing bodies, technical assistance, and staff support for the adequate integration, expansion, and sustaining of successful approaches. This report calls on the Department of Education to continue to request 5-year grant authority from Congress for subsequent 21st CCLC grant competitions and to give priority to applicants with demonstrated collaborative capacity. It also recommends that the grant provide technical assistance to teams at the site level that currently do not receive such assistance. A 5-item bibliography