This report serves as a legacy document for the Ford Foundation's More and Better Learning Time (MBLT) initiative. It summarizes the approaches to and outcomes and challenges of successful MBLT strategies around the country. The report includes data from a survey for Ford Foundation MBLT grantees across the country and from case studies in Denver,…

Despite progress in urban teacher preparation over the past 40 years, concerns still remain about transforming programs and practices in order to affect teachers' capacities to work with culturally diverse communities. These concerns include time in course curricula for discussion and reflection on field-based work, adequate supervision in…

A community school is a place and a set of partnerships connecting a school, the families of students, and the surrounding community. A community school is distinguished by an integrated focus on academics, youth development, family support, health and social services, and community development. The community school strategy is central to efforts…

The purpose of this study was to describe a collaborative partnership model known as the Global Educational Ecosystem, which involves three K-12 schools in Northern California, community organizations (representing science, technology, health, and arts), and Xilinx, Inc. from the perspectives of the leaders of the involved partner organizations in…

Co-author of the popular titles "Booktalking Bonanza" and "The Early Literacy Kit", Betsy Diamant-Cohen brings together 18 examples of successful outreach partnerships that children's librarians and administrators can adapt to their own situations. Contributors from the U.S and Canada explain how they partnered with schools,…

The Students and Technology in Academia, Research, and Service (STARS) Alliance is a nationally-connected system of regional partnerships among higher education, K-12 schools, industry and the community with a mission to broaden the participation of women, under-represented minorities and persons with disabilities in computing (BPC). Each regional…

Teacher education programs have a long history of producing excellent health and physical education (HPE) teachers for suburban school districts. But graduates who start their career at high-need schools often feel poorly prepared to face the challenges of low-income school districts, schools, and students. This article is directed primarily to…

Massachusetts is heralded nationally for being the first in the nation to enact a state policy to redesign and expand the learning day for all students to advance academic achievement, broaden enrichment opportunities, and improve instruction. The Expanded Learning Time (ELT) Initiative has gained momentum over the past several years due to the…

In this article, the author features the Middle College High School (MCHS), which grants teenagers a judicious mix of freedom and structure as it propels them toward adulthood. MCHS allows students to take courses at LaGuardia Community College, and is also piloting a program in which students stay a thirteenth year and graduate with an Associate…

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) created the Relocation Program in 1952 to sever Indian federal trust status and impose Euro-American values on Indians all under the guise of benevolence. Led from reservations to urban areas, Indians found the problems of their reservations in their new locations: few employment opportunities, poor housing…

The Llano Grande Center is a non-profit education and community development organization founded in the mid-1990s by youth and teachers out of a public high school classroom in a rural South Texas (USA) community. The Center was created, in large part, to cultivate youth voices as important elements of curriculum development and teacher training…

Our children deserve an education that fully prepares them for the future--success in college, the workforce and a healthy, fulfilled life. The Massachusetts Expanded Learning Time (ELT) Initiative is redesigning and expanding the school schedule to offer children new learning and enrichment opportunities. With state resources, participating…

To make more valuable to the people those things from which the people are accustomed to derive value has been appropriately been said to be the prime business of legislators. That the schoolhouse, whose value to the people is already great, may become still more valuable to them, is the purpose of the community-organization movement which the…

The partnerships described in this article represent the fruits of two decades of collaboration between the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), community organizations, and the public schools in Philadelphia (particularly schools in West Philadelphia, where Penn is located). Penn's Center for Community Partnerships (CCP) has worked with other…

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants to ensure schools and child care facilities are safe environments for the nation's children. In response to rising public concern over the health risks posed to young children by lead in the drinking water, EPA is launching a "3Ts--Training, Testing, and Telling" program. This…