Explores neighborhood-based, interagency collaboration, using qualitative research methodology. Interagency participants believed that neighborhood-based collaboration provided treatment at the core of student struggles, shared responsibility among service providers for student problems, increased accessibility of services, and personalized…

Prepares the way for an institutional analysis of strategic interventions for collaboration, drawing on recent research by Crowson, Boyd, and other organizational theorists. Using a framework of institutional propositions, analyzes strategic efforts to promote collaborative efforts to enhance students' life chances in a Canadian high school, as…

Encourages environmental and outdoor educators to promote bicycling. In the community and the curriculum, cycling connects environmental issues, health and fitness, law and citizenship, appropriate technology, and the joy of being outdoors. Describes the Ontario Cycling Association's cycling strategy and its four components: school cycling…

To discover whether the salubrious effects of parental involvement hold for inner-city students, a Chicago elementary school researched, planned, implemented, and evaluated a broad-based parental participation program serving third-graders. Participating students' reading achievement improved by four months, and parents' interest in education…

Examines the current status of school, family, and community partnerships, reviews partnership research, and makes recommendations for further research. Researchers should begin with multiple, detailed case studies, define terms precisely, clarify outcomes, understand partnership theory and activities, involve participants, use objective measures,…

Asserts that arts programs must be strong in themselves in order to survive; arts programs thrive through the collaboration of teachers, administrators, parents, students, and the community. Gives a multitude of steps, from program quality to informing the community, as a way for arts educators and advocates to take a stand. (CMK)

Recounts a Pennsylvania community's reluctance and eventual approval of a new charter school. Considers political forces from a systems-design perspective; highlights the community involvement process as expressed in public hearings. Discusses reasons for resistance and legislative incentives to overcome it. Makes legislative recommendations. (MLH)

Using ethnographic techniques, this article explores the complex interaction of control and caring in two alternative education programs for students resisting traditional schooling in Cincinnati (Ohio) Public Schools, a predominantly low-income, African-American urban school district. A community-based orientation for staff proves essential in…

The key to handling persistent challenges (increased accountability demands, unstable superintendencies, educator shortages, minority underachievement, and resistant high schools) is breaking down institutional barriers separating today's schools from their surrounding communities. Tapping human and cultural resources and offering better…

High school improvement is possible with visionary leadership and common goals. Ayer (Massachusetts) High School is a small, comprehensive school that has restructured itself to meet 21st century needs. Revolutionary changes have occurred in instructional improvement, core curriculum, technology education, class size, graduation requirements,…

A former principal describes how a "problem" rural Alaskan school became a model of positive self-esteem, community involvement, student achievement, and enthusiasm for learning. She discusses problems (cultural dissonance and fragmented curricula), the project's philosophical basis in cultural sensitivity and personality-type theory,…

Poverty is prevalent in rural communities and has a pervasive impact on education. Rural schools must create partnerships with local businesses and empower and include parents in the education of their children. Presents five social and economic barriers to rural educational improvement, and outlines characteristics of successful models of…

Describes the SCI-FEST (Science Collaborative Initiative-Festival to Enhance Science and Technology) where community members worked together to put on a successful science festival for the whole family. Discusses the planning and implementation of the festival which included nearly 100 hands-on science activities, skits, puppet shows, and…

Challenges the idea that personal experience with issues or events in a community diminishes the use of mass media. Uses the community attachments model to hypothesize that personal experience will increase newspaper reading. Supports the key hypothesis when it comes to reading of the local community weekly and student newspapers, but not for the…

Evaluations of rural and small schools done by stakeholders provide a broader base of involvement than those done internally by persons with a vested interest or potential conflict of interest. Presents tasks for initiating a stakeholders' evaluation, groups considered to be stakeholders, evaluation standards, and elements to include in a school…