September 2008: Making connections

A national taskforce says that building better relationships between schools and communities is a must to raise achievement in the lowest-performing schools. Principal Kurt Jones of Libby Elementary knows it will take the best efforts of the community and the school staff to turn around the failing school. His mantra: “I cannot do it alone.”

Cover Stories

• A bridge to progress CPS has seen marked gains in test scores at its elementary schools in the past five years, yet Libby in New City is among a group of about 40 where already-low scores continue to lag. Back in the 1990s, a racial mix of students attended failing schools. Today, those left behind are almost exclusively low-income black students. Looking at demographics and resources, more attention is being paid to a suspected missing piece that is not easily seen or measured.
  
• Medill Elementary: Doing what it takes For years, Medill’s test scores have been firmly lodged in the basement. But Principal Denise Gamble, brought in by the district as a turnaround principal in 2006 after the previous principal was removed for poor performance, has a game plan to turn the school around. New programs and improved teaching are part of that plan. But Gamble also has something more deep-rooted in mind: building bridges to the community and creating a sense of trust between parents and the school. That kind of relationship-building, research says, is key to school improvement.
  
• Beyond the classroom Increasingly, educators and researchers are reaching the conclusion that schools need to take a more holistic approach if they are to successfully educate children in troubled communities. Five schools get $18 million to raise performance through longer school days, enrichment classes and on-site health clinics.
  
• Focusing on the assets Bringing out students’ talents is an educational cornerstone of asset-based community development, an approach to neighborhood revitalization championed by the Asset-Based Community Development Institute at Northwestern University. The approach aims to use the strengths, skills and resources of local residents and institutions to improve a community and its schools.
  
• From outside to inside schools When it comes to forging solid relationships between communities and schools, Logan Square Neighborhood Association has it all figured out.
  

Letter From the Editor Making connections: Sounds easy until you try it It boggles the mind that a solution—maybe the solution—to the intransigent problem of fixing the worst public schools could sound so simple: making connections. Yet these deceptively simple two words are monumentally difficult to achieve and sustain.