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Below are some of the questions from the audience that there wasn’t time to address. The answers come from the from the speakers and series organizers. Please continue the conversation by adding your comment at the bottom of this Q&A.

1. Is the research on the five essential supports for school improvement truly groundbreaking? 

It is true that the “five essentials” -- coherent, ambitious instruction; strong professional capacity; robust parent-community ties; supportive student-centered learning climate; and school leadership as driver for change -- are not a surprising list.  However, the Consortium’s research is groundbreaking in these ways: 

• The length and breadth of the study is remarkable.  Depending on the data we had for particular questions, the study includes from 210 to 390 CPS elementary schools (excluding high performance and magnet schools) in the 1990s, and the results were replicated later for about 360 schools between 1997 and 2005 for a total of 15 years. Typical education studies are much smaller and span a much shorter time period. Individual schools can continue to track their “five essentials” by participating in the Consortium’s student, teacher and principal surveys that are conducted every other year. Schools with 50 percent or more of its students and 42 percent or more of the teachers responding receive a confidential report of the results for their school. The next survey occurs in 2009.  
• The study establishes a clear connection between the existence and strength of the five essentials and growth in student achievement.  CPS has adopted this framework and asks schools to use it in their planning and budgeting. 
• This may be the only major study to simultaneously identify factors internal to the school and external to the school that affect learning gains. Typically researchers investigate community factors or school factors but not both. This is critical because it allowed Consortium researchers to find out that strong essential supports contributed to learning gains, even in communities with weak social capital.
• It is also important that the research creates a framework for thinking about change that goes beyond thinking about just particular programs and structures.  It helps (we hope) school leaders think more holistically about what they are doing.

See also the posted background paper for a description of the data sources used in the “five essentials” research.   If you want to know the specific school survey items that the Consortium used, download the full report and look at pages 51-56. 

2.  What is the relevance of the research to community organizations and community organizers?  

From Kim Zalent, BPI, who was a community organizer for many years in Chicago and New York City.

This research powerfully affirms a fundamental organizing practice -- the importance of intentionally making relationships and not depending on just those that accidentally happen. Relationships build the ability to get things done (a.k.a. power), trust and community inside and outside the school. Or, as Charles Payne said, “What can I get done with you that I couldn’t get done without you?”  

Too often, the making of relationships takes a back seat as we (organizers and educators) do our work. We rush along, picking issues or working on tasks, not setting aside time to get to know someone (and for her/him to get to know us). Rather, we should be open to a variety of relationships that can inform us and the work. We rely on large group meetings, instead of meeting one-to-one and in small groups. All of us miss out on an important source of energy, passions, trust, ideas and talents when we cheat on relationship-building. 

You might want to check out the report “Organized Communities, Stronger Schools: A Preview of Research Findings” and think about the five essentials as you read the findings of a six-year study in seven urban communities, including Chicago.  

Charles Payne adds:

This research also raises some questions about what community organizing is. For many old-chool organizers, the essence of organizing is conflict with the powerful on behalf of the powerless. Coming out of that tradition, it may be difficult for some to adjust to the idea that one of the kinds of contributions community groups are uniquely positioned to make is building/rebuilding social capital.  

3.  How many schools with strong essential supports had a high number of “bad” teachers?  

The research did not track this question. However, other research has found that less effective teachers “raise their game” (or else leave) when working in schools where there is a strong professional culture and internal accountability. Conversely, “good” teachers who are isolated or frustrated in schools with weak leadership and professional culture find that their teaching, motivation and focus can suffer. Teacher quality matters -- and important strides have been made in this area --  but so do the other essential supports.

4.  Is there anything in the research that indicates that improvements in social relationships outside the school can impact those inside the school or vice versa?

The essential supports study found that it was much more common for schools with strong internal essential support practices to be located in communities with more social capital and relatively fewer students who had experienced abuse and neglect. In other words, stronger schools were located in communities where there was a strong sense of community, where there was more religious participation, and where there was some bridging social capital that connected the residents to people outside the community. So this implies that it was easier to establish better schools in these communities and that the healthy relationships outside the community probably contributed to stronger teamwork inside the school.  

5.  What can CPS schools that are located in communities with weak social supports do to continue improving? What are the ways that teachers can connect to school capital?  What can organizations who want to make changes in schools do to break these barriers? 

This is the conundrum.  It’s significantly harder to improve schools without community social capital, yet the schools that need improvement the most have the least access to it. This will be the focus of the second and the third luncheons, especially the third.

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