As the summer starts to wind down, I thought I’d end my summer blogging hiatus with a discussion on education, specifically what communities can do to turnaround underperforming school districts. Here in Pennsylvania, there will be a lot of discussion on education funding over the next few weeks, but additional funding in and of itself is not the answer. Local communities must realize that any plans to turnaround underperforming districts can only happen with the community and parents working in partnership with the schools.
Education should be about empowering our children to achieve in life. We all know that education does not start in first grade, but begins at home when the child is born and continues in the local community as the child matures. In order to improve education, parents and community leaders should be part of an inclusive process to assess a district’s strengths, challenges and needs, to develop a vision, and a plan to meet those needs. Local community leadership should be connecting with residents looking for ways to combine their ongoing engagement with the structure of No Child Left Behind in its school district
Each community should be focused on how to surround its children with a community of support, empowering students to stay in school. Each community should be about connecting students and their families to critical community resources that are tailored to their needs, and all designed to prepare those students to succeed. Resources could include “wrap-around” supports for students who cannot learn to their full potential when they are hungry, feel unsafe in school or whose parents cannot support their education at home. Each community should be about identifying how best to link its unique community resources together with its educational resources in order to provide an effective, nurturing learning environment.
It’s not just the money spent on education; it’s about building active and ongoing partnerships between parents, communities and school districts.
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