Rebuilding the Neighborhood? Don’t Forget the School
By A. J. Johnson & Caitlin Jones
3 min read
Tax Credit Advisor, March 2009: Just about every neighborhood has a corner school. But when the neighborhood is revitalized, is the school improved as well?
Enterprise Community Partners is highlighting a possible national model for improvement of neighborhood schools, in a new white paper on “school-centered community revitalization.” The report is the last of three on the subject commissioned by Enterprise.
According to the report, school-centered community revitalization (SCCR) is “an approach to comprehensive community revitalization in which leaders of neighborhood development efforts make improving academic outcomes for neighborhood children a central part of their strategy. A sponsor committed to the health of the neighborhood creates a partnership with the neighborhood’s elementary schools to make substantial improvements to those areas that have proven to be essential for improving academic outcomes: principal and teacher quality, research-based high quality curriculum, and early childhood education.”
The report adds, “All SCCR efforts will have at their core an effort to improve the quality of the neighborhood’s affordable housing stock à for example, through public housing redevelopment, rehabilitation of rental housing, or subsidies to promote homeownership à but the neighborhood approach may also include economic development, workforce development, community organizing, or anti-crime initiatives.”
The report argues for a more systematic, holistic approach that supports and lifts performance in the neighborhood elementary school at the same time the entire neighborhood is being revitalized through affordable housing development and other improvements.
The report identifies multiple benefits from SCCR. “…High quality public education is an essential component of transforming distressed urban neighborhoods into healthy communities that sustain themselves over time. Without strong primary schooling, adults lack the knowledge and skills to be competitive in the workforce and earn enough to break the cycle of poverty. A shortage of good public school options also makes it difficult to increase or retain income diversity in a neighborhood…”
The report notes there have been a limited number of SCCR initiatives undertaken so far in the U.S. One is in Baltimore, where Enterprise since 1995 has sought to improve two elementary schools in the Sandtown neighborhood as it redevelops the community.
The report calls for establishment of a new federal competitive demonstration grant program to support and evaluate multiple SCCR activities and determine whether the concept should be rolled out nationwide. This demo would provide modest-sized grants to 20 external “sponsors” of elementary schools to primarily cover a sponsor’s costs that subsidize school activities directly. For example, an annual $250,000 grant might be used to cover the full-time salary of an experienced senior staff person, and modest extra programming at the school.
The report also recommends other actions by state and local governments and philanthropic organizations to support SCCR initiatives.
(Policy Roadmap for Expanding School-Center Community Revitalization: http://www. practitionerresources.org/cache/ documents/669/66901.pdf)
