Annotated bibliography on communities and schools

Lee B. And Harkavy I., (2001). Leading The Way To Meaningful Partnerships

This article looks into the matter of contention in the partnerships between the community, schools and higher education institutions. The article emphasizes on the importance of these partnerships while looking deep into detail on each of the three subjects and analyzes carefully various methods of assessing each. The article gives various strategies and protocol that can be followed and used effectively while considering the outcomes and initial experiences passed through while analyzing each method. These strategies include the ability to increase the potential of the institutions by careful involvement of each party concerned to play the varied and distributed roles. The government is proposed by the authors as links which can enhance connect the parties involved with resources and power leading to the right path of meeting these goals.

Warren M. R., (2004). Communities and Schools: A New View of Urban Education Reform.

This article elaborates the validity of having a community-oriented approach to education as a reform alternative. The article clearly and vividly describes the community-oriented approach while expounding the various components involved with an in-depth approach. The article clearly outlines the relationships that exist between the communities and schools. It outlines the ways in which communities and schools correlate and also distinguishes the differences while maintaining the importance of the approach. The author illustrates the different types of school-community collaborations and clearly describes the working procedure of each method. The author also provides relevant examples with every type of school-community collaboration that work well. The article is concluded with the illustration of the possible solution that is in the nature of social change among the community, schools and generally among all the involved parties and indicates that this would clearly and properly address the issue.

Warren M. R., Hong S., Rubin C. L., and Uy P. S., (ND). Beyong the Bake Sale: A Community-Based Relational Approach to Parent Engagement in Schools.

This article presents a community-based relational approach to foster parent involvement in schools. It also gives the details of a case study that has been carried out to investigate the relationships between the school and the community. The details of the study indicate a positive direction taken by the approach. The results of the study to three school-community collaborations are given and the article gives clear indicators that for a strong parent involvement in education, the educator’s collaboration with community partners would be very essential. The authors finally conclude that the collaboration needs to be fostered appropriately for the achievement of a good approach.

Lopez M. E., (2003). Transforming Schools Through Community Organizing: A Research Review.

This article describes community organizing and the influence and relationships it has on the school and the community. The article portrays the community organizing approach clearly with in-depth explanations of the approach. It expounds community organizing and its characteristics including strategies that engage the parents in this approach. It further looks at community organizing method’s mode of correlating to various components like parents in enabling the interrelationship between the various parties involved. It further explores the manner which it strengthens school reform efforts. This article also defines community organizing and explains how it works. It further clarifies on how community organizing is different from other methods and distinguishes it clearly from parent involvement. It also puts out how this method affects relationships among parents. The author finally concludes that community organizing strengthens reform efforts but recognizes that it is one among the methods that connect the low-income communities and schools to achieve success for all students.

Gold E., Elaine S., Mundell L., and Brown C., (2011). Bringing Community Organizing into the School Reform Picture.

This article looks at community organizing method and its importance in sustaining the urban school reform. It looks at how the education reform has faired in the last couple of years. The article gives a clear indication that the urban school population experiences many external factors of different nature – positive and negative. It clearly states that these urban schools are the most affected by poor performance due to the external factors. The authors put out that there are efforts that are being put into practice to ensure the establishment of the goals by the community organizing groups. The authors detail on how to successfully connect schools and communities for a lasting coexistence. The authors conclude with findings that community-based groups which are external factors push and work alongside educators are key to school reform efforts.

Cohen-Vogel L., Goldring E., and Smrekar C., (2010) The Influence of Local Conditions on Social Service Partnerships, Parent Involvement, and Community Engagement in Neighborhood Schools.

This article describes the influence of neighborhood conditions in shaping social outcomes. The influence illustrated in the article is mainly of certain factors that are noticeable in the surrounding communities and immediate environment around the areas of the neighborhoods. It gives examples of how some neighborhoods display a mode of connectedness and how an assumption of responsibility for collective outcomes is usually prevalent in such neighborhoods. These kind of neighborhoods generally correlate well with the institutions surrounding them due to the collective assumption of roles to each community member. The article explains ways in which schools interact with their external environments and clearly gives out the implications of the interactions.

Good T. L., Wiley A. R., Thomas R. E., Stewart E., McCoy J., Kloos B., Hunt G. D., Moore T., and Rappaport J. (1997) Bridging the Gap Between Schools and Community: Organizing for Family Involvement in a Low-Income Neighborhood.

This is a case study of community psychology consultation which illustrates the assessment, collaboration, and organizing activities dictated by open-systems. This study describes the existence of neighborhood factors that affect or influence family involvement. It also studies the organizational structures and identifies that there exists some organizational structures that limit the involvement of parents in the organizations. It further indicates that the vital parental roles are therefore limited.

Auerback S., (2009) Walking the Walk: Portraits in Leadership for Family Engagement in Urban Schools

This article portrays that family and community engagement in school matters are a powerful tool for the progress of the institutions. It further states that the institutions that go deep into seeing that this correlation is achieved are often successful. This article includes results of a case study done in Los Angeles. The study revolves around four administrators carefully selected as exemplars and information-rich. Data for the study is collected thorough in-depth, semi-structured interviews with the exemplars. The conclusion of the case study is that family engagement is vital for school progress.