The Community School Effect

• In Event: Community Schools: Collective Trust, Collective Action, and Collective Impact

Abstract

The primary research questions were: Is there an achievement difference between students in TACSI schools and students in comparable non TACSI schools? Does development of the community school model in TACSI schools make a difference in student achievement? If an achievement effect exists, what social conditions contribute to differences in student achievement?

Theoretical Model
Figure one displays the core components of TACSI’s community school model. Cross-boundary leadership; holistic programs, services, and opportunities; family and community engagement; and community based learning work collectively to shape instructional capacity. And, instructional capacity is predicted to mediate student achievement.

Instructional capacity is a school’s ability to maximize instructional performance (Corocran & Goertz, 1995). Actual performance is different than potential, and this difference affects approaches to enhance capacity as well as indicators to measure it. Instructional capacity is defined by normative conditions under which effective teaching and learning occur: Specifically, instructional leadership, collective trust, and collective efficacy.

Data Source
Data for this study were collected from 2,130 students and 1,095 faculty members from 36 schools in May and early June of 2009.

Analytical Technique
Three types of models were fitted: 1) Random effects ANOVA, 2) Random Intercepts Means-as-Outcomes, and 3) Random Intercepts and Slopes as Outcomes.

Results
RQ1: Evidence does not support significant achievement differences between students in TACSI schools and students in comparison schools (table two). There were no significant differences in math (γ01 = -12) or reading achievement (γ01 = -9) between the two groups of schools.

RQ2: Students in TACSI schools at the highest diffusion levels (i.e. mentoring and sustaining) significantly outperformed all other students in the sample on math (γ02 = 32, p ≤ .01) and reading (γ02 = 19, p≤ .05) achievement tests (see table three). Additionally, development of the theory of action was a stronger school level predictor of math and reading performance than school SES (γ03 = -0.45; γ03 = -0.48).

RQ3: Results from the random intercepts means-as-outcomes model (see table eight) found that collective student trust in teachers (γ11 = 11, p ≤ .01; γ11 = 9, p ≤ .01) and collective faculty trust in students and parents (γ12 = 18, p ≤ .01; γ12 = 19, p ≤ .01 ) were stronger school level predictors of math and reading achievement than school SES (γ13 = .05). Findings also show that these forms of collective trust explain differences in the relationship between individual qualification for the lunch subsidy and individual student achievement.

Implications
A significant achievement difference attributed to development of TACSI’s theory of action suggested that depth of reform had consequences for student performance. School improvement implications include: the importance of setting the instructional system as the unit of improvement, specifying reform as a social and learning process, and targeting the psychological and social sources of underperformance.

Author

• Curt M. Adams, University of Oklahoma