Neighborhoods Matter: The Role of Universities in the School Reform Neighborhood Development Movement

• In Event: Community-School-University Partnerships: Exploring Universities as Catalysts for Comprehensive School Reform

Abstract

Summary:
Where you find distressed neighborhoods, you will also find poorly performing public schools. Yet, many contemporary school reform efforts ignore neighborhood-level factors that undeniably impact school performance. By focusing on a federal Choice neighborhood initiative, the study will not only make the case for connecting school reform and neighborhood development, but also it will present a model that demonstrates how this can happen. The study will also make a strong case for the university’s unique role in fostering neo-collaborative structures fit to take on wicked problems of neighborhood distress and urban decline.

Purpose:
The purpose of this study is to use a case study approach using social institutional and urban school reform regime frameworks to demonstrate why school reform and the re-creation and redevelopment of distressed neighborhoods should occur simultaneously. At the same time, researchers will examine the role of higher education in catalyzing partnerships with so-called anchor institutions for the explicit purposes of simultaneously improving neighborhoods and reforming schools.

Perspective(s) or Theoretical Framework:
Using both urban regime (Shipps, 2008) and anchor institution (Taylor & Luter, 2013) frameworks, this study examines the experiences of the UB Center for Urban Studies in formulating a school reform strategy interwoven with neighborhood revitalization.

Methods:
In the tradition of interpretative policy analysis (Yanow, 2000) and case study analysis (Yin, 2009), the paper grounds its observations and interpretations in fieldwork, direct experiences, and historical analyses.

Data Sources:
This interpretive analysis builds on three bodies literature: (1) neighborhood effects on school reform, (2) anchor institutions, and (3) urban regimes. The unit of analysis is a local Choice Neighborhoods (US Department of Housing and Urban Development) planning effort in Buffalo, NY.

Results:
The approach outlined in this paper argues that we can bring about a change in the education of inner-city students in three interrelated ways. The first, and most important, is to create interactive linkages between schools and distressed neighborhoods. The second is to establish high quality K-12 academic enrichment and supportive service programs. The third key to altering educational outcomes for inner-city students is to establish high quality summer enrichment programs, providing project based learning experiences that focus on community development. The university has the potential to shape the urban education regime in this direction by creating “inside” and “outside” strategies that pressure school districts to frame inner-city public schools as focal points neighborhood development that will produce academically successful children that will grow into critically conscious and engaged adults.

Scholarly Significance:
Persistent failure of urban school reform (Stuit, 2010) tells us that something must be done to transform inner-city schools located in distressed neighborhoods. Growing evidence illustrates that the current building-centric models of school reform and market-based approaches to education transformation fall short of addressing the root of the educational challenge (Weiss & Long, 2013). This paper uses the neighborhood effects literature (Ainsworth, 2002; Owens, 2012) as a basis for building a model of comprehensive neighborhood-linked urban school reform.

Authors

• Henry L Taylor, SUNY - Buffalo

• Gavin Luter, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Linda McGlynn, University at Buffalo - SUNY