As I travel across the country to talk with school and community leaders about the importance of community schools, part of the conversation is always about whether children are ready to learn when they enter school. People want to know how schools are working with early childhood programs to achieve...

For more than 80 years, no new school was built in East Los Angeles. In the past several years, the efforts of a community organizing group, a dedicated group of teachers, an array of community partners, the students, and the parents converged to demand change -- and to make it...

During a recent trip to California, I learned what student advocacy really means at John C. Fremont High School in South Los Angeles. I saw first-hand what can happen when adults in schools, families, and the community, work together with young people to create the opportunity for them to thrive....

I spent several days of the Chicago strike week 300 miles to the southeast, in Cincinnati, a city of some 350,000. Although it faces most of the same challenges as its bigger neighbor, Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) and its many public and private partners are further ahead in addressing the...

As Secretary Arne Duncan travels the country on his Back-to-School bus tour, he has refocused his attention on the community schools strategy as a vehicle for implementing a Broader Bolder Approach to Education. Speaking in Kansas City, he described our public schools as community...

This is a challenging time to be young and poor in the United States.

The new global economy demands that our young people master 21st century skills and have the technical know-how by the time they graduate. And yet, many of our children will have completed the K-12 public...

I recently heard a story that explains why the community schools model -- a reform approach I've been touting for about twenty years now -- is so effective at helping children succeed in the classroom.

The story is about a small school district in northern California called San Rafael City...

Strong leaders are key to building strong and innovative schools, and so I want to share some insights about the tremendous people who are leading the community schools movement. I'm talking about people like John Porter, Jan Christensen, and Richard Carranza, all superintendents and, all of whom are working to...

Last week, Rebecca Mieliwocki spoke at the White House after being honored by President Obama with the National Teacher of the Year award. The seventh grade English teacher from the racially and economically diverse Luther Burbank Middle School in Burbank, California made clear that "commitment to...

"We tend to put considerations of family, community, and economy off-limits in education-reform policy... at our peril," a phrase from Paul Barton at Educational Testing Services (ETS), was the first thing that crossed my mind when I read Paul Peterson's recent Education Next piece. Then...

The headline from the latest MetLife Survey of the American Teacher warns education policymakers and leaders in our schools and communities that teachers are increasingly dissatisfied with their jobs. Teachers with low job satisfaction rates feel they don't get support, that they work in isolation, and have less...

Ask any parent, or for that matter, any student -- they've always known that good teachers are better than bad ones. And those of us lucky enough to have had one or two can remember the long-term impact of a really great teacher. Recent research, however, gives us a more...

There comes a time when many fine examples of how to improve learning and life conditions for our children and young people hits a ceiling. They cannot get to scale, because as exemplary as they may be, they have an "isolated impact" on the issues. While collaboration may be part...

It is almost a nightly ritual now -- the airways filled with scenes of angry, demanding and sometimes victorious crowds wanting change to happen. I missed one of the most hopeful demonstrations, however. Recently, while visiting Cape Town, South Africa, the former education adviser for the South African Bank told...

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has warned of an ominous "New Normal" for public schools. This era of sky-high deficits and fiscal austerity for states and school districts threatens our ability to achieve better outcomes for all students, particularly the most vulnerable. That leaves us no choice but to...

With education topping his agenda, President Obama sent a powerful message during last month's State of the Union address: No school is an island. "Education," Obama said, "begins not in our classrooms, but in our homes and communities."

"We know what's possible for our children," he continued, "when reform isn't...