City leaders mobilize communities to improve public schools

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City Leaders Mobilize Communities to Improve Public SchoolsReprinted with permission from the AnnenbergInstitute for School Reform at Brown University.This article originally appeared as a Special Reportin Nation’s Cities Weekly, September 25, 2006.

A recent study of five cities by the Annenberg Institutefor School Reform at Brown University, in coopera-tion with the National League of Cities’ (NLC)Institute for Youth, Education, and Families and theEducation Policy Advisors Network, focused on may-ors who are responding to the challenge of improvinglocal public schools by seeking new and more effectiveways to engage key segments of their communities.

The mayors of the cities that were covered in thestudy’s report, “Engaging Cities: How MunicipalLeaders Can Mobilize Communities to ImprovePublic Schools,” have used the visibility and author-ity of their office to mobilize their communityaround investing in young people and in the futureof their city.

What Mayors Are Doing

If the nation is to make good on its declared goal ofensuring educational success for all students, it mustmobilize the entire education capacity of cities.Teachers, principals, and central office administra-tors are an essential part of—but not the only play-ers in—such efforts.

Municipal leaders and agencies, public libraries,grassroots organizers, after-school providers, busi-nesses, higher education facilities, and the generalpublic must work in alliance with educators to pro-vide better learning opportunities for young peoplebefore, during, and after the school day.

More than at any time in the nation’s history, mayorsare playing an active role in mobilizing these com-munity interests to act collectively on behalf of chil-dren and youth. These leaders see a vital link betweentheir cities’ capacity to prepare young people for suc-cessful adulthood and long-term civic vitality.Mayors have a unique ability to bring together some-times competing groups around a compelling com-mon interest: the future of the city’s children.

The mayors of the five cities in the AnnenbergInstitute study—Denver; Akron, Ohio; Long Beach,California; Nashville, Tennessee; and New York—have used practical, high-yield public engagementstrategies, along with resources they have found orcreated, to rally their communities in support ofpublic education. They have often done this withoutmuch formal authority over the school system’sbudget, personnel, or school board.

The study results show that mayors have success-fully used their unique position to:

• Place public education high on the city’s list ofpriorities

• Work toward ensuring adequate funding andresources

• Forge partnerships that enrich and sustainschools

• Build public will and support to improve out-comes for the city’s children and youth

Denver: Increasing Latino Achievement

After a coalition of Latino community organizationsand activists met with Denver Mayor JohnHickenlooper in 2003 to express their concerns,

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Nat ional Civ ic Review • DOI : 10.1002/ncr.163 • Spr ing 2007

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they proposed that he convene a summit on Latinoacademic achievement. The mayor was receptive.

The issue had already been raised by the Rev. LucíaGuzmán, executive director of the city’s Agency forHuman Rights and Community Relations, andMaría Guajardo Lucero, executive director of theMayor’s Office for Education and Children.

Latinos are the largest and fastest-growing segmentof the city’s student population and among thosewith the greatest needs. Student achievement datasuggest that the achievement gap between white andLatino students is substantial and growing.

Engaging the Community in a Broad-Based SummitLucero sought input on the summit from a range ofindividuals and organizations. To her surprise, manymore people wanted to participate in the event thanthey had originally planned. “Once people got windof it, there was great interest,” she said.

The planning group was strategic about extendinginvitations and assigning roles at the summit. “Itmakes everyone’s work harder to have so many peo-ple involved,” said Mayor Hickenlooper. “But youend up with a final product that’s far superior towhatever a city agency could come up with by itself.”

In 2004, Hickenlooper convened the Mayor’sSummit on Latino Academic Achievement. Somethree hundred business leaders, elected officials, com-munity activists, and educators attended, addressingsuch issues as teachers’ roles, parent engagement,the role of language, preschool education, and ac-cess to higher education. By all accounts, the meet-ing was a success.

Keeping to Clear Goals“A lot of what the mayor’s office can do is keepcommunicating different aspects of the challenge,”Hickenlooper said. He believes this can be done bycreating a sense of urgency and “educating citizensand businesses that they can make a difference on

something that’s of great importance to them: theirbusiness’s future, the city’s future.” The conferencefocused on these goals.

The Colorado Children’s Campaign presented starkdata on demographics and educational outcomes.Addressing the business community, former MayorFederico Peña said, “We are losing the global war toproduce the smartest and most creative work forcein this century. We must act now, and we must espe-cially focus on Latino students.”

Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust, pro-vided local and national examples of schools anddistricts where Latino children achieved educationat a high level.

Keeping the Momentum GoingMayor Hickenlooper pledged to hold a follow-upmeeting one hundred days after the summit to con-sider next steps. The second meeting drew an over-flow crowd—more than two hundred people—andled to new partnerships and pledges for action.Hickenlooper and his staff have kept the issue ofLatino achievement high on the agenda in theDenver public schools. The mayor visits schoolsweekly and asks principals what they are doing tosupport Latino achievement.

These events did not magically create a citywidecoalition for educational improvement. But theywere a rare opportunity for various sectors to meetand consider the issues; they also brought new play-ers to the table, such as Latino activists. The busi-ness community and higher education institutions

National Civ ic Review DOI : 10.1002/ncr Spr ing 2007

If the nation is to make good on its declared goalof ensuring educational success for all students, itmust mobilize the entire education capacity ofcities. Teachers, principals, and central officeadministrators are an essential part of—but notthe only players in—such efforts.

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have indicated that they are ready to undertakemore comprehensive efforts to improve education inDenver.

Linda Alvarado, president of a Denver constructioncompany, said, “There are more than 50 percentLatinos in the Denver public schools. This is ourwork force.”

Akron: City-School Board Partnership

When the State of Ohio created a capital fund forrebuilding schools, Akron Mayor Don Plusquellicsaw an unparalleled opportunity. If Akron couldraise matching funds, it would qualify for $800 mil-lion over fifteen years—but the voters would need toapprove a tax increase.

On their first try, in 2002, the mayor and his sup-porters failed to convince voters to pass a county-wide sales tax referendum. Laraine Duncan, deputymayor for intergovernmental relations, recalled,“Sadly, school districts outside of Akron didn’t seethe benefit to their bottom lines, and county resi-dents rejected the idea that they should participate inhelping the Akron Public Schools.”

Championing School Funding CampaignsAccording to former Deputy Superintendent DonnaLoomis, “Don cared so deeply about this issue thathe was not going to leave a stone unturned to find away to raise matching funds.” Plusquellic soughtlegal advice and found that Ohio laws allow cities touse income tax revenue to construct or improvecommunity learning centers. His staff developed anew measure, Issue 10, which would be voted on byAkron residents but levied on any individual whoworked in Akron and not be assessed againstincome from pensions, Social Security, or invest-ment. The mayor and community leaders cam-paigned hard, and in 2003 voters approved themeasure.

Duncan said that a key to the successful campaignwas to highlight that the community learning cen-

ters (CLCs) would be open to the public at alltimes, including summer months. Loomis said cre-ation of the centers opened the door for new part-nerships with nonprofits, such as the one that ledto recent groundbreaking for facilities to be sharedby the Helen Arnold CLC and the Akron UrbanLeague.

Another critical selling point during the campaignfor Issue 10 was the impact that an $800 millioninfusion of construction funds—the largest capitalexpenditure program in the city’s history—wouldhave on Akron’s economy. Businesses, unions, andresidents of Wards 3 and 4, the locus of AfricanAmerican community life, all strongly supported themeasure.

Creating Partnerships to Rebuild SchoolsTo implement the plan to transform Akron’s entiresystem of fifty-seven schools, the city and school dis-trict entered into a formal partnership governed bya joint use agreement. Having already workedtogether on the Issue 10 campaign helped strengthenthe relationship.

“One of the stories from Issue 10 is how the schooldistrict and the city worked together on that cam-paign,” said Loomis. “We realized that it’s not thecity’s money or the school system’s; it’s the commu-nity’s money.”

Superintendent Sylvester Small agreed. “What willmake or break the partnership is the quality of rela-tionships between our organizations, and that startsat the top with the mayor and me,” Small said.

The partnership made a commitment that commu-nity residents will also have a strong, active say in thedesign of the centers. Initially, the partnershipworked out how communities should participate,how extensive that role should be, and how it couldbe sustained. The partnership then arrived at aprocess that recognizes constraints by assessing needsand assets with community leaders, developing a


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set of programming options and holding openforums to gain community consensus about whichoption to use.

Duncan warned that one challenge the city andschools face is that enrollment projections—on whichstate funding is based—show declines. “Our Issue 10campaign message promised that we’d all have all-new schools,” she said. “[But] some people are notgoing to have a school in their neighborhood.”

Superintendent Small said he will consider the cen-ters a success if they are in use from morning tonight and the community takes pride and ownershipof the buildings, including residents who are notparents of students. The mayor agrees. “Only about20 percent of the residents have school-aged chil-dren,” said Plusquellic. “I am hopeful that, by open-ing the doors to the public and inviting them in,there will be a sense that we must all take responsi-bility for educating our children.”

Long Beach: Creating a “Seamless” System

Former Long Beach Mayor Beverly O’Neill has aphoto in her office that depicts the mayor, the super-intendent, the presidents of Long Beach City Collegeand California State University at Long Beach, anda class of elementary pupils all raising their handsduring a school visit by former U.S. Secretary ofEducation Richard Riley.

The photo, O’Neill said, illustrates what city leadershave been trying to achieve over the past decade:creating a system in which all levels of educationand the city government work together to make itpossible to get a top-notch education, from kinder-garten through a master’s degree, all within LongBeach city limits.

Creating a Partnership Around a Common MissionIn the early 1990s, Long Beach schools were feelingthe effects of an economic downturn and increasingviolence. Former Long Beach Mayor Ernie Kellformed a task force to address education, economic

development, and public safety and asked local busi-nessman George Murchison to bring together theleaders of the educational institutions. In 1994, theylaunched a formal partnership to create a “seamlesseducation system.”

Much of the work of the partnership has focused onensuring a smooth transition for students betweenhigh school, community college, and university.

“There are no secret formulas here,” said RobertMaxson, president of California State University,Long Beach. “Public-school English teachers, Englishprofessors from the community college, and En-glish professors from the university get in a room.They look at the content and make sure it is seamless.”

The partnership retooled the California StateUniversity teacher-education program, seeking theinput of school teachers in response to criticisms bydistrict staff that the program was not preparingteachers adequately for city schools. Maxson notedthe resulting program is so strong that it comes witha warranty: if a teacher, supervisor, or principalbelieves that a California State University graduateis not adequately prepared, the university will pro-vide additional instruction or send a supervisor towork directly with the teacher onsite.

Although the city government does not support thepartnership financially, O’Neill has championed itand kept it on the front burner. “Every time [themayor] gives a speech about the accomplishments ofthe city, she mentions the program,” said Maxson.“That gives it credibility and visibility.”

Maxson added that the commitment of the leadersof the educational institutions also keeps the part-nership thriving.

Strengthening Community SupportThe partnership also reached out to the community.In the Principal for a Day program, community res-idents spend a day shadowing a school principal,


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which helped wipe away negative impressions,according to Judy Seal, the partnership’s director. Inresponse to parental concerns, the partnershiplaunched a nationally recognized school uniformprogram.

Cooperation and engagement has led to stronger sup-port for the educational institutions. In 1999, city vot-ers approved a $295 million bond issue for the LongBeach schools, with more than 70 percent support.

“The city is proud of its schools,” said O’Neill. “Theyknow that you can go from kindergarten to a mas-ter’s degree in the same city, and they are all out-standing institutions.”

Data also shows that student achievement, highschool graduation rates, and college success haveimproved. Long Beach was named the 2003–04 win-ner of the Broad Prize for Urban Education, given toa district that has made exemplary progress in raisingachievement and closing achievement gaps.

Some worried that the partnership would wane afterMayor O’Neill left office in 2006. But others main-tain that the partnership has become so entrenchedin the community it will remain no matter who ismayor. According to Seal, “‘Seamless’ is a way ofthinking and looking at education.”

Nashville: Restoring Public Confidence

Some local elected leaders avoid involvement instruggling school systems, fearing that their politicalfuture will be harmed. But Nashville Mayor BillPurcell embraces education improvement as thechief public policy priority of his administration. Hebelieves that the well-being of a city depends ondeveloping future human capital, and the more than80 percent of Nashville residents who voted for hisreelection in 2003 seem to agree.

Cultivating strong bonds among individuals, orga-nizations, and civic leadership has been Nashville’s

leading strategy to build stronger families and com-munities. Mayor Purcell prefers a shared leadershipmodel in which educators handle day-to-day man-agement of the schools and the mayor uses theunique leverage points of public opinion, municipalservices, and funding authority to advance educa-tion goals rather than a takeover model.

Celebrating Schools: First Day and First WeekNashville’s public schools were beleaguered byphysical facilities in disrepair, stagnant test scores,chaotic learning environments, high teacher turn-over, and loss of students to private schools andmore affluent nearby districts. The poor reputationof the public schools discouraged new arrivals tothe area from buying homes in Nashville. MayorPurcell realized that he had to tackle these problemsbefore the public would support a budget increasefor education.

Purcell convened a coalition of leaders from busi-ness, higher education, and community-basedorganizations who shared his belief in developingthe human talent of young people.

In 1999, the coalition joined the mayor in sponsor-ing the First Day Festival, which became a citywideback-to-school celebration on the Sunday before thefirst day of school. It included music, storytelling,puppet and magic shows, roving mascots, concertsaimed at teenagers, and giveaways from its manycorporate sponsors. Parents were also encouraged toaccompany their children to school on the first day,as Purcell did with his daughter.

By 2005, the event was attracting more than twentythousand people. It has united organizations and cit-izens who normally have little contact. “First Day isone time when we take down the walls that separateus and celebrate together,” said V. H. “Sonnye”Dixon, pastor of Hobson United Methodist Churchand past president of the Nashville Chapter of theNational Association for the Advancement ofColored People.


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Schools sponsor First Week activities to bring par-ents, neighbors and community providers into theschools, such as a “Boo Hoo Breakfast” at DanMills Elemen-tary for parents of new kindergart-ners. A school counselor at Inglewood Elementarysaid, “The public libraries, Boys and Girls Clubs,and social service organizations all use this primeopportunity to sign up kids and parents forextended learning activities.”

Building the Community’s Confidence in Its SchoolsNashville has a rich heritage of business partner-ships with the public schools, such as thosearranged by the PENCIL Foundation, a nonprofitorganization that creates a link between the privatesector and Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools.Purcell introduced the Mayor’s Honor Roll, listinglocal employers that have release policies foremployees to visit their children’s schools, and setan example by gaining approval for release time forcity employees.

Public confidence in the Nashville schools was bol-stered by First Day activities, an independent per-formance audit, and Metropolitan Nashville PublicSchools Director Pedro Garcia’s strong commitmentto improving student performance. Believing thatthe public would now be willing to supportincreased annual funding for schools, Mayor Purcellrequested, and the city council approved, an increasefrom $397 million in 2000 to $503 million in 2003,along with $165 million in capital funds.

Four years of steady gains, increases in school fund-ing, and greater community and business engage-ment created favorable conditions for school success.With great pride, school leaders reported in 2005that Nashville schools showed significant, across-the-board achievement gains at all grade levels on theTennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program.

Purcell has decided not to run for a third term, butMetropolitan Nashville Board of Public EducationChairperson Pam Garrett is not worried about the

movement’s survival. “Anyone trying to alter anymajor aspect of this new commitment would faceheavy resistance from the community and civic lead-ership,” said Garrett.

New York: Developing Community Leadership

In New York’s District 9, a chronically underper-forming district in the Bronx borough, parent andcommunity participation in schools was limited tovolunteering and meeting with individual children’steachers. Rarely had organized groups of parents,community members, and teachers met to explorethe possibility of partnership.

That changed in 2002, when the CommunityCollaborative to Improve District 9 Schools (CC9),a coalition of six Bronx community groups currentlyknown as the Community Collaborative to ImproveBronx Schools, met with members of the city’steachers union to discuss a platform for schoolimprovement developed by the coalition.

Launching a Comprehensive Education Reform InitiativePublic education in New York had long sufferedhigh staff turnover; insufficient student progress;suspicion among unions, district leadership, andparents; and disengagement of teachers, parents,and students. The city tried to address these issuesin the mid-1960s by decentralizing administration.But for forty years, the system proved resistant tomeaningful reform.

In 2002, after years of negotiation and lobbying, the New York State Legislature granted full controlof New York schools to the mayor. Michael Bloom-berg called education his administration’s numberone priority and, along with Chancellor Joel Klein,launched the Children First reform initiative, whicheliminated community district offices and boards,created a region-based structure, replaced the boardof education with a panel appointed by the mayorand borough presidents, and provided for substan-tial parent engagement.


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The new structure created the space and supportthat allow innovations to flourish, noted VincentGaglione, a District 9 teachers union representative.“District 9 was in serious trouble,” he said. “Boththe parents and teachers were under siege by thedecentralized structure. The centralized system hasless of an ability to ignore and put off collectiveaction.”

Creating an Innovative Model: The Lead TeacherProgramThe developing relationships among CC9, the teach-ers union, and the city’s education department werewhat made the collaboration work. CC9 shifted itstraditional organizing paradigm from confrontationto shared vision of education practice, groundingarguments in data.

“Mutual blame shifted to mutual support,” recalledEric Zachary, the coordinator of CC9 and a princi-pal associate of the Community InvolvementProgram, which was formerly housed at New YorkUniversity but is now part of the AnnenbergInstitute for School Reform at Brown and supportsthe collaborative.

The coalition called for a lead teacher program thatwould lend additional support to new teachers.Negotiations began among CC9, the teachers union,and the city education department around teacherselection, pay differentials, and stipends—explosiveissues that had, in the past, created tension. But anew spirit of collaboration prevailed.

New York City United Federation of TeachersPresident Randi Weingarten invited members ofCC9 to sit at the negotiation table, and CC9 testi-fied in support of the teachers union during hear-ings before the city council. The Booth FerrisFoundation made a $400,000 grant, and Klein pro-vided $1.6 million, recognizing that the lead teacherprogram held enormous potential as a retentionstrategy and a citywide model for reshaping profes-sional development.

In a significant gesture, the education departmentagreed to keep the District 9 schools together as aninstructional unit—the only network formed on thebasis of the schools’ relationship with a community-based organization.

After the first year, an evaluation by the Academy forEducational Development found that the programhad resulted in a higher teacher retention rate, wasseen as helpful by teachers, was likely contributing toa significant increase in student achievement, andconstituted a model that could be expanded citywide.The evaluation also showed that the communitycoalition played a key leadership role in guiding theprogram.

A number of communities in the city have startedtheir own reforms, such as the Brooklyn EducationCollaborative, based on the CC9 model. The latestteachers union contract expands one of the collab-orative’s predominant innovations, the leadteacher program. Beginning this fall, the educationdepartment will hire at least two hundred leadteachers to serve in struggling schools across thecity.

Whether the change in attitudes, relationships, andstructures will outlast the individuals involved and be-come part of the common culture in NewYork schools remains to be seen. But the plannedexpansion of the project is strong evidence that thelead teacher program has gained purchase as animportant model for community and parentalengagement in New York and as a high-quality,high-impact reform.

Cities Face Sustainability

Engaging the public is not a one-time event. Thecities highlighted in the “Engaging Cities: HowMunicipal Leaders Can Mobilize Communities toImprove Public Schools” report and other cities facethe challenge of maintaining support for public edu-cation in the face of financial constraints and lead-ership changes.


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In Akron, lower enrollment projections could force ascale-back of the plans for rebuilding schools. MayorO’Neill has stepped down after twelve years as champion of Long Beach’s education partnership, anda new mayor will be elected in Nashville in 2007.

These cities and others face the challenge of main-taining support for public education in the face offinancial constraints and leadership changes.

But leaders in these cities are optimistic that, in spiteof these challenges, public involvement in educationwill maintain its momentum because it has become“the way business is done” in their cities. When acommunity is so completely engaged in its schoolsthat it cannot envision any other way, education—and the city—can only benefit. The five cities high-lighted in the report have shown some of the pathstoward that goal.

Lessons Learned

Although results of an Annenberg Institute forSchool Reform study show mayors’ roles varywidely, depending on local circumstances, some use-ful lessons emerged about effective strategies, mine-fields to avoid, and the challenges of sustainingpublic engagement to support education.

Researchers found that the five municipal leaders—the mayors of Denver, Akron, Long Beach, Nashville,and New York—featured in the “Engaging Cities”report have used four broad strategies:

1. Help forge a common vision for educationalequity and excellence. Education reform requiressupport from many constituencies based in theschools (parents, teachers, families, students, prin-cipals, and staff) in the neighborhoods (public li-brar-ies, grassroots and faith-based organizations,social and human service agencies, and communityresidents), and among groups and leaders with acitywide influence (government agencies, higher

education institutions, reform support organiza-tions, corporations, bargaining units, benefactors,and businesses).

Schools have little authority or opportunity to tapsome of these resources, and tensions exist amongthe sectors. Mayors are uniquely suited to buildbridges, develop shared understandings, and forgecoalitions.

In Long Beach and Denver, mayors brought togetherdiverse leaders, often for the first time, and Akron’smayor-led initiative to rebuild schools linked the citygovernment and the schools together. In New York,Mayor Bloomberg publicly named education as histop priority and worked with Chancellor Klein tocreate an education reform program and a central-ized governance structure that unified the participa-tion of many sectors.

2. Form collaborative bodies to support and sustainthe vision. To make collaborations sustainable, citieshave created new institutions that bring togetherrepresentatives of various sectors regularly.

In Long Beach, the partnership has lasted for adecade because education leaders meet monthly,funded by the business community. Mayor O’Neillstrengthened the commitment of partnership mem-bers by regularly highlighting the city’s seamlesseducation system in her speeches. In Denver, MayorHickenlooper reconvened the Latino Summit plan-ning team and organized a follow-up meeting.

Effective collaborations also lay out clear lines ofauthority. In Akron, school officials realized theyneeded to accommodate the city when school build-ings were opened for community use, with financialsupport from the city. A joint use agreement explic-itly states the expectations for each side. In NewYork, Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein created a centralized governance structure thatincreased accountability and simplified decisionmaking throughout the system.


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3. Expand services and supports for student learn-ing and healthy development. A number of supportsare required to ensure that all young people haveequitable opportunities—for healthy social, physi-cal, and emotional development as well as foracquiring academic skills. Some of these supportswill be part of the formal school program; otherswill be provided by community and civic groups.

Every community has the resources to furnish thesesupports, but not all youth have access to them, andthey are not always connected to schooling or orga-nized into coherent pathways to success for students.

Mayors are in a unique position to help align the sec-tors of the community to support education. MayorPlusquellic of Akron, for instance, led a bold initia-tive to convert all the city’s schools into communitylearning centers that would bring the community andits assets into the schools and at the same time usethe school facilities to serve the community’s needs.

4. Mobilize public and political will for qualityschools. The municipal leaders who were studiedhave worked hard to ensure that all members of a community—not just school personnel—have astake in the success of students, a common vision, a sense of urgency, and a commitment to tacklingchallenges together. They have done this by using anumber of approaches.

• Using power, influence, and resources strategically.Mayors usually do not have direct authority over edu-cation systems, but they can engage the public by cre-atively using the power and influence they have.

When Mayor Hickenlooper of Denver called a sum-mit on Latino academic achievement, the issue––which had attracted little public attention previ-ously—became a high priority for the city. WhenMayor Purcell of Nashville launched the First Daycelebration, he persuaded thousands of Nashville res-idents to visit schools, changing many negativeimpressions.

Mayors can also apply the legal authority theyalready possess. Mayor Purcell sought and won aneducation budget increase after events such as FirstDay boosted public confidence in Nashville. MayorPlusquellic of Akron won a tax increase for schoolimprovements after tailoring the proposal to ensuremaximum support and taking advantage of a little-known state code provision.

• Engaging communities authentically—not just by ”selling.” Effective leaders know that engagementdoesn’t just mean “selling”—convincing other peopleto sign on to their ideas. It involves listening andunderstanding the perspectives of all parties. MayorHickenlooper invited the input of a range of partici-pants in Denver, including previously excluded Latinocommunity groups. In the Bronx borough of NewYork, the Community Collaborative to ImproveDistrict 9 Schools (CC9), the teachers union, and thecity department of education showed flexibility innegotiating with each other.

• Using data. Successful mayors marshal facts toconvince people to support schools. The organizersof the Denver Latino Summit compiled reports thatrevealed to many people for the first time the size ofthe Latino school population and the challengesLatino students faced, as well as showing successfulexamples of improving Latino academic achieve-ment. The CC9 collaborative also prepared data totake to meetings, which helped make a convincingcase for its lead teacher program.

When Mayor Purcell brought Nashville residents intoschools, he showed them positive aspects of schoolsthat counteracted negative images. In 2005, five yearsafter the community engagement campaign aroundFirst Day began, data were used to show significantstudent achievement improvements at all grade levels.

Michael Grady is deputy director, Robert Rothman is a prin-cipal associate, Hal Smith is a former senior research associ-ate, and Margaret Balch-Gonzalez is staff editor at theAnnenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University.


Documents

City leaders mobilize communities to improve public schools