Partnership-Ready Schools: Building Systems and Mindsets for the Achievement Schools to Receive and Utilize Community Organizations as Partners in Student Success Citation Sanders, Ansel. 2015. Partnership-Ready Schools: Building Systems and Mindsets for the Achievement Schools to Receive and Utilize Community Organizations as Partners in Student Success. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard Graduate School of Education. Permanent link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:16645010 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of-use#LAA Share Your Story The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Submit a story . Accessibility Partnership-ready Schools: Building Systems and Mindsets for the Achievement Schools to Receive and Utilize Community Organizations as Partners in Student Success Doctor of Education Leadership (Ed.L.D.) Capstone Submitted by Ansel Sanders To the Harvard Graduate School of Education in partial fulfillment of the graduation requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education Leadership May 2015 To my number one partner, Helen – With unconditional, unwavering, and all-encompassing faith, hope, and love, you led our family and me through this amazing adventure. Thank you and I love you.   2 Acknowledgements Applying this Capstone’s core concepts to my own experience, I have many to thank for readying me for and their partnership throughout this journey. First, thank you to my family – Helen, Field, Walker, and Stuart. Your boundless optimism, grit, and trust formed a foundation for me to maximize this opportunity and served as constant sources of inspiration. Thank you for learning and growing with me. To my Capstone Committee, thank you for your immense personal and professional support. Monica Higgins, from my Ed.L.D. interview through difficult role plays in A608 to your Capstone feedback, you have pushed me to improve while providing the requisite guidance and encouragement I needed to do so. Paul Reville, there is a reason why this Capstone’s Introduction begins with a quote from you. Your work and passion centering on designing comprehensive, integrated systems to prepare all of our children for success in the 21st century became a framework for my residency and helped me understand how I want to serve as a leader in the public education sector. Ash Solar, incorporating one of your regular expressions, “if I could wave a magic wand,” every resident would have a supervisor and mentor like you. Your humility, positive spirit, candidness, willingness to empower others (including me), and ceaseless demand to do right by Frayser’s children are guiding leadership principles I have made my own. Also, thank you to my Teaching Fellow, Tracy Elizabeth. Not only did you provide feedback that sharpened my writing and argument, but you also were always available, quick to respond, and remained flexible despite my nutty schedule. To C3 – it is a privilege to learn from and alongside you. Even more, it is a constant source of comfort to be part of a group that unconditionally lifts one another up at all times. My family and I felt this the most as we navigated our way through Stuart’s heart surgeries. To my peer coach, Dilara Sayeed, and pod, Dilara, Jeremiah Newell, and Pete Fishman: whether working through problems of practice, sharing a laugh, or giving pep talks, I truly appreciate our series of Google Hangouts and FaceTime sessions. To the Achievement Schools – you welcomed me with open arms and taught me how to lead with both thoughtfulness and urgency. I especially want to recognize my fellow leadership team members Ash Solar, Nataki Gregory, Lesley Brown, Zach Rossley, Scott Hindman, and Angela DelBrocco, along with the Achievement Schools’ support team, particularly Elizabeth Genco, Brandon Mobley, Zack Goldman, Katrice Bullock, Ben Racher, Teddy King, and Stephen Ajani. To the Achievement Schools’ principals and student support team leaders, especially Senchel Matthews, Jennifer Spain, Tara Garrett, Acacia Jamison, Marvelle Porter, and Leticia Sanders, thank you for your willingness to collaborate with me to ensure the Achievement Schools were ready to fully utilize our community partners. I also want to thank Chris Barbic, Elliot Smalley, Stewart Brevard, and Ian Buchanan from the ASD team. Your consistent support helped set me up for success. Lastly, thank you Memphis and more specifically, thank you Frayser. Agape, Communities In Schools, Anaya, Seeding Success, Arthi Krishnaswami, Girls Inc., Charles Matlock, Charlie Caswell, Shep Wilbun, DeAndre Brown, and so many others – you all gave me the chance to partner with you for the betterment of Frayser’s children, families, schools, and community. As a result, you showed me what collective impact actually looks like; I will forever be an advocate for Frayser.   3 Table of Contents Abstract 5 Introduction 7 Review of Knowledge for Action 12 Loose Coupling: Barriers, Challenges, and Risks to Partnership Readiness 13 Tight Coupling and Trust: The Partnership-Ready School 20 Systems Thinking and Change Management Theory 26 Synthesis and Theory of Action 31 Description of Strategic Project 35 Defining my Role, the Readiness Challenge, and Strategic Project 36 Developing the Partnership-ready Toolkit 40 Introducing the Toolkit and Targeting the Agape Partnership 45 Readying Schools for the Agape Partnership 48 Results 49 Short-Term Objective: Results to Date 50 Mid-Term Objective: Anticipated Results 57 Analysis 58 Value Proposition 60 Legitimacy and Support 69 Operational Capacity 77 Theory of Action Revisited 84 Implications for Self 88 Implications for Site 94 Implications for Sector 100 Conclusion 105 Bibliography 111 Appendices 117     4 Abstract Over the last decade, the call for schools to leverage partnerships with community organizations as a means to provide services that will mitigate the effects of poverty in the pursuit of achieving ambitious academic outcomes has gained momentum. The Achievement Schools, a network of five neighborhood schools serving students in Memphis’ Frayser community, has prioritized the development of partnerships as a lever to turn around the academic performance of its schools by ensuring students’ nonacademic challenges are identified and met. In this Capstone, I describe my role in building a “Partnership Readiness Toolkit,” a framework and set of resources to guide schools in developing the capacity needed to better utilize partnerships with community organizations that provide critical nonacademic services and resources. Drawing upon research that focuses on the challenges facing school-community organization partnerships, examples of effective partnerships, and change management theory, I argue that for schools to fully utilize partnerships, they must first be ready for partnership by more tightly coupling certain aspects of their relationships with community organizations. This Capstone then describes the approaches I took to design, build support for, and apply the Partnership Readiness Toolkit to an important community partner. The analysis of my actions and results generates two key findings: 1) creating a vision and proof point that multiple constituencies find valuable, undergirded by strong relationships with the constituencies, yields the support necessary to successfully introduce and begin applying the Partnership Readiness Toolkit, and 2) a school operator with multiple priorities and an ambitious mission must focus relentlessly on readying its schools for partnership in order for partnerships to be successful. This Capstone will   5 provide two instrumental contributions to the sector. First, this Capstone presents a case study of the successes and challenges of readying schools for partnership, which conveys a valuable set of insights for school operators, particularly those in “turnaround” situations serving low-income students. Second, the Capstone produces a Partnership Readiness Toolkit that will serve as a resource for current and aspiring school leaders seeking to utilize partners as a lever for school improvement and student success.   6 “I am here with you to underline the notion that partnerships are the ‘sine qua non’ for 21st century education reform...We need our health and human services, our criminal justice, our housing and economic development partners to come together with us in education. We just can’t do it within the silos anymore.” -Paul Reville, Former Secretary of Education for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Keynote speech to the Institute for Educational Leadership, June 2013 Introduction Over the past 25 years, state policymakers, school districts, and community agencies have become more interested in providing support services for low-income children and families within (or near) schools (Powell, 1991; Dryfoos, 1994; Sanders, 2001; Epstein, 2009). Schools appear to be ideal hubs for these services because they are centrally located in neighborhoods and already have connections to families (National Association of State Boards of Education, 1988). The interest in integrating nonacademic support services into schools—health screenings; dental exams; eye exams; individual counseling; mental health services; housing, food, clothes assistance; mentoring; parent education—stems largely from the belief that children whose families struggle with poverty cannot focus on learning unless their nonacademic needs are addressed. This belief is supported by both qualitative and quantitative evidence, ranging from The Harlem Children Zone’s Geoffrey Canada’s oft-quoted line, “Good dental care doesn't make you a good student, but if your tooth hurts, it's hard to be a good student” (Strauss, 2006, p. 1), to the deep set of research reflecting the negative impacts of poverty. Low-income families regularly experience economic and material hardship. Missed rent, utility shutoffs, inadequate access to health care, unstable childcare arrangements, and food insecurity are common experiences that inevitably affect K–12 students’ readiness, attendance, performance, and completion rates at school (Brocht,   7 Bernstein, Gundersen, & Boushey, 2001). The cumulative impact of living in a severely disadvantaged neighborhood, for example, reduces the later verbal ability of low-income children on average by approximately four points, a magnitude that rivals missing a year or more of schooling (Sampson, Sharkey, & Raudenbush, 2008). High school dropouts tend to come from low-income and minority homes (Chapman, Laird, Ifill, & KewalRamani, 2011; Shapiro & Pham, 2010). In addition, poverty-related challenges steal instructional time, leading students who attend low-income schools to receive an average of half an hour less of instruction per day than their higher-income peers (Yettick, 2014). The call for schools to leverage partnerships with community organizations1 as a means to provide and integrate services to mitigate the effects of poverty in the pursuit of achieving ambitious academic outcomes also continues to build momentum (Blank, Jacobsen, & Melaville, 2012). Paul Reville accentuated this point in a 2013 keynote address at the Institute for Educational Leadership and Chapin Hall that included representatives from policy and advocacy groups, government agencies, foundations, youth development organizations, health and human services agencies, think tanks, and universities, accentuates this point (Walker, Rollins, Blank, & Jacobsen, 2013, pp. 1–2): We’ve disproved the notion that schools can do it alone…We are going to need robust partners to re-conceptualize what we do in the field of education and child development so that we actually develop a genuine 21st century learning system that enables us to deliver on the promise of education reform. In a sense, I am here with you to underline the notion that partnerships are the ‘sine qua non’ for 21st century education reform… We need our health and human services, our criminal justice, our housing and economic development partners to come together with us in education. We just can’t do it within the silos anymore.                                                                                                                 1 For my Capstone project, I define “community organizations” as any organization in the community, public or private, that is interested in improving the academic and social outcomes of the community’s children, including community-based organizations (CBOs), local government agencies, nonprofit   8 Clearly, a primary lever that Reville and others cite to create this “new [K–12] engine with enough power and versatility to meet the challenge of educating all students to a high level” is a diverse and high-quality portfolio of partnerships between schools and community organizations (Reville, 2014, p. 1). Reville’s demand is justified by research that indicates how strong school partnerships—with community organizations that offer nonacademic student services—reduce the risk of impoverished students performing poorly in school (Lauer, 2006; Kane, 2003). A recent study by Child Trends found that integrated nonacademic student supports extended to low-income students through partnerships with community organizations decreased grade retention and dropout rates, increased student attendance rates, and improved math achievement (Moore et al., 2014). Additionally, prompted by his research on successful strategies Chicago elementary schools implemented in the 1990s to accelerate student learning and success, Anthony Bryk (2010) established a framework of four “essential supports” that influence learning and school success. One of these essential supports is partnership between school and community organizations: The African aphorism, ‘It takes a village to raise a child,’ applies just as well to inner-city neighborhoods. Partnerships with community health, recreation, and social service agencies, as well as with the police department, are vital to ensuring students’ academic success. (p. 59) Leveraging “mutually enriching” partnerships with community organizations is at the core of the Achievement Schools’ vision for “every child in Memphis’ Frayser community to attend an excellent neighborhood school” (School Operators, Achievement School District, 2014). Forty-nine percent of Frayser’s residents earn incomes below the   9