Community, School, College Partnership Project (CSCP)

Project Overview

The Community, School, College Partnership project (CSCP) is an ongoing project comprised of multiple research studies that focus on contributing to urban school and community development in the city of Philadelphia. CSCP is a project of the Critical Education Policy Studies group at Swarthmore College under the direction of Dr. Edwin Mayorga. The development of strong urban schools and communities depends on examining and working in both schools and their surrounding neighborhoods.  This first study is focused on documenting and examining different models and practices of partnership and collaboration between Philadelphia K-12 schools, families and surrounding neighborhood organizations as a means to improving K-12 education for all city residents.  

The project looks at various models community and school partnerships that aim to cultivate relationships between schools, youth, families, and local institutions and service providers as part of a strategy to improve the educational experiences and outcomes for students. Models include the Community Schools Initiative of the Mayor of Philadelphia’s Office of Education, the Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development (PHENND) VISTA program, and the University Assisted Community Schools model at the Netter Center (UPENN).

Through this exploratory study we aim, first, to provide clarity on the different forms of school and community partnerships that are currently in operation in Philadelphia.  Second we seek to provide further understanding of what is defined as partnership effectiveness, and better determining if any partnership model is more or less effective. In accomplishing these aims we seek to contribute to improving school+community relationships in order to better serve all schools and community? Here we state our overarching research questions with a set of sub-questions:

1. What models of school and community relationships/partnerships exist in Philadelphia public schools, and how do they operate?
   1. How do these models function?
   2. Who do these models serve?
   3. What are their primary goals?
   4. What is the theory of change the model is based on?
   5. How is decision making shared or distributed in the model?
2. How is effectiveness defined in each model, and what makes each model more or less effective according to these definitions?
   1. What are the existing metrics for effectiveness of each school-community partnership model? Who constructed these metrics?
   2. How effective has the partnership model been working from the perspective of students, staff, parents, administrators, partners and community members.
   3. What effect, if any, have these efforts had on student academic growth, or youth and community development?
   4. What effects, if any, had the model has on leadership and civic capacity of different constituents involved?

The study has two major components: one, is a survey and a series of semi-structured interviews of individuals involved in community and school partnership work across the district. Second is a set of case studies of different partnership models that operate in the district. Each case study will be conducted through interviews of school administrators, staff, parents, and personnel from partnering organization (ex. afterschool program coordinators, teaching artists, college/university-based partners) and observations of public events at each site. 

If you have questions or would like more information please direct them to:

Edwin Mayorga, Ph.D.
Swarthmore College
emayorg1@swarthmore.edu
610-957-6154

Maya Henry
Project Coordinator
Swarthmore College
mhenry1@swarthmore.edu
610-957-6154