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RUNNING HEAD: PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE

Promise Neighborhood implementation in the context of school choice: Tensions and contradictions by David Gavin Luter July 16, 2015

A (thesis or dissertation) submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University at Buffalo, State University of New York in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies

RUNNING HEAD: PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE

Acknowledgements This document would not be possible without the help, guidance, and support of all of my academic mentors throughout my life. In particular, I want to thank Dr. Stephen Jacobson, chair of my dissertation committee, for his unending support, guidance, and wisdom throughout the process. He has a great process down, and he also creates a very supportive environment for me and the rest of his doctoral students. I also want to thank Dr. Henry Louis Taylor (Urban and Regional Planning, University at Buffalo) for not only serving on my committee but also for his belief in my abilities. He is the primary reason why I chose to study at the University at Buffalo, and he has provided me endless guidance, mentoring, and training for how to best build a better world. Dr. Nathan Daun-Barnett has also been very helpful to me throughout my dissertation writing process. He pushed me to achieve clarity in my writing, and his thoughtful comments and questions made this document stronger. From behind the scenes, Dr. Robert F. Kronick at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville encouraged me throughout my experience at University at Buffalo. Without his support, and strong recommendations, I would not be in my current position. A special acknowledgement comes to the entire staff at the Center for Urban Studies: Henry Taylor, Frida Ferrer, Jeff Kujawa, Robert Silverman, Nate Aldrich, Austin Mitchell, Matt Austin, Augustina Droze, and many other graduate and undergraduate interns and students. Without a sense of community, writing a dissertation becomes very difficult. Everyone at the CENTER was very supportive of my work, including times when I needed to take off and just have “writing days” or “data collection days.” Staff members would regularly check up on me, which helped me to stay on track. These colleagues were honestly friends, as well, and sometimes provided escapes from work when needed. Whether it was a work-out date with

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RUNNING HEAD: PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE

Austin or a dinner at Augustina’s house or a movie with Frida, they always were there to support, push, and encourage me to stay balanced while also staying sharp. A dissertation is really one long project, and it was through my experiences at the CENTER where I learned how to manage long-term projects with many benchmarks and milestones. My family members also played a special, supportive role in my dissertation process. First, I would be nowhere if it were not for my mother, Marilyn Luter. Having faced almost all odds against her as a single mother, I can honestly say that she succeeded brilliantly at raising me and my sisters. My work ethic and commitment to social justice honestly come from my mom. Her experiences at Dunbar-Erwin Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia, shed light on the important role education has in addressing social problems. Thanks go to her and the entire Dunbar crew (including Richard Coleman and Mr. Brickhouse)! My sisters Alicia Luter Rafferty and Leighann Luter Kemp also supported and encouraged me throughout my process. There were times when I would visit them in New Orleans and Atlanta, respectively, and I would have to disappear for hours at a time to do more writing. I could not have completed this process without them. I want to also take some time to thank the Promise Neighborhood community partner who allowed me to come in and study the organization. As a next step of the process, I will share my findings with them in hopes that I am not just one more “fly by researcher” who does not care about the value such a community partner gets from the research process. Everyone at Promise Neighborhood was welcoming and opened the organization up to be studied. Without them, of course my dissertation would not be possible.

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RUNNING HEAD: PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE

Special thanks also goes out to my friends and colleagues—near and far. In Buffalo, I met many people professionally and personally who helped me get to where I am today. My friends in the Commodore Perry Homes—especially Cynthia Worthy—helped me gain new insights into my work, but also helped me have fun throughout my process. My friends and colleagues through the After-School Network of Western New York—especially Jill RobbinsJabine, Kim Luce, Nekia Kemp, Alissa Venturini, Rich Dombkowski, and Cheri Alvarez just to name a few!—welcomed me with open arms into the network, made me feel accepted, and taught me a lot about how schools and nonprofits really work in Buffalo. My friends and colleagues through Buffalo Public Schools—especially the faculty, staff and students at Public School 37, such as Dr. Tonja Williams, Michelle Reczek, Sam Reynolds, Donna Vaughan, Heidi LaRou, Ms. James, Ms. Swans, Mr. Will, and too many others to name here—helped me understand how to actually reach children in a challenging environment and to stay balanced throughout my heavy work load. Students at PS 37 also opened my eyes to how children understood and talked about social issues, but they also reminded me to laugh at myself. My friends who were either connected simply through social ties or to other PhD programs— especially Courtney Scott, Karen O’Quin, Veyala Williams, Jeanne Myers, Ileah Welch, Andre Weeks, Steve Simpson, Vicki Hall, Darlene Torres, Young Sik Seo, Maureen McCarthy, and many others—constantly inspired me to be better, do more, think deeper, and have fun! My friends from afar—Tempest Brevard-Head, Lauren Pigott, and Kelly Milam, just to name a few—constantly followed up with me and made sure I stayed sane. A special thanks also goes to Grant McCarty for his love and joy he bestowed upon me throughout this process! Finally, as silly as it sounds, my dissertation would not be complete without the support of places that were open late night and offered an endless supply of coffee. Thanks to the staff at iv

RUNNING HEAD: PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE

UB’s Health Science Library, Denny’s on Main Street and Delaware Avenue, and Wegman’s on Maple, Evans Rd., and Amherst St. Without these special places, my dissertation would not be complete! I know that I have not named everyone here (e.g. former supervisors, former neighbors, former teachers and professors, etc.)—it would have been impossible! It is sufficient to say that I would not be here without hundreds of other people. Thanks to everyone who taught me life lessons along the way. This degree is only a credential, but it allows me now to meaningfully contribute in a new way to public problem-solving. I look forward to using the degree to help make the world a better place.

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RUNNING HEAD: PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE

Table of Contents Lists of Tables and Figures………………………………………………………………………vii Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………….viii Chapter 1: Introduction……………………………………………………………………………1 Chapter 2: Literature Review…………………………………………………………………….11 Chapter 3: Single-Case Study Context........................................................................................139 Chapter 4: Data Sources and Analytic Strategy………………………………………………...152 Chapter 5: Data Collected……………………………………………………………………....162 Chapter 6: Results for Research Question 1……………………………………………………169 Chapter 7: Results for Research Question 2……………………………………………………204 Chapter 8: Results for Research Question 3……………………………………………………311 Chapter 9: Discussion, Limitations, and Implications………………………………………….329 References………………………………………………………………………………………363 Appendix A: Case Study Protocol and Interview Questions…………………………………...426 Appendix B: Demographic Information Sheets to Interviewees……………………………….432

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RUNNING HEAD: PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE

List of Tables and Figures TABLES Table 2.1: Mechanisms of Social Vulnerability Emanating From… Table 5.1: Participant demographics Table 5.2: Field Observation Descriptions

FIGURES Figure 2.1: Framework for analyzing school-community relations literature Figure 2.2: Path of social vulnerability Figure 2.3: Basic path diagram showing how neighborhoods and schools impact child educational and social outcomes Figure 2.4: Comparison of PBSR to other similar models Figure 4.1: Case Study Design Plan Figure 6.1: Research Question 1 Schematic Figure 7.1: Research question 2 schematic

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RUNNING HEAD: PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE

Abstract At least two approaches to addressing the needs of underperforming central city schools have emerged as paradigms shaping the nature of reform efforts: (1) building-based approaches such as comprehensive school reform, and (2) place-based approaches that include interventions at the community and neighborhood-level. The federal government has supported both approaches, both separately (e.g. building-based approaches funded through No Child Left Behind and place-based approaches by Full Service Community Schools) and jointly (e.g. Promise and Choice Neighborhoods). Inherent tensions exist between these competing paradigms, tensions that are complicated by the political and competitive environment surrounding school reform. Yet these tensions have largely been ignored by contemporary school reform and educational leadership literature. To better understand how local, yet federally funded, place-based reforms can exist in the same space as local school choice and federal standards and accountability policies, a more comprehensive framework is necessary. Such a framework (or frameworks) would offer a more complete picture of how these efforts have been launched, how they exist on a daily basis, and how “on the ground” tensions emanate from them, thus moving the field closer to a clearer understanding of what kind of school reform approaches work for turning around low-performing schools with an appreciation of the local neighborhood context. The researcher proposes a single-case holistic case study of a Promise Neighborhood effort in the Northeast to explore implementation challenges and tensions caused by school choice. The findings suggest how participants in a Promise Neighborhood define the conceptual and theoretical dimensions of place-based school reform, challenges resulting from implementation of place-based school reform, and how school choice complicates and/or complements place-based school reform.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE CHAPTER 1: Introduction Can you feel the neoliberal straightjacket tightening (Klaf & Kwan, 2010)? Educators have been confronted with an increased focus on standards and accountability over the last forty years, most recently with the implementation of the Race to the Top Act (Vinovskis, 2009; McGuinn, 2012). These efforts have been implemented in the name of transforming low-performing, usually urban, schools into high-quality schools.

The United States is stuck in a “standards and

accountability” paradigm for education reform that emphasizes performance on state-run standardizes tests, families’ abilities to escape low-performing schools, and strict accountability measures for those low-performing schools (Hursh, 2007; Jahng, 2011). Concerns over school quality are not new, dating back to the founding of the American common schools (Reese, 2005). More recently, ever since the National Defense of Education Act of 1958 where public leaders began to link education to national economic vitality, concerns over the quality of American educational quality have only intensified. The landmark report A Nation At Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) only created more public concern about the quality of education, but this report did something markedly different: it began to identify pathological elements of the public schools that created a so-called crisis in education, or the “rising tide of mediocrity” as it was called in the report. Since then, the federal government sought to ensure that every public school is of high quality through heavy-handed accountability measures, which began to cement the idea that schools were the most important factor in student success and life chances. Under this neoliberal policy environment, the federal, state, and local governments sought marketbased solutions to the problems in the schools (Fusarelli, 2004; Hursh, 2007). While the standards and accountability movement remains the dominant discourse in education policy, the federal government, since the election of Barack Obama in 2008, began to

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE explore alternate approaches to education reform that linked the improvement of schools with the transformation of neighborhoods and communities. Through the federal Promise Neighborhood and Choice Neighborhood initiatives, the White House linked school reform with supportive and human service delivery for distressed neighborhoods as a way to transform distressed neighborhoods (Jennings, 2012). Still, these so-called “place-based” (Jennings, 2012) school reform strategies added to, but did not replace, the federal menu of options for school reform by introducing a more ecological and systems-change paradigm (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998). Statement of the Problem How to address poorly-performing central city schools is one of the most perplexing questions in contemporary educational research. At least two approaches have emerged as paradigms shaping the nature of reform efforts: (1) building-based approaches (e.g. comprehensive school reform) and (2) place-based approaches (e.g. interventions and the community and neighborhood-level). The federal government has supported both paradigms separately and jointly. First, building-based efforts that focus on altering school-level variables (e.g. curriculum and instruction and teacher effectiveness) have been supported by federal grantin-aid programs such as the Comprehensive School Reform Program and federal statutes such as the Elementary and Secondary Act (ESEA), or No Child Left Behind (NCLB). At the same time, the federal government experimented with place-based efforts through grant-in-aid programs such as the Full Service Community Schools (FSCS) Program. However, FSCS grantees could not dodge the mandates of NCLB, though the approaches to school improvement were fundamentally different. More recently, through the federal Promise and Choice Neighborhoods programs, both building-based and place-based reforms were included in the requirements of these grant-in-aid programs.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Some questions emerge: what happens when these efforts are implemented jointly within one neighborhood? To further complicate the situation, what happens when these place-based reform efforts are implemented in cities where school choice programs flourish? In many central cities across the nation, especially because of the No Child Left Behind transfer provision allowing families to transfer out of a so-called “failing school,” it is increasingly common for children to attend a school outside of their neighborhood (National Center for Education Statistics, 2010, 2012b). Since place-based efforts operate under the assumption that interventions at the neighborhood level can be an effective pathway for improving a host of social outcomes including child educational performance (Jennings, 2012), families living in one neighborhood but going to school in another could create unexpected challenges. It is feasible to anticipate tensions between these two competing paradigms, along with tensions created by school choice. For example, successful building-based reforms may be measured by improvement in standardized test scores for children. For place-based efforts, success is more broadly defined, such as housing improvements, children’s social and emotional growth, and family participation in supportive service programs. At intersection of building-based and placebased reforms lies unexplored tensions and perhaps contradictions that creates fertile ground for more scholarship. The US Department of Education awarded its first round of implementation grants for the Promise Neighborhood grant competition on December 19, 2011 (US Department of Education, 2011).

The Promise Neighborhoods competition represented a major investment in joint

neighborhood-based and building-based approaches to school reform. The program’s stated purpose was to both improve the educational and developmental outcomes for children in the country’s most distressed neighborhoods (Federal Register, 2010). Not only was the intent to

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE improve outcomes for children, but the program placed emphasis on building organizational capacity for groups looking to engage in building cradle-through-college-to-career educational systems complete with supports for children and families. Explicitly mentioned in the Promise Neighborhood Federal Register announcement was “breaking down agency ‘silos’ so that solutions are implemented effectively and efficiently across groups” (p. 39615). These Promise Neighborhood planning and implementation sites would be implemented in an educational policy context of the federal government’s main education strategy—No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and, more recently, Race to the Top. Under NCLB, local educational agencies (LEAs) are held accountable for failing to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) based on academic assessments of students. If schools fail to meet AYP, the school is compelled to implement a variety of building-based interventions—from supplemental educational services to replacing building staff to closing the actual school building. The legislation speaks only to one potential cause of educational success or failure: building-based factors. Race to the Top (RTTT) only furthered the emphasis on building-based reforms, essentially ignoring other potential causes for low-performing schools. RTTT incentivized states to implement better curriculum, build longitudinal data systems, recruit and retain effective educators, and turn around low-performing schools through school-building-based reform efforts. By awarding this first group of Promise Neighborhood implementation sites, the stage was set, as the model of linking school reform and neighborhood transformation would now be formally implemented through the federal government.. Indeed, “school centered community revitalization” is not a new concept (Khadduri, Schwartz, & Turnham, 2008; Shirley, 2001; Taylor, 2005). However, this concept would now be implemented using federal funding. Inevitably, this broader ecological approach will “bump up” against the standards and accountability paradigm’s

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE (embodied by the No Child Left Behind Act and the Race to the Top program) attention to test scores, teacher effectiveness measures, and punitive accountability measurers. What will it look like when Promise and Choice Neighborhoods, place-based school reform efforts, meet the operational on-the-ground realities of (1) the current standards and accountability paradigm and (2) school choice? Even the federal government expected grantees to experience challenges when implementing Promise Neighborhoods, as evidenced by the requirement of all grantees to “identify Federal, State, or local policies, regulations, or other requirements that would impede its ability to achieve its goals and how it will report on those impediments to the Department” (p. 39618). Given the differences in approaches to improving schools between Promise and NCLB/RTTT, it is an important topic to study. It is important for at least two reasons. First, this scholarship can offer guidance to institutions implementing Promise Neighborhood across the nation.

Second, knowing the specific emergent issues when implementing Promise

Neighborhoods could help policymakers draft improved education policy measures geared toward improving low-performing schools located in distressed neighborhoods. Virtually no scholarship exists to understand the implementation of a place-based school reform effort and how it meets these “street level” challenges. Still, despite this lack of knowledge, at least twelve cities around the country are implementing Promise Neighborhoods, and twelve cities are implementing Choice Neighborhoods. This dearth of information about implementation of Promise Neighborhoods is a problem that this study can address. Purpose of the Study and Research Questions The purpose of this study is two-fold: (1) to gain an in-depth understanding of what exactly constitutes a place-based school reform strategy in theory and in action and (2) to examine the impacts of school choice on place-based school reform strategies. To these ends, the study seeks to answer the following research questions: 5

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Question 1: What are the theoretical and conceptual dimensions of place-base school reform?

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Question 2: What are the components of place-based school reform when implemented?

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Question 3: How does school choice complicate the development of place-based school reform strategies?

This research study attempts to understand the intersection of neighborhood and place-based strategies in an age of accountability within environments of school choice. Significance of the Study Since 2011, forty-four cities across the nation have been granted Promise Neighborhood planning and/or implementation grants, and an additional 56 cities have been granted Choice Neighborhoods planning and/or implementation grants. Now that place-based school reform models are being implemented in cities across the United States, my research comes with a sense of urgency. Scholars and practitioners alike know nothing about the potential of conflicting policy demands placed specifically on Promise and Choice projects and broadly place-based school reform efforts. For example, the metrics for a successful Choice Neighborhood grant might be the number of children from a neighborhood receiving supportive services at a school. This metric is quite different from a school’s ultimate metric for success: student achievement. Concerns about conflicting policy goals are relevant especially in a standards-andaccountability environment that sometimes seems to ignore larger trends related to distressed neighborhoods declining conditions for those who live in them (Fusarelli, 2011; Weiss & Long, 2013). The policy agenda advanced by the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education (BBA) group stands in contrast to market-based school reform. What do these conflicting demands mean for the federal-local nexus of interaction?

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Through Promise and Choice Neighborhoods, though, the same federal government that provides billions of dollars to advance the standards-and-accountability education reform agenda is supporting efforts that align with BBA’s conflicting agenda. Further, in cities that have open enrollment policies, one must question whether it impacts place-based efforts. If students are not going to school in the neighborhoods where the live because of school choice and open enrollment, how effective will a place-based approach to reform be (Silver, Weitzman, Mijanovich & Holleman, 2012)? Indeed, the assumptions of place-based efforts are potentially challenged in an environment of school choice. Comprehensive school reform and education policy implementation literature suggested that conflicting policy goals can promulgate failure (Desimone, 2002). The reality is that the scholarly community knows virtually nothing about how school systems and individual schools navigate involvement in place-based comprehensive community initiatives that attempt to improve neighborhood conditions. In order to understand how local, yet federally-funded, place-based reforms co-exist in the same space as local school choice and the federal standards-and-accountability policies, more comprehensive frameworks will be necessary. Currently, these efforts to co-exist in the same spaces, but it is unclear how school, community development, and supportive service professionals have handled these potentially conflicting demands. Resulting frameworks could perhaps offer a more complete picture of how these efforts have been launched, how they exist on a daily basis, and how “on the ground” tensions emanate from them. A few constituent groups stand to benefit from the knowledge created from this research. First, federal policymakers will gain insights about conflicting policy demands created by separate pieces of legislation. Understandably, ESEA provides an overall policy framework for education in the United States, while Promise/Choice Neighborhoods and FSCS are modest grant

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE programs. However, these grant programs must operate within the broader policy framework, yet they operate under different assumptions and theories of change. Based on this information, futures policymakers will be able to craft more cogent legislation and perhaps reconsider policy demands that create barricades for school personnel and local education policymakers. These lessons learned could also help the White House create an even more “durable” urban policy agenda that can last for decades (Sharkey, 2013). If policy efforts clash or conflict, it may not be possible to get an accurate sense of the effectiveness of a particular policy approach. Second, local education-related stakeholders, from teachers to central office administrators to non-profit professionals, stand to gain from this study. By achieving conceptual clarity about place-based school reform, it could help these professionals better implement such local initiatives. Further, by exposing tensions created by school choice, local education stakeholders can be aware of the limits of a place-based school reform strategy. Exposing these tensions could also lead to school choice policy changes within a district, or it could result in a better understanding of how school choice can complement place-based school reform strategies. It is also possible that this research could spark a community discussion about the extent to which school choice policies inadvertently hinder neighborhood transformation. Finally, urban planners could gain new insights into how exactly to improve distressed neighborhoods using the educational infrastructure as a launching point. While Promise and Choice Neighborhood initiatives signal the importance of education to neighborhood transformation plans, getting schools involved in the neighborhood transformation process is not an established norm of the planning field. According to the American Planning Association1, school/education professionals is not listed as a constituency that planners would typically

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https://www.planning.org/aboutplanning/whatisplanning.htm

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE interact with during the community planning process. Education/school-related issues are not common concentrations offered in planning schools. This is beginning to change because of the connection between the housing market and school quality, as reflected in the APA Statement on Housing (2006). Only a few specialized research centers that serve regional constituencies, such as the University of California – Berkeley’s Center for Cities and Schools, view school and urban policy as inherently linked. This study will make an important contribution by studying school reform from an urban planning and community development perspective. Organization of the Study This study will be organized into five chapters. Chapter One presents the problem statement, purpose, and definitions. Chapter Two summarizes the literature on this issue and makes clear gaps that this study seeks to fill. Chapter Two continues with offering a conceptual and theoretical framework for place-based school reform, which is the topic under investigation. Chapter Three offers an account of the single-case context and why this case is of particular interest. Chapter Four describes the data sources and analytic strategy, while Chapter Five presents the data that were collected. Chapters Six, Seven, and Eight offer results of Research Questions One, Two, and Three, respectively. Finally, Chapter Nine offers discussion, conclusions, limitations, and implications. Definitions Throughout the study, the term “distressed neighborhoods” will be used. For clarity, these neighborhoods reflect a “situation [of] concentrated social and economic conditions which point toward lower living standards for residents, and where such conditions can raise organizational demands on local and small and service-delivery nonprofits” (Jennings, 2012, p. 465). While some scholars refer to a distressed neighborhood as the “ghetto,” this study will not use this term except when necessary to discuss the extant literature. Next, the terms “local 9

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE education agencies / school district are used interchangeably. Finally, the terms place / neighborhood are distinct. As will be discussed in Chapter 3 (Methodology, Conceptual Framework), I define neighborhood as a combination of people, the built environment, the organizational network, the institutional network, the neighborhood economy, and proximity / access to other city resources. A “place” is a particularly developed space that has a “unique collection of qualities and characteristics – visual, cultural, social, and environmental – that provides meaning to a location” (McMahon, 2010). In other words, “place” is what makes one space different or distinct from another space. Neighborhoods can be places, but they do not have to be. The “placemaking” process is a conscious and intentional series of activities that attempt to make a space or neighborhood special and meaningful.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE CHAPTER 2: Literature Review Introduction How to address poorly-performing central city schools is one of the most perplexing questions in contemporary educational research. At least two categories have emerged as paradigms shaping the nature of reform efforts: (1) building-based approaches (e.g. comprehensive school reform) and (2) place-based approaches (e.g. interventions and the community and neighborhood-level). Knowing that the federal government has supported both paradigms both separately (e.g. building-based approaches funded through No Child Left Behind and place-based approaches by Full Service Community Schools) and jointly (e.g. Promise and Choice Neighborhoods), I want to understand how these efforts exist jointly within one building and within one city. In particular, I suspect that inherent tensions exist between these two competing paradigms. Currently, the education and neighborhood development literature ignores these tensions. In order to understand how local, yet federally-funded, place-based reforms exist in the same space as local school choice and the federal standards-andaccountability policies, more comprehensive frameworks will be necessary. Resulting frameworks could perhaps offer a more complete picture of how these efforts have been launched, how they exist on a daily basis, and how “on the ground” tensions emanate from them. In order to more deeply understand the tensions underlying these federal efforts to reform public schools, it is necessary to understand the broader context in which these efforts are situated. The paper will be divided into five sections based on five distinct areas of literature representing distinct approaches to turning around low-performing schools. First, I begin by exploring the issue of federalism in education policy. While this is not an approach to improving low-performing schools per se, the particular issue of place-based and building-based approaches

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE to education reform calls attention to the federal-local nexus in education policy implementation which will set the stage for next four sections. Second, it is important to unpack the variety of locally-driven, and sometimes federally-incentivized, reforms attempted at the district-level to transform poorly-performing schools. Next, out of frustration with the persistence of lowachieving schools, policy makers and school leaders explored market-based education reforms embodied by school choice. This section will review the school choice literature to understand how this line of education reform impacts the overall landscape of education reform literature. Fourth, because a line of scholarship contends that low-performing schools are products of larger neighborhood-based problems, I turn to the neighborhood effects literature to examine the extent to which neighborhoods can exert independent influences on individual outcomes such as academic achievement. Finally, the neighborhood effects literature sets the stage for reviewing literature on place-based school reform efforts. This section concludes with an analysis of the relevant literature laps. The paper concludes with four researchable questions emerging from this literature review. In each section, I trace the body of literature back to its roots and, where appropriate, review scholarly evidence of the ability of each approach to improve student performance in low-performing schools.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Section 1: Federalism in Education Reform: The Local – Federal Nexus Fragmentation in governance defines American educational policy and practice: between federal, state, and local governments, between citizens and professional educators, between school boards and superintendents, among other conflicting groups and interests. While schooling in America traditionally has been an issue of local control, an increasing body of literature documents the increasing power and influence of state and federal governments. In recent years, the federal government particularly exerted increasing amounts of power and influence regarding how schools, especially urban schools, improve and operate. Of course, all three levels of government impact school improvement, but the focus on this section will be on the federal-local level of interaction. The reason for this is because, as McGuinn (2012) suggested about the recent Race to the Top competition, the federal government relied upon effective local implementation of federal reforms to achieve its goals, which has historically proven to be challenging (Berman & McLaughlin, 1975). Further, urban districts both directly receive federal funding such as Title I for low-income students (Cascio & Reber, 2012) and have the ability to directly apply for competitive grants from the federal government , thus bypassing the state government altogether. In present-day education policy and scholarship, intergovernment relations (IGR) became an object of interest because of the many different and very complex layers of interactions between local, state, and federal government: federal-statelocal, federal-state, state-local, and federal-local (Marsh & Wohlstetter, 2013). While each of these layers of interaction is significant in themselves, I will focus on the federal-local layer of interaction because the literature largely ignores this level. This section will be divided into three parts: (1) introduction to federalism in American education, (2) the federal government’s

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE increasing role in school improvement, and (3) the local-federal level of interaction in education reform. Introduction to federalism in American education America’s tradition of distrust in centralized national authority translated into a tremendously fragmented system of education where the federal government traditionally held no formal responsibility (Cohen & Spillane, 1992; Marsh & Wohlstetter, 2013). Instead, responsibility for education devolved to the states, but most states passed responsibility down to the “smallest possible unit” of government: the local level (Katz, 1987, p. 33). In school year 1939-1940, the country had 117,108 local school districts, making the concept of centralization difficult to grasp (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2012a). Localities handled curricular, operational, human resource, and financing issues with minimal involvement from the state and federal governments, allowing the schools to devise an approach to schooling that best addressed the needs of local communities (Reese, 2005). This federalist system became known for its “fragmented” (Cohen & Spillane, 1992) nature, but it was intentionally created “as a response against executive dominance in the colonial era” which make coordination between different levels of government arduous (Kaufman, 1969, p. 3). States, especially since the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, assumed a coordinating role by setting a broad policy vision, accompanied with directives, and providing additional funding so that all localities can provide children within the state a free public education (McDonnell & McLaughlin, 1982; Usdan, McCloud, Podmostko, & Cuban, 2001). Throughout the 19th century, states created a legal framework for the creation of local school districts but failed to develop the administrative structure to support them (Timar,

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE 1997). This lack of administrative structure meant that localities had considerable freedom to either comply or not comply with state directives. In the Progressive Era, the power of states expanded because of issues such as rural school consolidation, the professionalization of teaching, and state selection of textbooks (Tyack, 1974). Timar (1997) argued that “the role of state departments of education in the first half of this century was to legitimate the Progressive agenda” on issues such as teacher tenure, student testing and tracking, and institutional uniformity (p. 244). The National Defense of Education Act of 1958 called attention to the issue of curriculum by sounding an alarm on the inadequacy of science and math education across the nation, but states remained only a marginally important factor in education reform in that they only responded by providing more technical support for local districts (Timar, 1997). It was not until the Brown v. Board of Education case and the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that state became more significant players in education reform. Even at that time, states “assumed the role of federal outposts overseeing the expansion of federal policy interest in schools” (p. 250). States became particularly important in ushering in the era of standards-based reform through efforts such as encouraging districts to use federal professional development funds to support state standards (Spillane, 1999). In contemporary education policy, states also come together on issues of common concern to attempt to shape federal education policy, either through legal (protecting ability to make state-initiated decisions), fiscal (protecting against unfunded federal mandates), or administrative (seeking flexibility in implementing federal policy) means (Nugent, 2009). Before the passage of ESEA, the federal government’s role in education was virtually invisible. The federal government’s responsibility extended no further than to collect accurate 15

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE statistics about American public schools. ESEA provided the largest financial investment ($1 billion) in the American government’s history, mainly focused on redress for school districts that served large proportions of low-income students (Thomas & Brady, 2005). Financial assistance to school districts moved from general aid to categorical aid. In other words, aid would be linked to the achievement of particular goals (e.g. combating poverty) as opposed to “no strings attached” aid. The Act also increased the importance of state departments of education to oversee the local school district’s progress toward improving educational performance of students receiving supports under the law. Since the passage of ESEA, the federal role in education reform has grown exponentially (McGuinn, 2006; Vinovskis, 2009). Indeed, given the local district’s traditional monopoly over decision-making, the state’s increasing role in holding local districts accountable for performance standards, and the federal government’s expanded role in directing education reforms, we are left to question, “Who’s in charge?” (Kirst, 1995). The next section provides an overview of the federal government’s burgeoning role in education which resulted in a standards-and-accountability regime to improve schools with support from both Republicans and Democrats. Federal government’s role in school improvement

With the exception of providing statistics about the national educational landscape and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787’s requirement that states set aside land for common schools, the federal government’s role in education was miniscule (Vinovskis, 2009). It was not until Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 when the federal government became active in the American schooling system. Even at this historical landmark, the federal government’s mandate was simply to create “a more equitable system of public schooling” (McGuinn, 2006, p. 27). This event, coupled with the “public ’discovery’ of poverty” (Vinovskis, 2009, p. 11), hurled the 16

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE government into a grueling battle to equalize funding for urban school districts as they attempted to educate all students, especially children of color and those in poverty. This battle proved to be seemingly unwinnable (Ravitch, 1983). Some argue that the legacy of ESEA’s banner Title I program seems to be one of financial mismanagement and overly bureaucratic compliance (Roza, 2010; Martin & McClure, 1969), while others argue that Title I decreased so-called “achievement gaps”2 between rich and poor students, helped facilitate desegregation, and made strides in equalizing spending between elite and disenfranchised districts (Cascio & Reber, 2012). Before No Child Left Behind, the most recent ESEA reauthorization, the federal government’s role in education policy was limited, linked mostly to encouraging states to achieve higher standards, experiment with innovative programs, ensure access to education for all students regardless of physical (dis)ability, and provide equitable resources to districts with high concentrations of minority students. NCLB’s passage grew out of frustrations with persistently low-performing schools and represented a new era of the federal government responding to these frustrations. These frustrations were well-documented, but the frustrations reached a crescendo when the federal government released the A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) report which suggested that America’s public schools were in decline, and therefore the country’s economic prosperity was at risk, which demanded federal intervention.

2

The notion of the achievement gap has been problematized because it is overly simplistic, arguing that differences in student achievement have roots in opportunity structure (Carter & Welner, 2013) and civic empowerment (Levinson, 2013) differentials.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE From there, the George H.W. Bush Administration convened the Charlottesville Education Summit which raised the issue of the federal government playing a more expanded role in holding schools accountable for poor performance and rewarding schools that performed well, but Congress passed no formal legislation to make these desires a policy reality. After the Clinton Administration managed to pass the Goals 2000 legislation, a broader policy regime formulated around the standards-and-accountability role of the federal government which eventually paved the way for the passage of No Child Left Behind under George W. Bush’s leadership. Its passage also meant an expanded federal role in education that linked funding and school governance decisions to performance on state-created standardized tests (McGuinn, 2006). These standards-and-accountability reforms, with their roots in the 1980s and 1990s, addressed the issues of (1) education achievement dissonance between students from different racial and class groups and (2) fragmented and incoherent policies to hold states and localities accountable for student achievement (McDonnell, 2011; Smith & O’Day, 1991). NCLB used sanctions in order to generate change at state and local levels, but scholars argued that this approach “predictably” failed to make general major improvements in schools (Mintrop & Sunderman, 2009). They argued that sanctions “are likely to fail when they are designed with less-than credible threats, aimed at diffuse target actors, and beset with visible enforcement challenges, and when they require behaviors for which there is not sufficient capacity” (p. 354). In response to this failure, the Obama Administration switched its approach to that of stimulating reform through competitive grant programs (McGuinn, 2010, 2012). The Administration’s new strategy was manifested in the Race to the Top (RTTT) program. States applied to the federal government with their plans for four specific areas: standards and assessments, data systems to support instruction, great teachers and leaders, and turning around 18

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE the lowest-achieving schools (McGuinn, 2010). States were also judged on a battery of “success factors” such as a coherent reform agenda and local school district cooperation. The policy aimed to address the issues of a lack of state capacity to guide school reform efforts and the lack of political will “to take on entrenched interests, change established policies, and embrace innovation” (McGuinn, 2010, p. 4). McGuinn (2012) argued that the most likely legacy of RTTT will be the creation of longitudinal data systems and common academic standards and assessments, but its legacy also exposed the federal government’s lack of ability to hold states and localities accountable for the promises made in competitive grant applications (Weiss, 2013). Weiss’s report examined mismatches in RTTT implementation, citing, for instance, reports of smooth implementation from the federal and state governments contradicting other media and grassroots reports of troubled implementation. RTTT also exposes tensions between the executive and legislative branches of government. Competitive grants mean that some states lost the competition, thus upsetting some members of Congress. Further, some Congressional leaders continue to raise concerns over the substance of RTTT (McGuinn, 2012). While current federal policy attempted mostly to pressure states to adopt reforms that the federal government favored (e.g. state assessments, Common Core Curriculum, state longitudinal data systems, stronger accountability for teacher effectiveness), some scholars observed that federal and state policy continues to push itself into the classroom thereby impacting such core school functions as curriculum and teacher evaluation and tenure (Grissom & Herrington, 2012; McDonnell, 2011; Superfine, Gottlieb, & Smylie, 2012). While these efforts perhaps represent “a further blow to local control” (McGuinn, 2010, p. 7), IGR scholarship indicated that perhaps these recent policy developments increased the power of both state and localities in shaping school reform (Marsh & Wohlstetter, 19

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE 2013; Vergari, 2012). The next section of this review will interrogate the small body of literature that focuses on the local-federal nexus in education policy. Local-federal nexus

Local school boards, mayors, and local education agencies (LEAs) exert considerable influence on their locality’s school system, despite the federal government’s expanded role in education (Marsh & Wohlstetter, 2013; Tyack, 2002). Localities serve a variety of functions, such operating schools, drafting plans to fix low-performing schools, administering open enrollment plans (Rossell, 1987), implementing state and federal programs for unique student populations, providing professional development for teachers; the list could go on. Increasingly, urban school districts compete for federal dollars and, in turn, respond to federal reform mandates for many reasons, one of which is because of constrained local funding sources (McGuinn, 2012). The politics of IGR are messy and result in power struggles between which level is “weaker” and which level is “stronger” at a given moment. Recent IGR scholarship indicated that local actors, including non-profits, local school boards, universities, business leaders, and other local politicians, continued to gain more significant influence over policy implementation (Honig, 2009a; Marsh & Wholstetter, 2013; Shipps, 2008). Through her analysis, Honig (2009b) demonstrated that implementation outcomes of education improvement efforts—whether or not initiated by the federal government—are products of interactions between policy, people, and places. In this sense, implementation is a “highly contingent and situated process” (p. 338), and this implication cannot be understated. Standards-and-accountability policy implementation varies from city-tocity (place) and from central-office-staff-to-central-office-staff (people), just as it would differ

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE from a policy that sought to decrease class size. However, scholarship still lags behind in “confront[ing] the complexity of policy implementation,” which perhaps requires a separate mode of inquiry to truly understand these complexities (Honig, 2009b, p. 339; Radford, 2006; Wheatley, 1992). Without question, interactions between the federal government and local schools and districts are complex. This section reviews the small body of literature of the nexus of interaction between local school districts and the federal government. Of course, strictly speaking, the locus of control for education rests with the state, as guaranteed by the US Constitution (Grissom & Herrington, 2012). Recent examples in education policy, however, illustrated the reliance that the federal government has on local school districts. Marsh and Wholstetter (2013) documented this interaction through three examples: (1) NCLB, (2) Common Core State Standards, and (3) local empowerment policies (i.e. charter schools and parent trigger laws). Regarding NCLB, “districts in recent years also have asserted independence from federal and state governments by pursuing NCLB amendments and other implementation strategies to protect their interests” (p. 278). Recently, eight California districts directly applied for and received NCLB waivers (Fensterwald, 2013). Vergari (2007) documented the experiences of one district’s implementation of the Supplemental Education Services (SES). This NCLB provision offered tutoring to students in low-performing schools by either private or non-profit groups through dedicated Title I funds. While the state oversaw the approval process for tutoring providers and the evaluation of the program, local districts marketed the program to parents and operated all logistics for the program. Some districts undermined the federal government’s program innovation by sending confusing letters to parents and making the overall application process arduous for parents, thus allowing some districts to keep those unallocated Title I dollars. As a result of the recent surge of NCLB state waivers, 21

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE districts were given flexibility to opt out of the SES provisions (Molnar, 2013). Local action precipitated federal policy realignment. With the implementation of Common Core Standards, some districts took the lead while their states lagged behind (e.g. New York City, Miami-Dade County, Anchorage, and San Diego). The proliferation of charter schools under RTTT meant a reinvigorated role for local actors to actually operate schools and even collaborate with local school districts for their simultaneous improvement (see portfolio approach to public schools, Hill, 2006). Importantly, direct federal and local interface happens when the federal government grants a local district funding to achieve a specific goal advanced by the federal government, known as grant-in-aid programs (Pinder, 2010). While the federal government can set the terms of grant programs, it relies on the local governments to operate grants and actually achieve the desired ends. NCLB’s Title 1 serves as a relevant example, as the federal government provides money, states divide the money based on free-and-reduced lunch status and require localities to submit a plan for how they will spend the money, and localities receive the money and implement the program however they see fit. States typically “rubber stamp” these plans (Cascio & Reber, 2012, p. 4). Through these processes, the federal government loses significant influence and localities have significant power to shape the direction of the grant given, among other things, how local agents make sense of the policy or initiative, their prior knowledge about the program, and their interpretations of a particular policy (Spillane, Reiser, & Reimer, 2002). Put differently, “local schools are fairly free to meet their own priorities” (Murphy, 1971). A timely example of this federal-local nexus is through the RTTT-District (D) grant process (US Department of Education, n.d.). The RTTT-D competition called for personalized learning environments, and successful local district awardees submitted grants that emphasized blended 22

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE learning approaches (American Institute of Research, 2013). Though results remain to be seen, local districts will now directly interface with the federal government to achieve their goals. Other examples of direct local-federal interactions include the following grant-in-aid programs: Full Service Community Schools, Investing in Innovation (i3), and Promise Neighborhoods. Despite the notoriety of these programs, scholarship lags behind in understanding how the federal and local governments interact throughout the implementation process. Based on IGR scholarship, it is possible to infer that localities, like states, through program technical assistance and monitoring, will successfully bargain with the federal government to protect their interests and maintain local control (Heise, 2006; Marsh & Wohlstetter, 2013; Pinder, 2010). Indeed, the RAND Change Agent study documented the importance of local conditions in determining the success of a reform effort which will be discussed in the next section (Berman & McLaughlin, 1975; McLaughlin, 1990). However, the scholarly community does not know the processes of interaction between local and federal governments as they embark on grant-in-aid programs together, such as the ones listed above, in a post-NCLB and RTTT era. These situations become even more complex when a grant program extends beyond the walls of the school to include neighborhood conditions such as Promise and Choice Neighborhoods (discussed later). Conclusion to “Federalism in Education Reform” section

In this section, I have documented the fragmented American federalist education system. Further, it is now clear that the federal government has assumed greater responsibility in holding states and localities responsible for improving schools using student achievement as the primary metric. I also showed how the federal government directly relates with localities through such

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE programs as Title I, but literature documented that localities proved resilient in protecting local control. However, it seems that the literature cannot speak to the processes of interactions between the federal and local governments. Based on this analysis, it is possible to conclude that this federalist system results in a confusing and conflicting landscape that can kill the best, most effective, or well-intentioned school reform efforts (Datnow, 2005; Desimone, 2002; Furhman & Elmore, 1990; Spain, 2013). In the next section, I will turn attention to local levers of school reform to examine how policymakers and educators have attempted to address the “problem” of low-performing schools.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Section 2: Local Levers for Transforming Low-Performing Schools: Governance and Building-Based Approaches While the federal government provided funding to districts in an attempt to create a more equitable distribution of resources through the Title I program (Martin & McClure, 1969), the federal government relied on local school districts to spend the money in a way that would best meet needs of local residents. Based on the theory of fiscal federalism, “local districts are better at developing programs for their particular populations” and therefore “could promote effective use of funds” (Oates, 1999, as cited in Cascio & Reber, 2010 p. 4). Results of the Title I program have been disappointing in that they have not produced the desired academic gains for poor and minority children (Black, 2010; Borman & D’Agostino, 1996). These results, coupled with the public concern about the declining quality of American education in relation to other countries (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983), created even more pressure on local school districts to address the problem of low-performing schools serving large amounts of low-income children of color (Reese, 2005; Tayak, 1974). Reform efforts targeting lowincome schools changed from strict categorical assistance programs such as Title I to a broader array of reforms which included school-wide or comprehensive school reform programs (Desimone, 2002; Edmonds, 1979; Smith & O’Day, 1991) and other governance reforms such as site-based management and mayoral control of schools (Murphy & Beck, 1995; Hess, 2008). Inevitably, these “competing and often contradictory reforms have combined top-down, centralized efforts to improve schools and teaching with efforts at decentralization” (Borman, 2005, p. 8). This section explores these two locally-employed approaches to the “low-performing schools” problem: governance and building-based approaches. In the first section, I explore how local public school systems and their cities have changed governance structures in response to 25

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE (1) the perceived inefficiency of democratically-elected school boards and (2) the frustration with the perceived inefficiency of central office bureaucracies. I give attention only to the governance reforms of democratic localism / community control and mayoral control in this section given their prominence in the literature and current practice. In the next section, I examine the comprehensive school reform (CSR) literature which grew out of a standards-based reforms seeking to “implement effective practices in all of the central areas of school functioning most likely to affect student achievement” (Slavin, 2008, p. 2). I will briefly review the literature about what makes a “successful” CSR initiative, but I will pay particular attention to recent scholarship about school turnarounds. This analysis demonstrates the limits of building-based approaches to school reform. Governance reform: Mayoral control and school decentralization

In the Progressive Era, reformers sought to remove education from political influence (Cibulka, 2003). Locally-elected boards of education were perceived to keep education close to communities, but they also reinforced a “corporate cast” of nonpartisan elites who oversaw a professional expert, or the superintendent (Hess, 2008, p. 221; Tyack, 1974). Over time, school districts became entrenched in ideas of centralization, efficiency, and nonpolitical control (Tyack, 1974). This system of governance came under fire in the 1960s with the rise of various interest groups, such as bilingual, disadvantaged, and gifted students, who challenged the idea that this disconnected group of elites could actually represent their specific interests (Kirst & Bulkley, 2001). Further, unions grew in their influence which often resulted in contentious relations between school boards and superintendents on one hand and teachers on the other (Kirst & Bulkley, 2001, Hess, 2008). As public school central bureaucracies grew larger, they also became more fragmented and incoherent, causing some communities to question whether or not 26

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE the current governance arrangement was now irrelevant and called for new forms of governance (Elmore, 1993). Further, many urban school districts struggled with the problem of failing schools which created political pressure on schools and cities to do something about them (McGlynn, 2010). In response to concerns about the current educational bureaucracy growing out of the Progressive Era, some cities experimented with alternative governance arrangements. New groups of reformers ushered in two major governance reforms to address the perceived shortcomings of the current system: school decentralization and mayoral control. School decentralization: Democratic localism and community control. When reflecting on the tensions between school centralization versus decentralization, scholar Richard Elmore (1993) noted, “At any given point in the debate, the ‘correct’ or ‘enlightened’ position is usually clear: it is the opposite of whatever was previously correct” (p. 34). Centralization, the design of the Progressive Era reformers, called for increased bureaucratization, specialization, and scientifically-managed school systems capable of educating large numbers of children through one main schooling organization: the district (Tyack, 1974). Decentralization, on the other hand, represented a “back to the future” reform harkening back to democratic localism of the 1800s (Katz, 1987). Democratic localism governance arrangements of the 1830s and 1840s which grew out of concerns from disenfranchised groups in cities, such as Catholics and blacks (Katz, 1987), and it put faith in the “smallest possible unit” of government: districts and neighborhoods (p. 33). Democratic localism also recognized and sought to strengthen the symbiotic relationship between school and neighborhood / community, as these arrangements allowed local districts to adapt teaching and learning to reflect the needs of the community and encouraged heavy involvement of local citizens—especially parents. As Katz (1987) suggested, “at its best

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE democratic localism provided a compelling alternative vision for education…[that was] broad and humanistic” (p. 37). At its worst, Katz observed, “democratic localism in action was tyrannical local majority whose ambition was control and the dominance of their own narrow sectarian or political bias in the schoolroom” (p. 36). In the 1800s, this arrangement did not last long, but the idea experienced a resurgence in modern school reform discourse. Inspired by the “democratic wish” concept of returning political decision-making, whether in reality or in-name-only (Monroe, 1990), school decentralization sought to place increased decision-making authority in the hands of schools and in smaller units of political governance such as neighborhoods or wards. The most prominent reform proposal growing out of this “decentralization” idea was site-based management. Sitebased management, or school-level autonomy, refers to the structural and vertical decisionmaking processes being shifted from the state and the school district to the school level designed specifically to encourage greater ownership over the school’s results and to increase morale and stakeholder commitment (Stevenson, 2001; Leonard, 1998). Example components of SLA frameworks include: (1) establishing many teacher led decision-making teams; (2) focusing on continuous improvement in areas related to curriculum and instruction; (3) finding ways to reward staff behavior that helps achieve school success; and (4) selecting principals who can facilitate and manage change (Wohlstetter, 1995). A body of literature reveals that site-based management yielded little change in the actual decision-making processes of schools (Dempster, 2000; Elmore, 1993; Malen, Ogawa, and Krantz, 1990; Rodriguez & Slate, 2005), suffering from implementation issues, such as ambiguous directives from central office, trust, and disagreement about the level of authority stakeholders such as community members should have (Rodriguez &

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Slate, 2005). This is not surprising, in one respect, because site-based management plans were designed by central-office managers. Large-scale attempts at governance decentralization across districts revealed that decentralization can be sustained for an extended period of time. Chicago and New York City serve as two prominent examples and represent two distinct types of school decentralization. First, Chicago’s state legislature approved Public Act 85-1418 in 1988 to create local school councils (LSCs), thus making the school as the key decision-making site (Bryk, Sebring, Kerbow, Rollow, & Easton, 1998). This “school site” decentralization policy granted LSCs the power to hire and fire the principal. Teachers were guaranteed two spots on the LSC which served to provide formal input from the educator community. State aid arrangements were even changed to directly send compensatory education funds directly to the school site based on number of enrolled low-socioeconomic status students. These reforms, based on Bryk and colleagues’ (1998) analysis, creased a story of “three thirds” (p. 261): self-initiating, actively restructuring schools that experienced improvement in student achievement; schools engaged with the community and in changing governance but struggling with improvement; and schools left behind by the reform. While mayoral control took effect in 1996, the tenets of the decentralization legislation remained intact (Bryk, Sebring, Allensworth, Luppescu, & Easton, 2010). Reflecting on “democratic localism as a lever for change,” and even more broadly the ability of governance reforms to actually improve schools, Bryk et al. (2010) claimed that “these reform elements created a new force field, much more horizontal in its press extending into local communities rather than vertical into a central bureaucracy” (p. 216). As a result, those involved in the reforms revisited their roles in school

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE reform and, in nearly all cases, “opened up possibilities for new social resources to develop at the school-site level” (p. 216). New York City decentralization proposal was conceived as “community district” decentralization where the large New York City school bureaucracy was broken into 32 community school districts (Ravitch, 2000; Segal, 1997). Each district was controlled by a lay school board and exerted significant influence over core decisions, such as hiring staff from principals to school aids--but not teachers. The new community school boards did, however, control teacher promotions. This experiment with “community control” created serious tensions between professional educators and parents/community members, as evidenced by the OceanHill/Brownsville “crisis” which resulted in strikes and some violence when these populations clashed (Podair, 2002). Beyond simple clashes, “decentralized programs provide the tools for corruption” (Segal, 1997, p. 143), as they provide lay citizens with substantial ability to control large budgets and hire numerous staff (with questionable qualifications). After seeing the political patronage problems evolve (Reardon, 1988), the New York City schools changed governance. As Cuban (1990) observed, “by the mid-1970s, the surge of interest in decentralization had spent itself” (p. 5). While the geographic community school districts were retained because of a provision under the Voting Rights Act (Frutcher & McAlister, 2008), the New York City school district ended its decentralization experiment in 2002 and transitioned to a system of mayoral control. School decentralization, whether through community control of schools, community school districts, or school-site governance, proved to be difficult to sustain because of concerns surrounding community unrest, as was the case with Ocean Hill-Brownsville (Fantini, Gittell, & Magat, 1970). An exception to this is the community schools concept, which will be discussed later. While community schools differ from large-scale

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE decentralization programs, they position the school as the “social center” of the community and require that school professionals work with community members to involve them in school improvement efforts. Bryk et al. (1998) observed that the Chicago school-site decentralization plan “looked back to New York for inspiration” but differed because of its desire to place accountability in a democratic localist framework--“more personal, immediate, and sharply drawn” (p. 21). In both cases, communities and parents secured active roles in the operations and governance of schools, leaving larger centralized bureaucracies without much formal authority. Interestingly, in both cases, these cities introduced another key governance reform: mayoral control. Mayoral control. Some urban districts ushered in a major governance change: from elected school boards to mayor-controlled school systems. Henig (2009) noted that the of “educational exceptionalism” was upon public school districts, in that public school personnel no longer held a monopoly over public schooling. Indeed, external organization influence in public school operations has grown (Honig, 2009a). However, the executive branch of all levels of government—including at the local / municipal level—had increased its influence on education and started to bring education into general purpose politics. Henig (2009) noted: To the extent that the need to compete globally makes the members of the general public more cognizant of the importance of public education even when they do not have children in the schools, it is credible that proponents of educational investment and reform can make their case in the broader arena of general purpose politics. To the extent that the traditional core supporters of education are structurally weaker—because of the declining access and clout of the teachers unions, and to a student enrollment with higher proportions of minorities who are

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE regarded less favorably as policy beneficiaries and less able, politically, to defend their interests—proponents of public education may have no real choice but to frame their arguments and build their coalitions with an eye to competing in broader political arenas (p. 297). Mayoral-control of public schools took different forms across localities, ranging from the mayor selecting a superintendent (or CEO of Schools) to appointing school board members (Wong & Shen, 2013). While general concerns about school boards propelled mayoral control into the spotlight, the exact reason why a district officially became a mayoral control district was somewhat unclear (Henig, 2009). In a recent study, McGlynn (2010) found that, while mayoral control was rare, several factors influenced the governance transition: districts with large numbers of disadvantaged populations, Republican-controlled state legislatures, and districts with significant union membership. Arguments in favor of mayoral control included a concern that school boards were dominated by special interests, a lack of continuity among school board, school boards’ lack of discipline and tendency to micromanage, and a concern that school boards operated in isolation from the city’s broad political and civic goals (Hess, 2008). These reasons have been countered by many critiques (Chambers, 2006; Ravitch, 2010; Stone, 2003). Critiques of mayoral control include a lack of transparency, a concern that certain voices are silenced such as people of color, concerns that public schools will become just “one more thing” the mayor must handle, and mayors’ lack of experiences with public education reform. Empirical studies of mayoral control are small in number and generally do not result in strong evidence that mayoral control improves student performance. The most recent study conducted by researchers Wong and Shen (2013) suggested that mayoral control can be effective

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE in improving student performance, but the employed methods were limited. For example, when reporting that mayoral control could help reduce the gap between mayoral control cities and the rest of the state, they reported the raw percentages of pass rates on the state standardized tests. Later in the report, when they employed more robust analyses of statistical significance, the conclusion became tempered: “more robust statistical analyses at the school level suggest that there is variation in the long-run effectiveness of mayoral control in improving student achievement” (p. 48). After seven to eight years, gains plateaued. Further, researchers made no attempts to control for other factors that may have caused these increases. For example, beginning in 1998, Boston Public Schools implemented a number of after-school and supportive service program efforts (e.g. Boston 2:00-to-6:00 initiative and Boston Connects), aimed to improve student achievement (Davis & Farbman, 2002; Walsh & Backe, 2013). It is possible that these efforts, created with a variety of community partners, could have contributed to the increased test scores. Authors tempered their conclusions with the following cautions. First, mayoral control does not lead to student achievement gains across the board, but instead in certain grade-levels in certain cities (e.g. improved fourth-grade National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, scores for blacks and Latinos in New York City). Next, the mayor must be ready and willing to assume leadership. Also, mayoral control must be tailored for local conditions. Finally, the plan for mayoral control must be reinvented after a period of time, because results can stagnate after several years. Cuban and Usdan (2002) reported that mayoral control may be associated with improved efficiency and alignment between curriculum, professional development, and instruction. The mayor’s connections to political structures locally and across the state may also help to sustain and advance education reform goals,

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE according to their study. McGlynn (2008) reported that mayoral control is associated with increased per-pupil expenditures within the district, but not necessarily with increased student achievement. Governance: Concluding thoughts. Reforming governance structures has been one policy lever cities employed to address the problem of low-performing schools. These reforms can improve student learning in low-performing schools, “if power distribution reshaped by these reforms actually culminates in a renewal of relational trust at the school level” (Bryk et al., 2010, p. 217). While Chicago-style democratic localism demonstrated results along the lines of increased relational trust (Bryk et al., 2010), New York City’s community decentralization resulted in no such outcomes (Segal, 1997). Bryk et al. (2010) warned that governance reforms alone will most likely not be effective without attention paid to collective social capacity at the school level and a focus on the teacher-student level of interaction. Governance reforms represented one local policy lever to improve low-performing schools representing the idea that changes in operations and management were the root causes of low performance. It is for this reason that an entire body of scholarship grew around the idea that the building is the most important unit of analysis in school improvement as opposed to the district and associated governance structures. Internal-to-School Reforms: Comprehensive School Reform

Attempts to reform governance structures of local school districts represented two seemingly conflicting approaches to school improvement. Whereas mayoral control represented a top-down centralized bureaucratic approach which empowered district leaders to make sweeping changes across schools, site-based management represented a bottom-up approach where stakeholders at the building-level became empowered to make changes they matched their 34

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE local conditions and circumstances. The comprehensive school reform movement, rooted in the idea that low-performing schools could be turned around, sought to strike a balance between these seemingly conflicting reform movements (Borman, 2005). Growing out of the assumption that “schools currently operate below the production-possibility frontier,” (Brighouse & Schouten, 2010, p. 511), comprehensive school reform (CSR) models attempted to develop a comprehensive approach to improving desired outcomes across an entire school. Comprehensive approaches relied on both site-based management to give schools the flexibility needed to change building-based practices (e.g. instruction and professional development) and top-down centralized bureaucratic guidance to support schools throughout the process of change (e.g. providing curricular materials and technical support). This section is divided into two parts: (1) historical foundations of the CSR paradigm and (2) evidence regarding CSR. CSR: From historical foundations to modern manifestations. CSR grew out of the effective schools movement which contended that all students can learn regardless of circumstance (Edmonds, 1979). Framed as a challenge to the Coleman report’s (Coleman…et al., 1966) contention that a child’s social background was the main determinant of student achievement, an effective school was one that “must eliminate the relationship between successful performance and family background” (Edmonds, 1979, p. 21). Edmonds’ research arose out of empirical work studying 55 “effective schools” in the boundaries of the Detroit Model Cities Neighborhood area. These schools were characterized by strong leadership, high expectations, and pleasant atmospheres (i.e. quiet and orderly). Based on these studies, he concluded that the “repudiation of the social science notion that family background is the principal cause of pupil acquisition of basic school skills is probably prerequisite to successful reform of public schooling for the poor” (p. 23). These building-based, or internal-to-school,

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE approaches to improving poorly-performing urban schools sought to “drive up quality to the point where children’s disadvantages would disappear” (Raffo...et al., 2006, p. 45). Based on Edmonds’ research, scholars sought to articulate the attributes of “effective schools” and how a successful reform effort would be structured (e.g. Fullan, 2007; Purkey & Smith, 1983). Adopters of the effective schools movement eventually realized that their schools were not fundamentally changed, in that they did not revise their instructional programs and measures of student progress (Baringer, 2010). However, through the work of Smith and O’Day (1991) on systemic school reform, scholars and practitioners came to appreciate the necessity of aligning state government incentives and curricular frameworks with actual school-building-level changes if reform goals were to advance. Actual changes to teaching and learning in the building were necessary for school change to occur. The CSR paradigm grew out of this realization that developing actual models and materials that would redesign the in-school programs were necessary for school change to occur (Desimone, 2002). CSR efforts seek to implement strategies within a school building that are “most likely to affect student achievement: curriculum, instruction, assessment, grouping, accommodations for struggling students, parent and community involvement, school organization, and professional development” (Slavin, 2008, p. 256). CSR models have focused almost explicitly on urban schools because of these schools’ historical struggles with low performance. As a result, Title I funding became an important way that CSR efforts were initially launched. Between 1980 and 1990, the Title I structure shifted from a focus on individual “pull-out” programming to school-wide standards-based reform models (Borman, 2005). Setting the scene for how federal dollars could be used to catalyze school-wide reform efforts became one more legacy of the Title I program. As a result, several early CSR models

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE surfaced (Slavin, 2008): James Comer’s School Development Program (Comer, Haynes, Joyner, & BenAvie, 1996), Theodore Sizer’s Coalition of Essential Schools (Sizer, 1984), and Henry Levin’s Accelerated Schools (Levin, 1987). In 1991, George H. W. Bush kick-started the development of specific CSR efforts by creating a private-sector organization called the New American Schools Development Corporation (NAS), a group tasked with overseeing the process (Sroufe, 1991). The creation of such an organization ushered in the business model into comprehensive school reform by creating a competition among nonprofit and for-profit organizations alike to submit CSR proposals that could be taken to scale. Of 700 proposals, seven were funded and scaled up to reach thousands of schools across the United States (Borman, 2005). The seven models were: Audrey Cohen College System of Education, ATLAS Communities, Co-NECT, Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound, Modern Red Schoolhouse, National Alliance for Restructuring Education, and Roots and Wings (Bodilly, Keltner, Purnell, Reichardt, & Schuyler, 1998). The NAS models reflected the call for “scientifically-based” whole-school reform efforts that could be replicated across a variety of school sites which served as a precursor to the “scientificallybased instructional practices” mandate from No Child Left Behind (Rowan, Correnti, Miller, & Camburn, 2009). Congress moved to support these whole-school reform efforts by passing the Comprehensive School Reform Program (CSRP) which supported these efforts in the amount of $145 million. The program’s allocation reached its maximum in 2003 with nearly $308 million, with most ($235 million) being allocated for Title I (high-poverty) schools. More recently, especially because of No Child Left Behind’s (NCLB) emphasis on adequate yearly progress (AYP), public attention shifted to addressing the “problem” of persistently low-achieving schools, or schools who failed to make AYP for two consecutive

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE years. After four years of failing to make AYP targets such a graduation rates, standard test score results, and attendance rates resulted in deploying sanctions for these persistently lowachieving schools known as “corrective action.” This included changing curriculum, decreasing the school’s management authority, or replacing selected staff. After five years, though, schools were required to restructure based on the federal list of approved interventions: replacing all or most school personnel, selecting a new management company or group to run the school, converting to a charter school, or state takeover (Duke, 2012). Given these sanctions, interest in turning around a school became of paramount interest to policymakers and school personnel alike. While some observers claim that it is easier simply to close persistently low-performing schools than attempt to turn them around (Stuit, 2010), a great deal of scholarly and practical work has focused on how to actually transform schools from low-performing into betterperforming schools (Borman, 2005; Bryk et al., 2010; Duke, 2012; Hochbein, 2012; Public Impact, 2008; Slavin, 2008). State of the research: What do we know about CSR efforts? Based on a robust body of research, scholars discovered (1) what makes a CSR effort successful in terms of raising student achievement and (2) the limits of the CSR approach. This section will report on the scholarly progress made on these two issues. First, some evidence suggested that CSR approaches could be successful if certain criteria are satisfied. Desimone’s (2002) extensive literature review of CSR work revealed that policy and context, though falling outside the school district’s sphere of influence, impact whether or not a CSR effort would be successfully implemented. Desimone’s analysis articulated a theory of policy attributes which, taken together, provide a five-prong framework for understanding a CSR’s chances of success or failure: (1) specificity, (2) consistency with

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE school, district, and state policy, (3) normative, institutional, and individual authority, (4) power versus authority, and (5) stability. These policy attributes are related to school reform designs. For example, specificity impacts the extent to which the reform is implemented with fidelity. Consistency refers to the depth of implementation and its coherence with other policies which, if conflicting, teachers could simply ignore the CSR program in order to focus on a more pressing policy demand. Finally, whether or not a school can choose the particular reform can directly impact the longevity of the CSR effort, citing that principals who were forced to choose a CSR effort only maintained the CSR effort as long as the mandate was in place. Whether or not CSR efforts are effective at actually improving student performance is a question that has not fully been answered by existing literature. The most recent meta-analysis of CSR reported that overall CSR effects are statistically significant and mildly positive. These effects are greater than previous attempts at reducing the so-called achievement gap and improving outcomes for large numbers of low-SES students, such as Title I (Borman, Hewes, Overman, & Brown, 2003). From this meta-analysis, and from further work by Borman (2005), CSR efforts were not initially successful (years one through four) yet effect sizes grew over time—on average from .25 in year 5 to .5 in years eight to 14. Reminiscent of Fullan’s (2007) scholarship, institutionalization of reforms is a time-consuming process that could take three to five years. Further examination of turnaround schools showed that, once a school demonstrates a turnaround, their student performance was not likely to regress to its original low-performing status (Hochbein, 2012). Borman et al.’s (2003) analysis also revealed that whether or not a CSR effort required certain components (i.e. on-going professional development, measurable goals for student outcomes, use of innovative curricular materials) could not explain the outcomes a school could

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE expect. They concluded that “differences in the effectiveness of CSR are largely due to unmeasured program-specific and school-specific differences in implementation” (p. 166), thus echoing Honig’s (2009b) assertion that effective implementation is a product of policy, places, and people. Only three CSR efforts met the highest standard of evidence (third-party experimental-control comparisons yielding a positive effect size that could be generalized to other sites): Success For All, Direct Instruction, and the School Development Program. Slavin (2008) concluded, based on these results, that, on the one hand, CSR efforts can be effectively implemented and maintained over time, yet on the other hand, policymakers and educators abandoned these strategies because of fads in education reform. These results indicated the mild success of CSR efforts implemented in a variety of schools—not just turnaround schools that are high-poverty and/or schools in corrective action. What about turnaround schools? Given recent massive federal investments in school turnarounds through the School Improvement Grant (SIG) program, policymakers may want to know whether or not these investments produce desirable academic gains. Only one study (Dee, 2012) empirically demonstrated that the SIG program in California on average produced statistically significant improvements in student performance. Data recently released from the U.S. Department of Education showed very modest student achievement gains in SIG-funded schools (U.S. Department of Education, 2012; Klein, 2013). In some cases, such as “SIG Cohort One” schools, 20 schools experienced a decline in their reading scores based on state standardized tests. However, according to the descriptive statistics, schools in both cohorts on average experienced gains in math and reading. Schools generally experienced more gains in math. Limited data suggested that turnaround investments can be mildly successful, but they were no panacea.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Emerging “cultural” norms of school turnarounds seem to be forming (Brinson & Rhim, 2009; Duke…et al., 2005) that appear to be consistent across all turnaround efforts. Based on his work with the Virginia School Turnaround Specialist Program (VSTSP), Duke (Duke et al., 2005, 2012) summarized those norms: formative assessments to track progress, data-driven decision-making, focused and appropriate instructional changes, school wide emphasis on literacy and math, measures to make the school orderly and safe, dedicated collaborative teacher planning, extended school time, and teacher involvement in using data. Harkening back to Edmonds (1977) and the more contemporary call for “no excuses” in closing so-called achievement gaps (Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 2003), these “prescriptions” (Duke, 2012, p. 22) for school turnaround can be achieved in all schools by manipulating building-based factors, or from the “inside out” (Elmore, 2007). Still, based on his work, he recognized change must be customized to meet local conditions (Duke, 2012). Indeed, it is important to recognize that CSR programs cannot address every cause of poor academic performance. Second, CSR has its limits. First and foremost, student achievement gains did not always result from implementing CSR efforts. In the federal government’s evaluation of the CSRP (Orland et al., 2008), schools who participated in the program did not experience gains in math and reading within three years of implementation. This finding may be read with caution, given Borman et al.’s (2003) finding that schools may not experience gains associated with the CSR effort until the fifth year. However, Thomas, Peng, and Gray (2007), in their longitudinal analysis of school turnarounds, discovered patterns of “improvement cycles” which rarely lasted four or more years. Orland et al. (2008) posited that if a school implemented more components of the federal government’s CSR criteria, it did not mean that said school would experience more student achievement gains, echoing the cautionary conclusions of Borman et al. (2003).

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Datnow (2005) found evidence to suggest that other competing federal, state, and local demands actually detracted from school officials’ abilities to implement CSR efforts. Ironically, reform was placed on the “back burner” as some schools intensely focused on state standardized test scores. Recent research (March, Strunk, & Bush, 2013) suggested that districts implementing school turnarounds for many schools at once have difficulty managing the process. Notably, in this study of the Los Angeles Unified School District, they noted that because of “decreasing supply of [public school choice initiative] applications affirms that there may be justifiable concerns about the number of organizations interested, willing, and able to take on the turnaround challenge” (p. 518). On the issue of low-performing, high-poverty schools, research also suggests that socioeconomic conditions and neighborhood factors can negatively impact teacher’ expectations and therefore student performance, thus working against building-based CSR efforts (Entwistle, Alexander, & Olson, 1997, as cited in Desimone, 2002). As Duke (2012) noted, “Little consideration has been given to the possibility that schools serving large numbers of disadvantaged and low-achieving students might be better served by developing modes of organization and operating procedures uniquely suited to their circumstances” (p. 23). In Bryk et al.’s (2010) analysis, they studied both schools that flourished and schools that lagged. If schools were not strong on the five essential supports—coherent instructional guidance, professional capacity, parent-community-school links, student-centered learning climate, and building-based collaborative leadership—school improvement was not a likely outcome. As Bryk et al.’s work demonstrated, school reform approaches have essential design supports, but each individual school will approach them from a different angle, grounded in the nuances of community and local context. Not all failing schools are the same (Elmore, 2007), so neither should their reform efforts.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Conclusion to “Local Levers of Reform” Section

Clearly, local urban public school districts attempted to address complexities associated with low-performing schools within the constraints of their democratically-controlled districts. Even when the democratic governance system was a perceived failure, localities reacted by initiating governance reforms which sought to re-energize reform efforts. Still, most efforts at addressing school performance issues were within the constraints of the present local education agency (LEA) arrangements. What if the LEA, which holds a monopoly over the current system of schools, was the problem? To respond to this concern, an entire body of scholarship and practice is dedicated to the idea that a constrained school system, with few choices for parents and children, is the problem. The response to this critique can be found in the market-based approach to transforming urban school districts: school choice.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Section 3: School Choice and Market-Based Approaches to Education Reform Given the significant concerns about public education in urban areas, some policymakers and advocates advanced the idea of school choice. Largely an urban phenomenon (Ryan & Heise, 2002), school choice can be simply defined as market-inspired approaches that offer different options for schooling beyond the neighborhood public school (Merrfield, 2008a). In this section, I will analyze the school choice literature and show how school choice systematically works against neighborhood development. The section begins by explaining the landscape of school choice by describing its underlying assumptions and the policy approaches emanating from it. Then, I consider evidence of school choice’s impact. Finally, I explore the political economic side of school choice by examining its relationship to racial and social integration, parents, and neighborhoods. The School Choice Landscape

Definitions and participation rates. School choice programs operate under the premise that competition between schools will increase the quality of all schools. In this sense, education became one more market that could be analyzed, understood, and improved by economic and market interventions (Hoxby, 2003). At least twelve formal policy interventions and practices fall under the school choice umbrella (Merrifield, 2008b), but these interventions and practices can be truncated into six categories: residential choice, intradistrict choice, interdistrict choice, charter schools, vouchers, and private schools (National Center for Education Statistics, 2010). Residential choice refers to the choice that affluent families have historically exercised to live in the community that provides access to a high-quality public school (Henig & Sugarman, 1999; Holme, 2002). This choice mechanism functions because of the traditional attendance zone

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE associated with the zoned neighborhood public school. A conservative estimate of students exercising this form of choice is 25% (Henig & Sugerman, 2000; Ryan & Heise, 2002). Districts offering options for students to choose other public schools within the boundaries of the local school district operate within an “intradistrict choice” framework. These plans come in the form of magnet or specialized schools, district-wide open enrollment plans, or individual student transfers outside of the assigned neighborhood school. When students are permitted to enroll in a school located outside of their local school district, the student would be participating in an “interdistrict choice” plan. Approximately 48% of students in America have intradistrict and interdistrict choice plans available to them (National Center for Education Statistics, 2010). Charter schools are an increasingly visible school choice option enrolling about 3.6% (n= 1,787,091/49,177,617) of American students (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012b). Authorized by a local or state education agency, charter schools operate schools under a contract with the state which frees them from the bureaucratic oversight of the local school district. As a tradeoff for this autonomy, charters are periodically reviewed for the goals explained in the original application and can be closed if the school fails to meet performance targets (Nelson…et al., 2000). School vouchers offer families tax dollars, either the full per pupil expenditure spent on local public school students or a smaller “option-demanded” amount (Merrifield, 2008a), that can be used to pay private school tuition. Currently, only a few voucher programs operate across the country in a few states: Florida, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Just under 180,000 students participate in these tuition tax credit / school voucher programs (Wolf, 2012).

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Finally, private schooling has been a “choice” option for decades. These schools enroll about 10 percent of students in America as of 2009 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012c). Private schools usually charge tuition, are frequently religiously-affiliated, and simply do not receive tax dollars to fund their operations. As school choice continues to expand, the percentage of students enrolled in their zoned public school decreased from 80 percent in 1993 to 73 percent in 2007 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012a). Historical foundations. It is impossible to understand school choice without grasping changes in building metropolitan cities, the historical context of desegregation, and the rise of neoliberalism as a guiding political and economic paradigm. In the 1940s and 1950s, America’s conception of city-building radically departed from earlier notions of city-building. A political consensus grew among city leaders to focus on suburban development which required massive amounts of political will and financial capital. City leaders envisioned “one big metropolitan city” where suburbs would be connected to the urban core through a massive highway system. The driver of suburban development was mass homeownership which would not have been possible without cooperation between the federal and local governments. For example, the Federal Housing Administration and Home Owners Loan Corporation were established to ensure that citizens could have access to loans enabling them to purchase a new house, now positioned as a commodity that could be bought and sold for profit in a new housing market. As a result of these policies, whites (the new homeowners) began to move out of central cities in large numbers and moved into the suburbs (Taylor, 2011). This new city would become more segregated among class and racial lines, as most working class blacks and people of color remained in center cities and most upper-class whites moved to the suburbs.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE At the same time this occurred, the Supreme Court handed down the Brown vs. Board of Education 1954 decision which ended de jure segregation. After much formal resistance to school desegregation by states, especially southern states, the Court affirmed the constitutionality of busing students within a district in the Swann vs. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education 1971 decision. In 1974, however, the Court ruled in Milliken vs. Bradley that it was unconstitutional to bus children across district boundaries. Such a decision happened during a flurry of antibusing advocacy in the country among whites in suburban constituencies. Democrat and Republican lawmakers alike faced pressure from suburban constituencies to advocate against busing, resulting in the passage of legislation that prohibited cross-district busing (Orfield, 1978). President Richard Nixon took a public stance against busing and instead advocated for neighborhood schools. In an attempt to strike a compromise between suburban and urban constituencies on the busing issue, he advocated for increased resources for inner-city schools, thus creating a symbolic barricade between urban and suburban districts. In essence, Nixon’s stance became, “kids in the inner-city schools would not be permitted to attend suburban schools, but they would be entitled to additional support and resources” (Ryan & Heise, 2002, p. 2053). Such acts were possible because of at least three interconnected factors: a lack of organized support for busing among blacks, strong opposition to busing from whites, and a preference among blacks to send their children to neighborhood schools (Ryan & Heise, 2002). Because sending inner-city children to schools outside central city schools was not an option, local city school districts needed to find ways to desegregate schools using within-district strategies. These desegregation attempts usually came in the form of magnet schools—an early school choice option—to draw middle-class whites into inner-city schools.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE During this period in American history, a new way of thinking began to seep into the American mindset and especially in elected leaders: neoliberalism. In fact, an original “neoliberal” thinker, Milton Friedman, is often cited as the “father” of school vouchers. Friedman called for the end of government-run education and suggested a national voucher policy where the government would assume only an accrediting function that would approve schools to operate (Friedman, 1962). While government funding could be rationalized because of the positive external (or neighborhood) benefits, government’s role in providing education should be limited. While Friedman’s voucher proposal never gained widespread acceptance at the time, the philosophical foundations were laid. Neoliberalism’s prominence as a world view grew intensely in the 1980s when leaders such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher painted pictures of massive government failures (Harvey, 2005). In fact, it is out of the critiques of government-sponsored education where school choice was born. In a seminal work by Chubb and Moe (1990a), they framed their analysis of schools through an institutional lens to demonstrate the failure of democratically- (or government-) controlled schools to actually produce environments conducive to learning (for a discussion about Chubb & Moe’s flawed methodology, see Bryk & Lee, 1992; Elmore, 1991). School choice, as a policy issue, has been framed in terms of classic neoliberal tenets: privatization, deregulation to promote competition, retrenchment of state bureaucracy, elimination of subsidies, and balancing budgets (Klaf & Kwan, 2010). Appropriately, school choice advocate scholar Merrifield (2008a) criticized scholars who attempted to offer evidence of school choice’s failure because of the absence of perfect market conditions (presumably needed for school choice to work properly), such as low formal barriers to entry, stability in demand, market-

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE determined, flexible process, nondiscrimination in funding, and a direct payment by the consumer. Neoliberalism places faith in the free market to solve problems that government has not been able to solve. In proposals for “pure school choice” (Chubb & Moe, 1990a), the free market of schools will be able to match all consumers’ (parents) needs. School choice’s inextricable connection with neoliberalism is clear. Evidence

While certain states took steps to implement school choice programs, this competitive notion was reinforced and cemented by the landmark federal policy No Child Left Behind’s school choice transfer provision. School choice provisions allowed parents whose children attended a persistently low-achieving school to transfer to another school within the district that met proficiency standards (Fusarelli, 2003). The question remains: Have school choice efforts worked? Have they actually been the “tide that lifts all boats” (Hoxby, 2003)? Evaluating the impact of school choice is a complicated task—a task which conjures up disagreement among scholars across the country. With book titles like The School Choice Wars (Merrifield, 2001), School Choice and Social Controversy (Sugarman & Kemerer, 2002), and The School Choice Hoax (Corwin & Schneider, 2005), it is clear that school choice invokes ideological debates. These ideological issues make an academic assessment of school choice difficult. Further, some scholars argue that it is nearly impossible to evaluate school choice because of the absence of true market conditions. Most prominently, Merrifield (2008a) claimed that, given that “aspects of market accountability are virtually absent” in America, much of the direct evidence about school choice programs such as vouchers “is thus wrong, misleading, or irrelevant” (p. 2). That being said, it is possible to provide an overview of the existing literature 49

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE to provide an assessment. In order to assess the evidence, I use a three-prong framework described by Ryan and Heise (2002) to organize the discussion about the effectiveness of school choice: (1) academic achievement, (2) competition between schools, and (3) racial and socioeconomic integration (discussed in next section). Indeed, other frameworks to evaluate school choice exist. For example, Belfield and Levin (2009) organized their evaluation of market reforms in education around four criteria: (1) freedom to choose, (2) productive efficiency, (3) equity, and (4) social cohesion. In fact, when assessing market-based reforms, the authors admit that “these criteria are in conflict such that there must be tradeoffs” (p. 518). Further, there could be other metrics by which school choice could be judged, such as graduation rates in cities or states that have robust school choice plans or teacher quality rates in charter schools and traditional public schools. However, for brevity, I limit the impact of school choice to the three criteria mentioned earlier. This section is organized into two parts: (1) research supporting school choice, (2) research challenging school choice. Because school choice’s umbrella is so large, I present more evidence about the most common forms of school choice: vouchers and charter schools. Research supportive of school choice. Hoxby’s (2003) study of Michigan and Arizona charters and Milwaukee’s voucher program concluded that school choice could improve the productivity of the school, measured by scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) per $1000 in per-pupil spending. Essentially, Hoxby observed statistically significant academic gains for students exercising private school choice (eighth and twelfth grade math and reading scores) and enrolled in Wisconsin’s “most-treated” voucher schools (math, science, language, social studies, and reading). Hoxby also observed some productivity and student achievement increases in both “treated” (chartered, or schools with many voucher-

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE eligible students) schools and “non-treated” schools (traditional public, or schools with low numbers of voucher-eligible students) in Michigan and Arizona. For Arizona, the productivity gains were statistically significant for fourth grade math and reading and seventh grade math. For Michigan, the productivity gains were statistically significant in fourth and seventh grade math and reading. In this sense, Hoxby found evidence supporting the assertion that school choice can positively impact student achievement and competition between schools. Dee (1998) found that competition between schools can raise high school graduation rates. Greene (2001) indicated that competition could increase resources directed to the classroom. Hanushek and Rivkin (2003) suggested that competition can produce some moderate increases in teacher quality. Large-scale assessments of school choice programs also found positive, though modest, impact of school choice in academic achievement. Belfield and Levin (2002), Borland and Howsen (1993), Greene (2001), Teske and Schneider (2001), and Walberg (2007) all documented the modest positive gains experienced by students participating in school choice programs. These scholars all attempted to look across the literature to assess the impact of a variety of school choice programs—intradistrict choice, charter schools, vouchers, and magnet schools. Merrifield (2008b) surveyed the literature and reported on the impacts of school choice programs by category. For instance, he reported about the modest positive student achievement impacts that universal tuition vouchers had on students from different countries, such as Chile, Sweden, and the Netherlands. He also reported that charter school results on student achievement were mixed, and “a fair assessment of the charter law innovation awaits analysis of relatively stable, equilibrium situations” (p. 234). His analysis ultimately concluded by admitting that “we lack any direct answers to pressing questions about market accountability as a

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE transformation catalyst,” (p. 246). More recent research by Stanford’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) reported that some charter schools over time were able to increase student performance (2013). Ultimately, 25% of charters performed significantly better than the local public school market in reading, and 29% of charters performed significantly better in math. These results were tempered by conclusions that “there remain worrying numbers of charter schools whose learning gains are either substantially worse than the local alternative or are insufficient to give their students the academic preparation they need to continue their education or be successful in the workforce” (p. 23). In summary, some evidence suggested that school choice mechanisms could have moderate impact on student achievement (e.g. Walberg, 2007; CREDO, 2013) and some impact on competition between schools (e.g. Hoxby, 2003; Greene, 2001). These moderately positive gains in student achievement and increased competition between schools are not without debate and discussion. An entire body of literature problematizes these findings, thus calling school choice into question. Research challenging school choice. A growing body of literature on school choice calls into question the previous analyses, with some scholars questioning the methodology by which scholars arrived at positive conclusions (e.g. Rothstein, 2005). Other scholars simply offered different findings; mostly that school choice’s impact yielded no significant differences in most situations (e.g. CREDO, 2013; Ladd, 2002). Still, others argue that school choice mechanisms increase school segregation (e.g. Saporito, 2003). Indeed, the counter-narrative to school-choiceas-panacea perspective (Chubb & Moe, 1990b) argues that school choice cannot deliver the student achievement gains that it promises. One of the earliest federal experiments with vouchers, for example, the Alum Rock experiment, did not deliver as promised. Among its

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE conclusions: “two basic assumptions underlying voucher theory were that parents would actively use their power of choice to make the system operate for their benefit, and that programs would compete with each other for resources...were not borne out as full expected” (Levinson, 1976, p. 34). Further, this counter-narrative highlights, underlines, and stresses a point that the proschool-choice literature openly admits: “some stratification is a logical outcome of choice” (Merrifield, 2008b, p. 236). I will first focus on the impact of school choice on academic achievement. Some studies suggested that no statistically significant differences are detectable when students participate in school choice programs. Using a random assignment method to study school vouchers, Howell and Peterson (2002) concluded that “no overall private school impact of switching to a private school [through vouchers] in the three cities,” but did find moderate impact for AfricanAmericans (p. 145). Figlio and Rouse (2006), challenging Greene (2001), noted that positive gains reported from Florida’s voucher program were probably attributable to student characteristics—not the voucher program as Greene (2001) argued. Archibald and Kaplan (2004) reported slightly lower NAEP scores in districts that report magnet schools. In a study regarding private management companies who stepped in to operate 27 schools in Philadelphia, Byrnes (2009) found that these schools performed below schools operated by the public school district. Ballou (2008) reviewed 14 studies about magnet schools: six documenting positive results, three finding no effect, and five producing mixed results. In a recent comprehensive evaluation of the Milwaukee Parent Choice Program, Wolf’s research team (2012) reported several occurrences of “no significant differences” between voucher and non-voucher students, though they noted “some evidence that participation in MPCP or enrollment in an independent public charter school has produced better student outcomes than those experienced by similar

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE students in MPS” (p. 12). In earlier evaluation reports, though, they stated, “there is no statistically significant differences in student achievement growth in either math or reading scores between MPCP and Milwaukee Public School (MPS) students three years after they were carefully matched to each other” (p. ii, Witte, Carlson, Cowen, Fleming, Wolf, 2011). When examining the Chicago Public School choice program, in which nearly half of all students opt out of their local public school, Cullen, Jacob, and Levitt (2005) concluded that, “with the exception of career academies, we find that systemic choice within a public school district does not seem to benefit those who participate” (p. 755). Next, there is some evidence to suggest that school choice did not actually increase competition between schools, thus countering Hoxby’s (2003) argument. Notably, Rothstein (2005) claimed that the effect of school choice on average effectiveness across public school systems is negligible. His paper was one in an academic back-and-forth of disagreements about school choice impacts with Hoxby (see Hoxby, 2007). In a separate study, the tentative conclusion that “choice does not have sufficiently strong effects on the production of school effectiveness” (p. 1348) challenges the Tiebout-choice market claim that competitive pressure results in better school performance. Again, Howell and Peterson’s (2002) study found “few ripple effects” for other public schools. Indeed, Hess (2002) reflected that his story about school choice and competitive pressures is “one of nonrespone” (p. 19). In one of the most highly-publicized school choice “experiments,” New Orleans converted many of its schools to charter schools after Hurricane Katrina. As of 2010, 61 of the 92 New Orleans Parish schools are charter schools, enrolling 71% of the city’s students (Cowen Institute, 2010). While some claims, especially from the Obama Administration, tout the success of New Orleans model of charter conversion as a path toward increase student achievement for

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE students across the city (Bruce, 2010), a recent study raised doubt about the effort’s success. Gray, Merrifield, and Hoppe (2013) concluded, “It is difficult to conclude that the New Orlean’s [charter public schools] dominant system is responsible for the recent growth in passage rates and [student performance score] increases” (p. 25). In fact, gains in New Orleans student performance began pre-Katrina. School choice, at least in some studies in its current forms, does not necessarily create more competition between schools. Essentially, advocates and opponents of school choice have evidence at their disposal, making it extremely difficult to gauge its effectiveness as a policy intervention (Ryan & Heise, 2002). Social impacts

School choice literature painted a fuzzy picture about its ability to improve student performance and encourage competition between schools, but what about the social impacts? That is, how does school choice impact the children, families, and neighborhoods involved? In this portion of the paper, I explore three social impacts of school choice: (1) racial and socioeconomic (SES) integration/isolation, (2) parents, and (3) neighborhoods. These “social impacts” represent three alternative metrics by which school choice can be judged. Racial and socioeconomic integration/isolation. Fully understanding school choice means appreciating its impacts on racial and SES integration. The literature provided no evidence that school choice options as currently implemented positively impacted racial and socioeconomic integration (Ryan & Heise, 2002). Numerous scholars have empirically demonstrated that school choice actually intensifies racial and SES segregation. As mentioned, charter school advocates actually expect this segregation to occur (Merrifield, 2008b). Some scholars have claimed that charter schools are a “civil rights failure” (Frankenberg, SiegelHawley, & Wang, 2010, p. 1) because of the egregious levels of racial isolation in charter 55

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE schools. This study followed a line of critical literature that advanced the idea that school choice mechanisms, especially charter schools, served to advance segregation (Eckes & Rapp, 2005; Garcia, 2008; Green, 2001; Saporito, 2003). The process by which this happens is complex, but a consensus coalesces around the cause of charter school segregation: de facto housing segregation (Burdick-Will, Keels, & Schuble, 2013; Jacobs, 2011), a policy with roots in the paradigm of homeownership as a commodity (Taylor, 2011). More broadly, Ryan and Heise (2002) put it simply: “If those in a school district are predominantly minority and poor, moving them around through choice plans to other schools within the district will not have much impact on integration levels” (p. 2097). They continued with an even more grim reality check: “plans limited to choice among public schools in these districts have no real chance—absent significant demographic changes—of altering the drastic degree of racial isolation that current exists” (p. 2100). Parents. Substantial amounts of literature explored the impact of school choice on parents, mainly through two lenses: (1) parental information and (2) parent (dis)enfranchisement. First, parents (referred to as “users” of school choice, see Merrifield, 2008b) who obtained a voucher to attend a private school generally report being satisfied or very satisfied with their experiences (Henig, 1999; Howell, Peterson, Wolf & Campbell, 2006; Teske & Schneider, 2001; Wolf…et al., 2009). A key assumption of school choice plans was that parents had sufficient information to choose schools, which Rothstein (2006) suggested was not the case, as parents either did not value school effectiveness or they valued effectiveness but merely did not have enough information to decipher good from bad schools. Hoxby (2003) noted:

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE If parents in a metropolitan area can choose among a large number of districts, they will tend to favor districts that produce higher achievement for a given local property tax liability or, equivalently, have lower local tax liability for a given level of achievement. That is, parents will tend to favor districts with high productivity (p. 302). Empirical evidence suggested that parents having access to perfect information was a flawed assumption (Bridge, 1978, Henig, 1999; Rothstein, 2006). This leads me to the second point: low-income parent (dis)enfranchisement. In reality, parents’ information about schools usually happens through informal social networks with other parents of similar racial and SES backgrounds (André-Bechely, 2005; Beal & Hendry, 2012; Holme, 2002; Roda & Wells, 2013). Class, race, and social standing have been empirically shown to influence a parent’s ability to effectively participate in school choice as an informed consumer. Parents have been positioned as individuals navigating through a complex system where information did come easily— neither from the district nor from classroom teachers (André-Bechely, 2005; Ball, Bowe, & Gewirtz, 1996). Deeply entrenched in faith that market principles will produce better outcomes for society (neoliberalism), school choice placed the burden on the backs of parents to find their child the right school. How parents make decisions about where to send their children has been shown to be a complex issue. Based on his review of the literature, Jacobs (2011) explained the “ideal point spectrum” for parents (e.g. what matters most for parents as they select schools) as follows: monetary costs (travel, convenience); available information, parental preferences (academic similarity, racial homogony, economic homogeneity, linguistic homogeneity). However, he also found that proximity (location of a school in relation to a parent’s home) was a more significant

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE predictor than both academic quality and cost. It turns out that parents’ preferences for neighborhood charter schools accurately predict segregation levels. Beal and Hendry (2012) provided further evidence that challenging a foundational assumption of school choice: that it can provide all parents with access to high-quality education. Through their one-year case study of parents navigating a school choice plan, they found that many low-income black parents were waitlisted at schools perceived to be higher-quality. Taking André-Bechely (2005), Jacobs (2011), and Beal and Hendry (2012) together, it became clear that school choice produced perverse institutional conditions which result in parents playing a role in their own disenfranchisement. This happened in at least three ways. First, information about school quality was withheld from parents or is simply difficult to decipher. Second, parents of privilege guarded desirable schools through mechanisms of cultural capital accumulation. Third, given de facto housing segregation, a parent’s preference for a neighborhood charter school became a way to rationalize that parents simply “want” segregated, or racially homogenous, schools. In retrospect, school choice impacted parents on one hand by making those parents who “used” choice satisfied with the particular choice program but on the other hand, in an “ironic” way (Beal and Hendry, 2012), disenfranchised them because desirable schools are not always accessible to working class parents of color. Not only does school choice impact parents, but it also has an impact on the neighborhood in which parents live and the leftbehind neighborhood school. The next part will explore these dynamics. Neighborhoods. One foundational idea undergirding school choice freeing parents from the confines of the neighborhood school. While “neighborhood effects” literature will be reviewed more completely later in this paper, it seems that school choice can impact neighborhoods. What happens to those “left behind” by school choice (Bifulco, Ladd, & Ross,

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE 2008)? This question can be divided into two aspects: neighborhood schools and neighborhoods. In other words, what happens to the neighborhood schools when children leave the school to attend other schools across the city? And what happens to the neighborhoods? While the literature did not provide definitive answers, it was possible to gain some insights. First, a broad literature documented that those who choose to either take advantage of school choice or send their child to a private school are typically higher-income and more highly educated (Epple, Figlio, & Romano, 2004; Howell, 2004; Lankford, Lee, & Wyckoff, 1995). Because of this, school choice programs have been known to “cream skim,” a term referring to when higher-performing students leave schools under school choice plans. However, some evidence suggested that, with the appropriate controls and restrictions, school choice programs such as vouchers or charter schools in fact did not cream skim (Booker, Zimmer and Buddin, 2005; Chakrabarti, 2006; Witte, 2000).

However, Bifulco, Ladd, and Ross (2008)

found the potential for the open enrollment program in Durham, North Carolina to cream skim, thus leaving behind lower-performing students in neighborhood schools. Levitt (2005) documented similar patterns in Chicago.

Cullen, Jacob, and

On average, lower-performing students

were less likely to opt out of neighborhood schools. Further, Flicek (2007) conducted a oneyear case study of enrollment on a district that changed to an intra-district open enrollment plan. He found that neighborhood schools experiences a decreased SES of its students. Further, a tendency existed for the overall academic achievement levels for neighborhood schools to also decrease. There appeared to be at least some evidence that lower-performing and poorer students are left behind as a result of school choice programs, especially open enrollment. If school choice leaves neighborhood schools in generally worse shape in terms of SES and academic performance, what impacts does school choice have on actual neighborhoods? The

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE literature’s deficit meant that it was difficult to definitively answer this question. Burdick-Will, Keels, and Schuble (2013) geospatially analyzed the impacts of massive school closures, which paved the way for opening new charter schools, on Chicago neighborhood schools. They found that most closed schools were neighborhood schools located in distressed neighborhoods with high concentrations of people of color and low SES levels. School closure policies that targeted low-performing schools, “appear[ed] as though the school district [was] singling out schools in the most disenfranchised neighborhoods” (p. 77). These neighborhoods, though, appeared to be the neighborhoods most likely to receive new charter schools, ones that did not necessarily reserve spots for neighborhood students. Some research also documents changes in neighborhood racial demographics as the result of school choice programs. Danielsen, Harrison, and Zhao (forthcoming) examined the residential location choices of families who chose to send their children to a charter school.

The data revealed “that families attending the school in

question are almost twice as likely to relocate toward the school than could be expected if the school did not exert any attraction” (p. 46). In other words, if the charter school was attractive and provided the families a good educational experience, families were more likely to move closer to that school. In a similar vein of research documenting the benefits of charter schools to the local housing market, Jacobson and Szczesek (2012) documented the housing market benefits to a neighborhood located near a high-performing charter school.

Homes in the neighborhood-

based charter school sat on the market for fewer days and had higher property values. Also, it appeared that more investors were attracted to the area because they had more confidence that they could, for example, rent properties quicker.

On the social development side, some

literature exists that demonstrated how residents have attempted to use public school choice

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE (namely charter schools) to revitalize a neighborhood, along the lines of making the charter school a true neighborhood community school (Allen, 2010; Edelberg & Kurland, 2009). These case studies discuss neighborhood residents coming together to design a school that meets the needs, whether social service or academic, of the residents in a particular neighborhood. No empirical work, however, documents the impacts of such efforts. Conclusion to “School Choice and Market-Based Reforms to Education Reform” section

After surveying the literature, it appeared that school choice can have some impacts on neighborhoods and their schools. In distressed neighborhoods, residents could see their neighborhood school close and perhaps be replaced by a charter school. Neighborhood schools under school choice, seemed to decrease in academic performance and serve a lower SES student population. At the same time, high-quality (definitions vary, according to parental perceptions of quality) charter schools may have attracted people to the neighborhood and actually positively impacted the housing and rental markets. However, little was known about what happens to the quality of neighborhoods under school choice. It was not clear what happened to the social cohesion within the neighborhoods. It seems clear, however, that school choice directly discouraged neighborhood schooling, as advocates call for the elimination of attendance zones altogether (Merrifield, 2008a, 2008b). Ryan and Heise (2002) examined school choice through a political economic lens and showed how school choice has essentially been a story of suburban residents protecting their students from urban residents and children attending urban schools. All school choice plans have three things in common, according to the researchers: “They protect the ability of suburban parents to send their kids to suburban public schools, to spend locally raised revenues primarily if not exclusively on local kids, and to shield their kids from having to attend schools with more than a relative handful of ‘outsiders’” (p. 2087). 61

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE It was clear that school choice had implications for inner-city neighborhoods, but what exactly those impacts are remains to be seen. These mediocre results, especially regarding charter schools, “fueled charter advocates’ increased recognition that choice, in and of itself, doesn’t ensure quality” (Bulkley, 2010, p. 15) In the next section, I explore the neighborhood effects literature. Indeed, school choice programs have a common goal of offering inner-city families a way to escape their failing neighborhood school and instead attend school, maybe a better school but maybe not, somewhere else in the city—either run by the district, by a charter school organization, or by a private provider. Within this paradigm, schools can be the saving grace by trumping other characteristics that impact student performance. Essentially, school choice is predicated on the idea that neighborhood effects can be overcome by a “no excuses” approach to education reform (Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 2004). I will turn my attention to the literature that documents that impact that neighborhood effects can have on academic achievement and other indicators that are likely to impact school performance.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Section 4: Neighborhood Effects Architects of the school choice and market-based education reform paradigm operated under the assumption that neighborhood schools were inadequate. In the tradition of the effective schools movement (Edmonds, 1979), low-income disadvantaged students with histories of poor academic performance in urban areas simply needed high-quality schools which could overcome the negative effects of their home and neighborhood environments, so the logic went (Raudenbush, 2012). Competition between schools could be the “tide that lifted all boats” (Hoxby, 2003). In other words, competition could increase the supply of high-quality schools for all children in the inner-city while diminishing the supply of low-performing schools. However, decades of social science research has been investigating an important question that could challenge these assumptions: Do neighborhood characteristics impact individual level outcomes, such as academic achievement? Put differently, does a “neighborhood effect” an individual’s life outcomes? In this section, I examine the existing literature for answers to these questions. First, I review relevant literature to unearth the origins of the neighborhood effects hypotheses. In the next part, I present research evidence from a variety of observational, quasi-experimental, and experimental studies to demonstrate the specific effects that a neighborhood can have on individual-level outcomes. In this part, I also explore the mechanisms by which neighborhood effects are manifested. I pay close attention to studies on neighborhood effects on educational outcomes given my interests. In the subsequent part, I explore the tensions brought about by recent and influential Moving to Opportunity (MTO) housing mobility federal experiment. Next, I briefly explain the methodological challenges plaguing neighborhood effects studies, along with some methods employed to overcome these challenges. Finally, I offer concluding thoughts

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE about the limitations of neighborhood effects studies which result in limited practical understanding of how to mediate the neighborhood risk factors. Origins and Mechanisms of “Neighborhood Effects”

Defining a neighborhood effect is straightforward. When characteristics of the neighborhood in which an individual lives have an individual-level impact on life outcomes, then a “neighborhood effect” is present. Growing out of Chicago School researchers’ interests in the differential impacts of urbanization on processes of social organization across, they shifted the unit of inquiry from the individual to rates of social behavior (Sampson, 2008; Sampson & Morenoff, 1997). Accordingly, the interventions they created were at the community level (e.g. the Chicago Area Project, see Schlossman & Sedlak, 1983). William Julius Wilson’s book The Truly Disadvantaged (1987) catalyzed the most recent scholarship that studied neighborhood effects. One key argument was that economically disadvantaged, typically people of color, in central city neighborhoods were most adversely affected by economic transformations and citybuilding processes occurring in the 1960s and 1970s. These shifts left some central city neighborhoods decimated leaving behind areas of concentrated poverty where residents were, on average, detached from the labor market, devoid of quality schooling opportunities, and isolated from the rest of the city. These “concentration effects” (Wilson, 1987, p. 46) he argued, contributed to increased rates of social dislocation which included crime, unemployment, out-ofwedlock births, and welfare dependency for blacks in particular (p. 48, 59). The social isolation of which Wilson speaks is a product of larger social organizational factors (e.g. concentration effects) with origins in racial oppression but has been “strengthened in more recent years by such developments as the class transformation of the inner city and the changes on the urban economy” (p. 137). 64

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Wilson’s social isolation thesis in linked to a broader body of work that attempts to examine the mechanisms by which social order becomes disrupted: social disorganization theory (Sampson, 1992; Sampson & Morenoff, 1997) defined as “the ability of a community structure to realize the common values of its residents and maintain effective social controls (Sampson & Morenoff, 1997, p. 16). This disorganization comes as a product of breakdowns of institutions and of informal connections between neighbors. Systemic institutional breakdowns such as high residential mobility and population turnover, family disruption, and resource deprivation served as stressors that negatively impacted the community’s ability to function as a way that generate connections between neighbors. Since the publication of Wilson’s seminal work, social scientists went to great lengths to explore the associations and causal links between neighborhoods and individual outcomes (Jencks & Mayer, 1990; Brooks-Gunn, Duncan, Klebanov, 1993; Sampson, Morenoff, & Gannon-Rowley, 2002). Based on this scholarship, the mechanisms through which neighborhoods could impact individual-level outcomes for adults and children can be classified into at least six groups (Jencks & Mayer, 1990; Pebley & Sastry, 2003; Sampson et al., 2002). First, normative or epidemic models (Crane, 1991) examined the ways that peers influence individuals to act in a similar way (e.g. peer effects). For example, if a child observes people in the neighborhood studying, they would feel more motivated to graduate. Or, if an adolescent observes many people around his/her age having children, that person could be more likely to have a child. Second, neighborhood organization and collective socialization (Wilson, 1987) models emphasized the role of adults from within the neighborhood in advancing social control among children. For example, if adults regularly graduate school and advance to employment, they would transmit these messages to children. Or, adults could reinforce which

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE children in the neighborhood are acceptable friends by limiting a child’s ability to interact with less desirable children. The third mechanism, institutional models (Aber, Gephart, Brooks-Gunn, & Connell, 1997; Small, Jacobs, & Massengill, 2008), cast light on the role of adults from outside of the neighborhood had on neighborhood children. For example, members of a church organization may provide mentoring to neighborhood children. Or, this perspective could examine how the police interact with people in the neighborhood. Another mechanism by which neighborhoods may impact individuals was through labor and marriage markets (Duncan & Hoffman, 1991). Parents experiencing difficulty in finding employment would have a more difficult time making ends meet, thus causing more stress on the family unit. Also, as Wilson (1987) argued, the “male marriageable pool” (p. 83) was shallow because of the increased male incarceration rates and depressed employment rates, thus leaving women with fewer options for men who could support a family. Fifth were routine activities in the neighborhood which refer to the land use patterns (e.g. vacant, schools, parks, places of employment, restaurants, residential, industrial), traffic flow of visitors (e.g. who visits the neighborhood and when do they visit). These are important because they could regulate the places available for peer socialization, for exercise, or for quality educational opportunities (Sampson et al., 2002). Sixth, and finally, competition for resources between residents refer to the clashes between “advantaged” and “disadvantaged” neighbors (Jencks & Mayer, 1990, p. 116). Residents may compare their quality of life to others who were better or worse off, thus causing better or worse self-images. For example, poor residents with no car may feel worse about themselves if they lived around people with a personal vehicle. These six mechanisms helped researchers to conceptualize how a neighborhood might go about either positively or

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE negatively impacting individuals. With the tremendous amounts of possibilities for confounding variables when studying the link between neighborhood and individual characteristics, Duncan and Raudenbush (2001) concluded that “…the task of securing precise, robust and unbiased estimates of neighborhood effects has proved remarkably difficult” (p. 107). Now that I have covered the theoretical mechanisms through which neighborhood effects operate, I will turn my attention to a discussion about whether or not neighborhoods actually matter for individual outcomes independent of other individual or family characteristics. The Evidence: Do Neighborhoods Matter?

A host of studies sought to answer a question that, on its face, seemed to have an obvious answer: do neighborhoods actually matter? Pure intuition would lead investigators to quickly answer, “yes.” However, decades of social science research yielded a heated debate about the magnitude of these effects. While there may be broad popular consensus prima facie, researchers debated on the nature (e.g. for whom) and magnitude (e.g. how much) of these effects. While the neighborhood effects literature covered both adults and children, I focus on studies examining neighborhood effects on children given my interest in the connection between neighborhoods and schools. I divided the discussion into two parts: (1) main conclusions from neighborhood effects literature, with an emphasis on child outcomes and (2) connections between neighborhood and educational outcomes. Unpacking the research: How do neighborhoods affect individuals? Several extensive reviews of the literature tackled this difficult issue (Brooks-Gunn, Duncan, & Klebanov, 1993; Brooks-Gunn, Duncan, & Aber, 1997a,b; Burdick-Will...et al., 2011; Jencks & Mayer, 1990; Mayer & Jencks, 1989; Sampson et al., 2002). Up until recently, most studies were observational and cross-sectional in nature and lacked experimental qualities, calling 67

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE findings into question. Still, early observational studies were able to detect some impacts on various individual outcomes. This section will be structured by discussing findings over time. This part is organized chronologically to showcase the evolution of research reviews which unveil the state of the research “as it happened.” I begin with the Jencks and Mayer’s (1990) review, continue to the Brooks-Gunn et al. (1993) review, and finish with the Sampson et al.’s (2002) review. This part leads into an examination of neighborhood effects on academic achievement. Jencks and Mayer’s (1990) review was the first survey of the burgeoning literature and overall failed to find strong links between neighborhoods and outcomes. For education, limited evidence suggested that high-SES neighborhoods generally predicted a higher level of educational attainment (e.g. years of school completed), but it sometimes differed by race. For example, while living in a more affluent ZIP code predicted increased levels of educational attainment benefitting both blacks and whites, whites tended to attain more education if they had black neighbors and vice versa. For cognitive skills (e.g. standardized test scores), authors reviewed research about school-level SES measures and concluded that school mean SES marginally benefits black students more than white students. However, neighborhood SES was not taken into account, and authors were very cautionary about their conclusions in this area. For crime, only two studies linked crime to neighborhood effects, again causing authors to make tempered conclusions and provided conflicting conclusions. For example, the Nashville study suggested that de-concentrating poverty neighborhoods would reduce crime rates; while in Chicago the opposite conclusion was supported (de-concentration would increase crime rates). Also, living in a poor Chicago neighborhood increased juvenile delinquency activity among middle-SES teenagers but reduced the same likelihood among low-SES teens. For sexual

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE behavior, neighborhoods probably had the strongest impact on the examined indicators of contraceptive use, age of first intercourse, teen pregnancy, and having children out of wedlock. For labor market success, studies were inconclusive. While majority-black ZIP codes were associated with lower earnings for whites and blacks, neighborhood median income did not impact labor market participation once racial composition and welfare dependency rates were controlled in the models. Overall, the neighborhood effects literature, upon first investigation, revealed that neighborhoods and individual outcomes were not strongly and consistently linked (Sampson et al., 2002). The main conclusions were mainly framed in terms of the benefits associated with concentrated advantaged children and adults. The analysis conducted by Brooks-Gunn and colleagues (1993) analysis generally supported these conclusions that affluent neighbors, or the concentration of SES resources, were beneficiaries of neighborhood effects. Theoretically, this work supported the collective socialization theories, while seemingly working against the epidemic / normative theories. That is, affluent families benefit from living around other affluent families, thus providing support for the “role model effects” (Brooks-Gunn et al., p. 384). Further, authors reported that low-income families did not benefit from living in the same neighborhood as affluent families. As they stated, “The fact that low-income youth may not appear to benefit from affluent neighbors suggests that policies promoting the economic integration of neighborhoods may have adverse effects” (p. 384). Evidence also suggested that white affluent teenagers benefit more from being around affluent neighbors than do blacks. Given the intersectionality of race in class in this country (Massey & Denton, 1993), these findings suggest that low-income blacks would probably be on the “losing end” of neighborhood effects.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE This analysis also argued that family effects (e.g. characteristics of the family, such as parenting styles, maternal education level, family income) can be just as strong as neighborhood effects, thereby arguing that interventions at the family level should be considered in addition to community-wide interventions. Similarly, Ginter, Haveman and Wolfe (2000) empirically demonstrated that the more family characteristics entered into the model decreased the size and significance of the neighborhood variables, thus questioning whether or not neighborhood effects documented in the literature could be a product of omitted variables. However, authors acknowledged that neighborhood effects still generally yield significant effects, especially when they are related to the outcome variable being studied (e.g. neighborhood drop-outs predicting an individual’s likelihood of dropping out). A decade later, Sampson and colleagues (2002) surveyed 40 quantitative studies assessing the impacts of neighborhood effects on problem-related or health-adverse behaviors among adolescents. Based on this review, they conclude that crime rates are associated with collective socialization measures, such as connections and interactions between neighbors, informal social control, and institutional resources. More recent evidence from a quasiexperimental study documented the adverse impacts of exposure to a homicide on black student achievement, even if the crime was not witnessed directly (Sharkey, 2010), following the tradition of observational studies that found similar adverse effects of violence on academic achievement (Aber et al., 1997). A nuanced finding, though, appeared regarding social ties. The shared norm that residents will intervene on behalf of the entire neighborhood appeared to be more important for child well-being than the activation of strong social ties between residents.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE For health, research revealed that children living in areas of concentrated disadvantage and low social cohesion experience increased mental health problems, risk-taking behavior, and risky sexual behavior. Peer effects, in some cases, were found to mediate these neighborhood effects. Associations between neighborhood characteristics and other negative health outcomes, such as asthma (Rosenfeld, Rudd, Chew, Emmons, & Acevedo-Garcia, 2010), cardiovascular disease (Schultz...et al., 2005), improper brain development (Perry, 2001), and overall health status (Wen, Browning, & Cagney, 2003) have been documented in more recent scholarship. These negative health outcomes have also been documented to cause adverse school effects, such as higher absenteeism and lower academic performance (Clark...et al., 2010; Ding, Lehrer, Rosenquist, & Audrain-McGovern, 2006; Moonie, Sterling, Figgs, & Castro, 2006). Finally, Sampson and colleagues (2002) raised additional questions about whether the concept of neighborhood “disorder” (Wilson & Kelling, 1982) was linked to crime. In their research review, the link was not as strong as research assumed in the past. Was disorder a predictor of crime? Was disorder the same thing as crime? Was disorder some kind of mechanism that has implications for levels of mental health in the neighborhood? These questions could not be addressed by existing research. It should be noted that the neighborhood effects literature is vast and crossdisciplinary. For example, public health scholars examined the influence of neighborhood characteristics on gambling behavior (Barnes, Welte, Tidwell, & Hoffman, 2013), heart-related deaths (Harlan, Declet-Barreto, Stefanov, & Petitti, 2013), and birth rates (Maddock, 2013). Criminologists continue to research the link between neighborhoods and crime (MacDonald, Hip, & Gill, 2013; McNulty, Bellair, & Watts, 2013). I have attempted in this section to provide an overview specifically about neighborhood effects on factors impacting

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE adolescent development. I will now turn my attention to neighborhood effects and academic achievement and attainment.

Education and place: Considering the nexus. Neighborhood effects on the academic performance of children have also been a subject confronted in the literature. Early literature on the issue of child intellectual functioning, as measured by performance on standardized tests, revealed that the presence of affluent neighbors positively impacted test scores for some students (Chase-Lansdale, Gordon, Brooks-Gunn, & Klebanov, 1997). This finding was tempered with the nonlinearity of the relationship for blacks and females. When testing for nonlinearity, they found a beneficial effect only between the 25 and 75 percentile of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) among these groups, thus suggesting that these groups have a more difficult time making social connections in these neighborhoods. More recent evidence suggested that neighborhoods did impact educational outcomes, such as dropping out (Crowder & South, 2003; Harding, 2009a,b) and academic performance (Sampson, Sharkey, & Raudenbush, 2008; Sharkey, 2010). Regarding dropping out, Crowder and South (2003) found that the odds of dropping out for a student living in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods (90th percentile) is 20% higher than average. Findings also pronounced the racial disparities of neighborhood effects in that the odds of dropping out are twice as large for black children as opposed to white children. Further, the effects were more severe for children who moved into a disadvantaged neighborhood for a short timeframe, as opposed to those who lived in a disadvantaged neighborhood for a long time (3 years or more in current dwelling). Harding’s (2009a) analysis examined high school dropout risks through the mechanism of neighborhood violence. He found that, for males, neighborhood

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE violence accounted for 44% of the correlation between neighborhood disadvantage and high school graduation. The figure increased to 90% for females. These findings suggested that neighborhoods affected different groups in different ways. Regarding academic achievement, findings suggested that blacks were most vulnerable to neighborhood effects on academic achievement. Sampson et al. (2008) found that blacks living in a disadvantaged neighborhood suffered a loss of verbal ability equivalent to nearly one year of schooling. Sharkey (2010) found that children’s scores on assessments were between .5 and .66 standard deviations lower if they witnessed a homicide. He suggested that children who lived in a neighborhood affected by a homicide could experience similar academic harm. Some qualitative evidence demonstrated that students who moved from disadvantaged neighborhoods to advantaged neighborhoods accrue intangible benefits such as social supports and exposure to different occupational norms (Keels, 2008). These findings, like many neighborhood effects findings, stand in contrast to other findings to that challenge the direct neighborhood effects on academic achievement. Cook’s (2003) framework provided a helpful way to consider how neighborhood effects might impact educational achievement. Neighborhood effects could be additive (both neighborhood and school result in statistically significant associations), substitutive (neighborhood effects fail to maintain their statistical significance once models take into account school characteristics), or multiplicative (school characteristics interact with and change neighborhood effects). Since the beginning of the contemporary interest in neighborhood effects (Jencks & Mayer, 1990; BrooksGunn et al, 1993), researchers documented evidence of the substitutive effects, and these conclusions can still be found in present scholarship. For example, Jargowsky and Komi (2009) found that school effects explained more of the variance in student test scores than neighborhood

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE variables. Still, in their models, neighborhood variables were statistically significant, signaling the importance of these non-school factors. Rendón (2013) found that neighborhood SES was a statistically insignificant predictor for dropping out after accounting for school factors in the models. School factors, such as higher proportions of blacks and Latinos, were found to have a significant effect on dropping out. The conclusions suggested that neighborhood SES and other neighborhood factors are indirect and could be mediated by school-level factors. Owens (2010) also studied neighborhood and schools within the same models and found significant interaction and additive effects. Neighborhood SES was a better predictor for college graduation than high school graduation: living in neighborhoods of concentrated disadvantage reduced the odds of college graduation (a one-point increase in a relative deprivation measure for neighborhoods reduced the odds by 24%). For high school graduation, the odds varied by the characteristics of the neighborhood as opposed to the students in the school. Results also suggested that neighborhood characteristics could serve as “grounds for negative competition within high schools,” given her finding that relative deprivation of a student’s neighborhood compared to classmates’ neighborhood negatively predicted high school graduation (p. 307). Finally, and importantly, neighborhood factors still yield statistically significant associations with academic achievement even when school factors are added into her models. In an evaluation of the Moving to Opportunity Program where residents moved to lowerpoverty census tracts (Sanbonmatsu...et al., 2011, described in detail in the next part), researchers found no statistically significant differences between groups in terms of academic achievement. Regarding academic achievement, the divergent findings between school and neighborhood factors make for a rich debate about the nature of interventions: should they be individual- and family-level (Duncan, Morris, & Rodrigues, 2011; Yoshikawa, Aber, &

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Beardslee, 2012), school-level (Rowan, 2011), or community-level (Brighouse & Schouten, 2011)? My dissertation will hopefully explore the many, often-conflicting, policy interventions that attempt to intervene at all of these levels in distressed neighborhoods with a focus on schools. I move to the next section and explore the most recognized residential mobility intervention which attempted to test, experimentally for the first time, whether or not the neighborhood effects were in fact active in shaping individual outcomes. Moving to Opportunity: An Actual “Test” of Neighborhood Effects?

The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) offered 4,604 public housing residents in five cities—Baltimore, Chicago, Boston, New York City, and Los Angeles—the opportunity to participate in a housing mobility experiment. Researchers divided voluntarily participating residents into three in each city which created experimental conditions. First, the experimental group, or the Low-Poverty Voucher (LPV) group, were offered a Section 8 voucher that could only be used to move to a census tract with a poverty rate of 10% or less. LPV residents were provided with mobility counselors to help secure the lease, and they were required to stay in the neighborhood for a minimum of one year. The second group, or the Traditional Voucher Group (TRV), were offered Section 8 vouchers to subsidize private rent but were given no conditions. TRV residents received no mobility counseling. The control group received no vouchers and no special assistance, though they were eligible to receive supportive services as regularly provided by the local housing authority (Sanbonmatsu…et al., 2011). After a 15-year follow-up study, researchers concluded that, on average, neighborhoods only mattered on a few key outcomes, with some differences found between girls and boys. Some notable findings from the MTO experiment were that adults in the treatment group 75

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE were more likely to live in lower-poverty neighborhoods and reported having higher-quality homes, sharing more social connections with affluent families, and feeling safer in their neighborhood. Further, regarding health, there was a lower prevalence of extreme obesity and diabetes, lower self-reported physical limitations, lower levels of psychological distress, depression, and anxiety. However, treatment group participants were employed at similar employment levels, had similar earnings, and experienced increased use of food stamps. On some mental health indicators, such as mental calm, sleep patterns, mood disorders, panic attackes, and post-traumatic stress disorder, treatment groups did not different significantly from the control group. Children in the treatment group achieved similar reading scores and similar grades and grade retention rates. In fact, some indicators in the treatment group actually worsened for males, such as being on track academically and college attendance rates. Positive, adverse, and null effects were all reported as a result of this experiment, so it is possible to conclude, based on this one experimental intervention, that neighborhoods sometimes but not always affect individual outcomes (Burdick-Will…et al., 2011). MTO was revolutionary in that researchers randomly assigned individuals to the different groups, which attempted to address selection bias. Methodological challenges plague neighborhood effects literature, and I will briefly describe these issues. Methodological challenges and MTO. How exactly to study neighborhood effects on individuals has been a source of consistent controversy in the literature. A short list of the challenges include selection or omitted variable bias (Ludwig...et al., 2008), included variable bias or overcontrol bias (Sampson, 2008), post-intervention disequilibria (Oakes, 2004), identification error (Oakes, 2004) measurement error (Sampson et al., 2002), the reflection problem (Manski, 1993), and lagged or cumulative effects (Wodtke, Harding, & Elwert,

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE 2011). Many researchers have offered solutions about how to account for these challenges (Durlauf, 2004; Harding, Gennetian, Winship, Sanbonmatsu, & Kling, 2011; Sampson, 2012; Sampson et al., 2002; Leventhal & Brooks-Gunn, 2000; Sharkey, 2010; Wodtke, Harding, & Elwert, 2011). An extensive review about these methodological challenges is beyond the scope of this paper, but I will offer some analysis of the selection bias issue given its prominence across the literature. The MTO experiment attempted to control for selection bias, a common critique of neighborhood effect observational studies. Selection bias occurs when the impacts of a neighborhood are confounded because of some unobservable differences in families and individuals. Simply stated, do poor places make poor people, or do poor places attract poor people (Tienda, 1991)? Researchers have resorted to a variety of analytical techniques to address this problem. For example, Sharkey (2010) took advantage of exogenous variation to study the connection between exposure to violence and academic achievement, which would make quasiexperimental conditions. This technique exploits some kind of external force that would sort individuals into treatment groups. For example, a lottery system has been exploited to more directly study causality in school choice settings (Cullen et al., 2005). An earlier quasiexperimental study used housing relocation as a way to study neighborhood effects, known as the “Gautreaux program.” Researchers exploited a court order that required a limited number public housing residents to be offered vouchers to move to areas with less than 30% of the population being black (Clampet-Lundquist & Massey, 2008; Rosenbaum, Popkin, Kaufman, & Rustin, 1991). Many residents moved to white suburbs, but many residents also moved to areas with large concentrations of black populations that were deemed to be “revitalization areas.” The court-ordered nature of these groups took advantage of exogenous variation. In the

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE case of MTO, researchers directly assigned individuals into groups, thereby hypothetically removing selection bias. Social science controversy: MTO’s limitations. Clampet-Lundquist and Massey (2008), hereby referred to as CM, reanalyzed the MTO data and drew different conclusions while mounting some critiques of the MTO design. First and foremost, CM argued that, given the strong connection between race and class in America, moving to a “less poor” census tract, yet still majority black, will yield similar outcomes to distressed neighborhoods. CM stated, “the average resident of a non-poor black neighborhood experiences a more disadvantaged environment than the average resident of a non-poor white neighborhood” (p. 116). Sampson (2008) found that the MTO moves did not change the contextual dynamics (e.g. social cohesion and social control) of neighborhoods. Basically, MTO families “largely moved to the same exact communities [original emphasis]” (p. 211). Further, CM and Sampson (2008) pointed to the fact that so few (less than half) of the families in the experimental group actually used the voucher to move into a lower-poverty neighborhood. They claimed that those families who decided to use the vouchers were not random at all and indeed shared similar characteristics, thereby introducing a level of selection bias. On top of that, only a smaller group of families decided to stay in the lower-poverty neighborhood for more than one year. Based on this issue, they stated: Given that entry into neighborhoods and compliance categories was highly selective and the length of stay quite variable, it is hardly surprising that comparisons made between experimental and control group members in MTO have failed to yield the robust and consistent evidence of neighborhood effects found in survey-based studies (p. 138).

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Sampson (2008, 2012) mounted an important final argument that challenges the MTO findings. Since MTO offered individual vouchers to families, then it could be considered an individual intervention. Findings could only be generalized at the individual unit of analysis. However, MTO attempts to use an individual-level experiment to draw generalizations about a different unit of analysis: the community. Sampson contended, “If we want to learn about the effects of neighborhood interventions in an experimental design, the best method is to randomly assign interventions at the level of neighborhood” (Sampson, 2008, p. 264). For example, if we want to theorize about community violence, researchers might randomly implement a nonviolence strategy in one neighborhood, while not offering the treatment to other neighborhoods that are matched on some characteristics. This is an important point because some of the conclusions reached about the MTO surprising null and negative effects were used by some to claim that neighborhoods do not matter because now experimental evidence confirmed such findings (e.g. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2006). Sampson and CM, along with other scholars (Oakes, 2004), raised cautions about interpreting MTO and other neighborhood effects literature to claim that neighborhoods do not matter. Because of the many difficulties and challenges in the deciphering the causal pathways from the neighborhood to the individual, pure “statisticism” will not be able to unearth the true process that result in negative outcomes for residents of exploited/distressed neighborhoods (Oakes, 2004, p. 1944). Still, experiments like MTO can be helpful to better understand the processes that can result in a neighborhood impacting individuals. In an attempt to reconcile the positive, negative, and null effects in the literature about neighborhood effects on academic achievement, several prominent neighborhood effects scholars published a piece where they maintain that findings are more “convergent” than divergent (Burdick-Will et al., 2011). Using findings from the Project

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN, see Sampson, 2012), the Gautreaux studies (Rosenbaum et al., 2001; Rubinowitz & Rosenbaum, 2002), and reanalyzed data from the MTO experiment, they concluded that several factors could explain the variation of neighborhood effects. They rule out that the variations in impacts are attributable to (1) differences in vulnerability across demographic groups, (2) differences in local school quality, and (3) neighborhood racial composition. They conclude they cannot count out that nonlinearities exist in the relationships between concentrated neighborhood disadvantage and academic outcomes and exposure to violent crime in neighborhoods and academic outcomes. In other words, the academic impact may differ for children who come from areas of varying areas of concentrated disadvantage. These nonlinearities were discovered through the reanalysis of the MTO data which revealed that Chicago and Baltimore’s neighborhood effects were potentially more robust than Los Angeles, Boston, and New York City. Researchers claimed: This does not mean that neighborhood effects are not present in the latter three cities; it may be that the kinds of changes in neighborhood environments that MTO fostered did not significantly change educational test scores but did affect other outcomes (Burdick-Will et al., 2011; p. 272). Overall, the conclusion was: neighborhoods mattered sometimes, but perhaps not always in the same ways for all families. In the next section, I will explore future directions for research and interventions based on the new wave of neighborhood effects literature. Future Directions: New Research Paradigms and Suggestions

Over the last thirty years, the understandings of neighborhood effects, its mechanisms, and its impacts have grown exponentially. Researchers on the cutting edge of this literature recognized that, in order for the insights to continue, new methods of inquiry are necessary. The 80

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE understanding that not all effects are the same for all people in neighborhoods (referred to as “effect heterogeneity”) will necessarily drive the literature into new methods of inquiry, including qualitative, time-use, and social-networks methods. (Harding, Gennetian, Winship, Sanbonmatsu, & Kling, 2011). Essentially, the scholarly community now understands that not all children are exposed in the same way to neighborhoods. Children can be “protected” from neighborhood effects by parents, school-based programs, and community norms (Fergus & Zimmerman, 2005; Harding, 2003, 2009a,b). Similarly, certain risk factors could amplify neighborhood effects for children and families, such as social disorganization, exposure to environmental toxins, exposure to crime, and a lack of a neighborhood educational infrastructure (Crane, 1991; Rich, 1993; Sampson et al., 2002; Taylor, McGlynn, & Luter, 2013a,b). Without an understanding of how exactly children are spending their time, or the extent to which they are exposed to the neighborhoods, the literature will not be able to speak to the true causes of the neighborhood effects. A new line of scholarship has started to investigate the extent to which sustained exposure over the lifetime and across generations can worsen the consequences of distressed neighborhoods. New research demonstrated that sustained exposure to these neighborhoods, especially during adolescence (Wodtke, 2013), has a devastating impact on high school graduation and teen pregnancy levels. For blacks, there is an 80% decrease in the odds of high school graduation. For non-blacks, the decrease is still substantial at a 60% decrease in odds (Wodtke, Harding, & Elwert, 2011). This research exceeded previous estimates because new research methodology allows researchers to account for a weighted measure of neighborhood exposure, as single point-in-time estimates. In other words, exposures can change over the course of a lifetime, and this point is missed when only cross-sectional data is used.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Sharkey and Elwert (2011) emphasized the inheritance of disadvantage associated with living in distressed neighborhoods. They demonstrated that a multitude of factors associated with educational achievement and attainment (e.g. family income, marital status) have been affected by neighborhood conditions from the past. As they argued, “Because family characteristics are partly the result of past neighborhood conditions, it is misleading to contrast the neighborhood and family as independent, competing determinants of children’s outcomes; rather, neighborhood effects operate in part through family effects” (p. 732). For blacks, multigenerational exposure appeared to result in lower academic achievement in reading by onehalf of a standard deviation in scores and about three-fifths of a standard deviation for problem solving scores. Data limitations prohibited researchers from drawing conclusions about whites. The multigenerational consequences of poverty stood to reinforce the interconnections between race and place in the United States, thereby locking blacks and other people of color into life paths that are, on average, worse than whites and wrought with negative life outcomes (Sampson, 2012; Sharkey, 2013; Wodtke, 2013). Conclusion to “Neighborhood Effects” section

Many of these studies offered the conclusion that distressed neighborhoods do have an effect on the children and adults living in them. However, research is riddled with methodological challenges which allow for some scholars to challenge findings. It seems safe to conclude that neighborhoods have at least some impact on a variety of life outcomes, especially for child academic achievement and attainment. How do these conclusions translate into policy solutions? How do these conclusions shape further interventions? The most comprehensive assessment and evaluation of the most robust findings argued that, while scholarship has improved, the specific origins of the link between concentrated disadvantage and negative life 82

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE outcomes were still unknown (Burdick-Will et al., 2011). Since the specific mechanisms were not fully understood, the authors claimed that community development strategies could be implemented that took these mechanisms into account. These responses “might...require subsidies, either to non-poor families in exchange for their living alongside poor families in mixed-income developments, or to poor families in exchange for their making relatively longerdistance moved into lower-poverty neighborhoods” (p. 273). However, as Keels (2013) study of Gautreaux II “movers” (the second wave of courtordered residential mobility program that allowed for public housing families to either move to less black or less poor neighborhoods) revealed that these “movers” encountered substantial “adjustment difficulties” (p. 1003). Many children and their families interviewed experienced cultural isolation in schools and neighborhoods while experiencing some gains in academic performance, thus exemplifying the benefits and trade-offs of the (what I call) “escape plan” residential mobility programs (motivated by South & Crowder, 1997). Keels captured the argument here: “Relocation to low-poverty suburban neighborhoods coupled with transferring to high-achieving schools without receiving substantial support aimed at helping children and parents bridge gaps between their old and new environments, offers little hope for a positive shift in the trajectory of children’s classroom grades” (p. 1012). I argue that, based on the evidence cited in this section, this quote could be extended to include family outcomes, such as health, quality of life, and so forth. The neighborhood effects literature appeared to still be captivated by the so-called “poverty paradigm” (Taylor, McGlynn, & Luter, 2013c) which is fixated on the importance of solving the “poverty problem.” By focusing on policies that aim to solve the neighborhood effect problem by moving people to more affluent neighborhoods, interventions ignore the larger

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE structural realities of the intersectionality of race and place in the political economy. In other words, neither moving people to an affluent neighborhood (MTO) nor artificially increasing income (Duncan, Morris, & Rodrigues, 2011; Yoshikawa, Aber, & Beardslee, 2012) by themselves will not magically undo the documented negative effects of being black and poor in the central city (Clampet‐Lundquist & Massey, 2008; Massey & Denton, 1993; Sharkey, 2013; Wilson, 1987). It is for this reason that the final section of this paper will examine structural interventions, referred to as “comprehensive community initiatives” or “place-based initiatives,” and their potential to improve educational outcomes, neighborhood quality, family-level outcomes, economic outcomes, and other quality-of-life indicators.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE

Section 5: Place-Based School Reform Initiatives Before diving into the next section, I offer a recapitulation that reviews the main arguments up to this point that led me to place-based school reform initiatives. Up to this point, this paper has attempted to critically examine different ways that both the federal and local governments attempted to “deal with” the problem of low-performing schools. I have shown that federal reforms grew out of the failure of local control to produce the desired ends of the schooling system: student achievement. It should be noted student achievement as the ultimate goal of education has been contested, and this contention will be explored further in this section. A certain segment of the progressive movement manifested by John Dewey contended that the ultimate goals of learning should be to train citizens in the habits of democracy through hands-on, real-world problem solving— not just rote learning. However, “big science” education, embodied in the natural sciences, math, engineering, and technology, rose to prominence in the 1950s and began to draw attention to the outcomes of education (Benson, Harkavy, & Puckett, 2007). This period of time in history proved to be a time of increased federal involvement in education so that local school districts could achieve national goals. Concerns over student performance grew after A Nation at Risk, and the federal government’s role in education continued to expand. With the growth of federal investment—and pressure—on local school districts and states to increase student performance, a variety of solutions were brought to the fore in hopes that these solutions could improve schools and therefore student achievement. The issue of lowperforming schools has mainly been an urban/city schools problem. Because of a variety of factors—including discriminatory housing practices, regulation of city space, and

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE desegregation—the inner-city public school system became the stage upon which these inequalities were animated. Indeed, Title I was one of the first widespread federal investments in local schools to provide poorer school districts with resources to close the so-called achievement gap between black, usually under-resourced, and white, usually privileged, students3.

Comprehensive school reform (CSR) models attempted to increase the quality of

schools to an extent that could neutralize the effects of coming from a disadvantaged background. Indeed, this movement birthed almost-formulaic models of school reform that could be supposedly replicated across school districts. However, another line of thinking maintained that local schools could not be fixed without a major institutional transformation and the introduction of competition between schools, hence the dawn of the school choice paradigm. Contending that competition could be the “tide that lifted all boats,” school choice advocates maintained that market-like competition between schools could be the “panacea” for the “school performance problem.” Interventions such as charter schools, voucher programs, and open enrollment can be found in almost every central city. Interestingly, these programs were generally not present in suburban and rural areas. As higher-income white residents fled to the suburbs in the 1960s to insulate themselves from the failing urban school system—or moved their children to inner-city private schools—these families exercised the original school choice mechanism: residential mobility. However, these school choice programs have not proven to be overly successful. In fact, some evidence suggests that it may cause adverse effects for neighborhoods (racial segregation and isolation), parents (disenfranchisement), and neighborhood schools (cream-skimming). Still, a line of scholarship

3

The notion of the achievement gap has been problematized because it is overly simplistic, arguing that differences in student achievement have roots in opportunity structure (Carter & Welner, 2013) and civic empowerment (Levinson, 2013) differentials.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE and advocacy around school choice advanced (and still advances) the idea that all schools could be improved by introducing competition. When a school cannot be fixed, the “immortal” failing school (Stuit, 2010) should be closed, so goes the logic (Smarick, 2012). This logic assumes that neighborhood effects can be overcome, and that school effects are more important for the children’s educational outcomes. For children to succeed academically, they must escape their neighborhoods (Taylor, 2005). However, the previous section demonstrated that neighborhoods usually do matter, usually to a great extent and across generations. In this section, I turn my attention to the body of literature that examines the current efforts to address low-performing schools through neighborhood-based interventions. Growing out of a new vision of urban school reform (Warren, 2005), these efforts extend beyond the school walls by seeking to engage parents, community stakeholders, educational policymakers, and youth. Despite the paucity of research in this area, I analyze the existing literature base that examines the possibilities that have to improve schooling. This section will be divided into three parts based on three distinct strands of literature that advance these ideas. First, I provide an evolutionary account of the school-as-social-center framework, from its Deweyian roots to community schools to its modern anchor institution manifestation. Next, I examine the community organizing model that is grounded in school- and community-based coalitions to address schooling problems. Finally, I explore place-based comprehensive community initiatives (PBCCIs)4 that attempt to address education and schooling as a part of a broader neighborhood transformation strategy. Out of this analysis, it becomes clear that the literature offers very little insights into PNCCIs that include education reform as a key goal. This fact is

4

I use the terms place-based comprehensive community initiative (PBCCI) and comprehensive community initiatives (CCI) interchangeably because there appears to be no difference in the literature. All CCIs are attached to a place, but I use PBCCI to emphasize the “place” given my interests in this distinct kind of education reform model.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE troubling because many PBCCIs exist and have been implemented to address schooling inequalities. In particular, despite the popularity of the federal Promise and Choice Neighborhoods efforts as policy mechanisms, virtually no scholarship seeks to understand how these efforts have been implemented in complex urban environments.

Mapping the Literature and Setting Boundaries

Before moving to the first part, I offer an important conceptual framework to organize the literature. Researchers at the University of Manchester conducted an extensive conceptual synthesis of the school-community relations literature (Dyson, Gallannaugh, & Kerr, 2012; Dyson & Kerr, 2012). They sought to organize and analyze the literature on how schools and communities intentionally act to address conditions that impact children and families from disadvantaged areas. They separated the literature into two general classifications: school-led and community-led. The next two parts are organized along these classifications. This mapping of the literature also provided a helpful analytical tool for understanding substantive actions that schools and communities can take to improve education in distressed communities (Figure 2.1). Along the horizontal axis is the dimension of “power and control” which seeks to interrogate questions such as: who sets agendas, who has power to take action, and whose interests are being served. On one side of the continuum, exogenous actors, or those from outside of the community such as policy makers or educational professionals, control the agenda, while the other end of the continuum places lived experiences of community members at the fore. The vertical axis explores “social stances” which asks questions such as how is disadvantage understood and what interventions can respond to it. On one end of the continuum, interventions and definitions are controlled by working within existing schooling arrangements, while the 88

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE other end of the spectrum actions call into question existing power and social dynamics of the existing schooling system. .

Figure 2.1: Framework for analyzing school-community relations literature Source: Dyson Dyson and & Kerr, 2012 indicated that most of the present literature based is located in the colleagues top quadrants because “it is simply difficult for schools or disadvantaged communities to influence wider social structures” (Dyson & Kerr, 2012, p. 8). Even within my review of the literature, it was difficult to locate literature that attempted to alter existing social arrangements that could potentially address underlying issues that result in such inequalities in urban schooling. In the remainder of my review, I will explore school- and community-led efforts while concluding with the small amount of literature on schools attempting to implement reforms in partnership with the federal government that, based on my reading of the literature, come closest to addressing underlying social arrangements: place-based comprehensive community initiatives that include education as one part of their strategy to address social inequality.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE The Evolution from School-as-Social-Center to Community Schools to Anchor Institutions: School- and Institution-Led Activities

Starting from the perspective of school-led activities, over a century of scholarship advanced the idea that schools can provide services for families, develop neighborhood civic capacity, drive neighborhood improvement, and educate children rooted in local culture and tradition (Dyson et al., 2012). Broader approaches to education reform that take into account neighborhood and community factors is of growing interest to scholars and practitioners alike. Warren (2005) calls this the “service model” of community-school collaboration. However, as I show, the service model has evolved into distinct place-based conceptualizations of schools and other institutions. Contemporary calls for broader approaches to education reform have grown out of the perceived failure of market-based education reform approaches which have been considered too standardized and top-down (Hargreaves & Shirley, 2009; Weiss & Long, 2013). As early as 1902, educational philosopher John Dewey lectured on “the feeling that the school is not doing all that it should do in simply giving instruction during the day” and suggested “that it shall assume a wider scope of activities having an educative effect upon the adult members of the community” (p. 76). In this sense, schools were conceptualized as places where community members and educators would come together and attempt to address the needs, issues, and challenges facing the neighborhood that it served. Community members would have more openaccess to schools through cooperative use of the school’s space. Teachers might structure lessons around a specific issue that would offer children an opportunity to contextualize learning. Dewey’s conceptualization of “school as social center” was also rooted in the idea of schools maintaining “social discipline and control” because of children’s changing notions of authority figures (p. 79). As he said, “Flippancy toward parental and other forms of constituted

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE authority waxes, while obedient orderliness wanes.” Thus, schools could be a generator of social ties, or, in contemporary terms, social capital (Coleman, 1988). Dewey also theorized that schools could be a driver of adult and continuing education as well, given the fast pace at which professions were changing. Dewey’s ideas captured many scholars’ and practitioners’ imaginations. Following in his tradition, Jane Addams put into practice the idea of “school as social center” by developing her Hull House (settlement house) model (Addams, 1998). Elsie Clapp and Maurice Seay extended the model into rural areas of West Virginia and Kentucky (Britton & Britton, 1970; Seay, 1954). Flint, Michigan, was home to one of the most extensive early community schools expansion projects supported by the Charles Mott Foundation. This effort resulted in the creation of fifty community schools that created after-school, summer, and health and nutrition programs for children and continuing education programs for adults to combat post-Depression poverty and unemployment (Dryfoos, 1994). Interest in the community schools idea waned in the 1950s and 1960s, though some school health and wellness programs (e.g. health screenings) did increase in certain places like New York City (Benson et al., 2007; Dryfoos, 1994). However, interest in family-school partnerships in the wake of the Civil Rights movement and education of “disadvantaged” children. While these were distinct from the community schools literature, because their focus was mainly on developing partnerships with individual families, these partnerships nevertheless were conceived as one innovative strategy to address the problems facing metropolitan and inner-city schools (Britton & Britton, 1970; Comer, Haynes, Joyner, & BenAvie, 1996; Zigler, Finn-Stevenson, & Stern, 1997). These family-school partnerships gained further interest once Bronfenbrenner’s notion of the ecological framework to understand human development was introduced (Bronfenbrenner,

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE 1979). From these models came the understanding that people were products of dynamic interactions of many levels of influences: micro-, meso-, exo-, and macro-systems. At the microlevel, these interactions directly involved children, such as adult-child or parent-child interactions which can change or alter the child’s developmental trajectory. Meso-level interactions involved two or more settings where children spend times that may have differing expectations and norms for behavior and interaction. In this sense, we can understand that children can receive different, sometimes divergent, social cues from school than they do from home or church. Exosystem interactions did not directly involve the child. Public agencies that control resources would be located at this level, such as local school boards. Macro-level systems again did not explicitly involve the child and could best be described as cultural influences that shape the interactions at the other three levels: national culture and values, youth culture, and other ideologies. Not only are children’s developmental patterns influenced by these levels of interactions, but they can also shape these environments, thus children play an active role in their development. Given this growing consciousness of the ecological model of child development, practitioners could understand how (1) problems experienced by schools required solutions that addressed non-curricular barriers to learning and (2) these interventions were necessary at different levels if they were to change the trajectories of children, especially children in disadvantaged schools. In the 1960s and 1970s, increasing expectations were placed on schools to have guidance counselors, nurses, and other supportive service personnel on staff in hopes of addressing barriers to learning that did not stem from the school (Dryfoos, 1994; Tyack, 1992). Scholarly and practical attention in education has been directed at schools who take concrete steps to include intensive and expanded services either linked to (Lawson & Briar-Lawson, 1997) or based at (Dryfoos, 1994; Kronick, 2005) the school. In a pivotal book, Joy Dryfoos (1994) studied “full service

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE schools” that were meeting the non-traditional (and non-curricular) needs of students and their families. These schools were known for providing a web of support for children to address mental and physical health in addition to the needs of the surrounding community, but no certain set of prescribed interventions characterized a full service school. Her concept of “full service schools,” while focused solely on meeting health needs of children and families, played into the larger national movement related to meeting the needs of families, children, and communities which was referred to as “community schools.” The Children’s Aid Society (2013) considered a community school one that has a strong instructional core, expanded learning opportunities for enrichment, and a full range of physical health, mental health, and social services available to children and families. Kronick (2005) conceptualized the theory driving what he calls “full service community schools” as collaboration between diverse stakeholders, a vision for promoting systems change between schools, community partners, and public systems, and preventing children from entering juvenile and criminal justice systems. An essential component for these models to succeed was dedicated leadership from schools and community agencies that is supportive and welcoming of these partnerships (Richardson, 2009). Interestingly, this kind of approach has been considered by some to be a comprehensive school reform model because of its connection to the building-based implementation and focus on connecting with families at the school, but not rooted in a specific place or neighborhood (e.g. Schools of the 21st Century focusing on child care and family supports: Finn-Stevenson & Zigler, 2008; Zigler, Finn-Stevenson, & Stern, 1997; Comer School Development Program: Comer, Haynes, Joyner, & BenAvie, 1996). Replication of full-service community schools efforts proliferated across the country as a result of increased outreach and advocacy through groups like the Coalition for Community

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Schools

(http://www.communityschools.org/)

and

Communities

in

Schools

(http://www.communitiesinschools.org/). The Coalition for Community Schools reported that at least 5,000 community schools operate across the country. Some school districts such as Oakland and Cincinnati have employed the community schools model as a district-wide reform effort (Brundy & Butrymowicz, 2013; Hernandez, 2013). Evidence suggested that these models can impact schooling outcomes such as increased student achievement, social emotional skills, school attendance, graduation rates and decreased dropout rates, tardies, and discipline referrals (Adams, 2010; Blank, Melaville, & Shah, 2003; Castrechini & London, 2011; Dryfoos, 2000; Porowski & Passa, 2011). Most outcome evidence from the community schools literature comes from nonpeer-reviewed sources (with the exception of Porowski & Passa, 2011), so generalizations about these findings should be made with caution. While “full service community schools” have mainly focused on providing human and social services to children who attend a particular school, it strayed from the original Deweyan school-as-social center roots. Community schools can, but usually do not, connect to more comprehensive community development efforts, such as neighborhood planning and community problem-solving. A particular strand of scholarship and practice, however, attempted to put these components front-and-center: the university-assisted community schools model and, more recently, the anchor institution model5. While school quality and child and family well-being appear in discussion of these models (Lawson, 2010; Benson et al., 2007; Taylor, 2005), they are not always placed at the center. The university-assisted community schools strategy, for example, “assumed that, like higher [education institutions], public schools can function as environment-

The “community organizing and school reform” model (Shirley, 1997; Warren, 2005) also puts community development at the forefront of school reform efforts, but the literature reveals a disconnect between community schools and the community organizing models of school improvement. 5

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE changing institutions and can become the strategic centers of broadly based partnerships and genuinely engage a wide variety of community organizations and institutions” (Benson, Harkavy, & Puckett, 2007, p. 84). By linking schools with “anchor institutions,” or large, usually non-profit, spatially immobile institutions that play an integral role in the local economy that have the potential to adopt a social responsibility mission (Taylor & Luter, 2013), schools can become focal points of community development and the creation of mixed-income communities (Chung, 2002; Cummings & Dyson, 2007; Driscoll & Kerchner, 1999; Silverman & Patterson, 2013). Anchor institutions can do the same for the neighborhoods in which they are located6. Because the anchor institution and university-assisted community school ideas grew out of the civic engagement movement in higher education (Taylor & Luter, 2013), they have achieved little notoriety in the formal school reform and improvement literature (Kronick, Lester, Luter, 2013). One reason for this is that the anchor institution literature, in contrast to the university-assisted community schools literature, rarely places emphasis on school reform as a stated goal. Usually anchor institution partnerships are rooted in larger neighborhood outcomes, discussed later. Nonetheless, the anchor institutions literature emphasized the importance of place for these partnerships. One of the anchor institution literature’s foundational ideas is that of spatial immobility, a recognition that institutions such as universities and hospitals cannot pick up and move to a different location. The futures of both anchor institutions and the cities in which they are located are inextricably linked (Webber & Karlström, 2009). The same is true for schools. Schools are also spatially immobile, hence their importance for the local

6

This perspective must be balanced with a group of critical literature about anchor institution partnerships. For example, Anyon (2005) warns that results of urban school improvement could lead to gentrification, thereby forcing lower-SES residents out of the neighborhood that they have attempted to save. Worthy (1977) also mounted a powerful argument that “anchor institutions” commit “institutional rape” on disadvantaged communities by acting only within their own self-interest.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE neighborhood. Further, “good” schools are usually located in “good” neighborhoods, with few exceptions (Clewell & Campbell, 2007). Therefore, out of this paradigm comes the idea that without improving schools and neighborhoods simultaneously, the vexing, “wicked” (Rittel & Webber, 1973) problems associated with concentrated disadvantage will not be overcome (Taylor, 2005). Benson, Harkavy, and Puckett (2007) did acknowledge, and indeed emphasized, the role of service delivery in these new partnerships. Based on previous work (Benson & Harkavy, 1991), anchor institutions were well-positioned to lead the democratic devolution revolution where government would no longer serve as a first-tier provider of services to neighborhoods. Instead, anchor institutions, working alongside community-based organizations, would be directly responsible for providing services to residents. Government at all levels would assume only a “macrofiscal” responsibilities (p. 83) to ensure that partners could secure funding for providing services. Therefore, a new relationship would be forged between governments, anchor institutions, and community-based non-profits to deliver services and grapple with urban problems including schooling challenges (Harkavy & Hodges, 2012; Taylor, McGlynn, Luter, 2013). The community school movement fits within this service-provision framework, as it advanced the idea that schools were an ideal location for serving the needs of that particular community. The point is this: place-based institutions working together to improve schooling conditions and neighborhood-based service delivery lies at the heart of the anchor institution paradigm, representing the most recent iteration of Dewey’s school-as-social-center vision. Importantly, literature in this area was rooted in the inequalities manifested in modernday urban contexts that were a result of the central city-building process from 1940 to present (Taylor, 2011). The problems associated with the “urban crisis” (Sugrue, 1996) were deeply

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE racialized in that blacks usually experienced the brunt of the problems of poor housing, school, and health care quality (Wilson, 1987). These concentration effects were described at length in the previous section. As a result, these place-based models that attempted to jointly improve schooling and urban places could seek outcomes broader than typical school reform models. Instead of simply attempting to improve student achievement and graduation rates, these efforts could be focused on improving economic outcomes, housing, safety and health outcomes (Dubb, McKinley, & Howard, 2013). These models have been accompanied by strong foundations in social justice in an attempt to equalize social outcomes for differing groups through a variety of mechanisms, including the generation of social capital (Rothstein, 2004). The next section examines the specific strand of literature that explores a distinct community-school initiative: the “organizing” model (Warren, 2005). Community Organizing, Social Capital, and School Reform: Community-Led Activities

This section analyzes literature that explores community-led actions to address issues faced by disadvantaged children and families. While the community schools movement focused more on school-centric service delivery for children and families attending the school and for members of the community, these partnerships were not grounded in community-based problem solving and strengthening social capital in the neighborhood. Evidence for this claim that community schools literature usually was disconnected from social capital is illustrated by the fact that Joy Dryfoos’ book (1994) does not mention the phrase social capital once. Her followup book examined community schools in more detail to show examples of successful community schools, and it again failed to discuss social capital (Dryfoos & Maguire, 2000). Not until more recently did the concept appear in community schools literature (Blank, Melaville, & Shah,

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE 2003). Still, social capital was not a prominent theme in the community schools literature (see Children’s Aid Society, 2013; Cummings et al., 2011; Kronick, 2005). By contrast, the first book on community organizing for school reform (Shirley, 1997) places social capital front and center of his analysis. As Shirley (1997) claimed: To develop a serious strategy of social capital formation in the educational institutions of our central cities, educators must be bold enough to conceptualize the school as the center of the community [original emphasis]—as a vital geographical nexus in which friends and neighbors convene to identify, debate, and correct the exasperating proliferation of social problems which have accompanies the economic and social dislocations of the last quarter century (p. 27). That is, he recognized that internal-to-school reforms could only go so far and must be extended to communities and families if they were going to truly improve student achievement and neighborhood quality. Drawing on Putnam, Leonardi, and Nanetti’s (1993) study of social capital as it related to the functioning of political institutions in Italy, Shirley analyzed the Industrial Areas Foundation community organizing work in Texas schools. The importance of social capital and schooling was “discovered” in the scholarly sense through the Coleman’s (1988) research on Catholic education and disadvantaged children (Driscoll & Kerchner, 1999). His conception of social capital included trusting relationships, social networks, and norms linked to effective sanctions. His perspective on social capital stood in contrast to that of Bourdieu’s (1986) concept of social capital which was a tool that social classes used to reproduce their social standing. Debates about the differences between these views of social capital aside (Dika & Singh, 2002), educational scholars used Coleman’s work as

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE a launching pad to explore how schools can effectively build connections with families, students, and broader neighborhood groups. Shirley’s (1997) book was groundbreaking because it uncovered the specific ways that an organizing group used schools as generators of social capital. Within the community, organizing would lead one-on-one meetings with residents in the neighborhood, community-wide walks for education, neighborhood safety efforts, improved housing campaigns, and job development training. Within schools, they directly worked with school personnel to make changes in the buildings, from block scheduling to creating afterschool programs to encouraging teachers to work in teams. Between schools and communities, they facilitated connections between teachers and parents, held training sessions about community policing in schools, and took steps to develop adult health clinics based in the school. Shirley’s (1997) work stood in stark contrast to the “accommodationist” (p. 72) family engagement literature advanced by Joyce Epstein (1995; 2001). Instead of emphasizing things that parents should be involved in order to help the school meet its goals, Shirley instead thinks of parents as powerful actors that ought to be engaged in schools and helping to set the agenda. These parents are therefore conceived as “change agents who can transform urban schools and neighborhoods” (p. 73, Shirley, 1997). Since Shirley’s work, several scholars have studied particularistic community organizing projects in different localities (Gold, Simon, & Brown, 2002; Kahne, O’Brien, Brown, & Quinn, 2001; Mediratta, 2007; Shirley, 2002; Warren, 2005). From these studies, it was clear that community organizing’s bottom-up orientation to school reform challenged traditional top-down bureaucratic approaches to school reform. Reminiscent of site-based management and democratic localism, such arrangements are grounded in public accountability. In other words, organizing attempted to respond to the inequities that existed between public institutions and the

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE public. Therefore, organizing models for school reform are rooted in the idea that parents and community members come to feel that they have been closed out of the schooling process and that schools are largely unresponsive to the needs of low-income and minority parents. For example, at one school discussed in Shirley’s (1997) book, a child was hit by a car near a school, and parents grew frustrated at the district’s lack of response. A local organizing group worked with parents to hold monthly accountability sessions with public officials to avoid “pass[ing] the buck” to other “bureaucrats” (p. 139). In Northeaston, as a more recent example, a local organizing group turned the district’s lack of response to a student who was shot and killed after being suspended into a revised code of conduct that discouraged out-of-school suspensions (Tan, 2013). More recent scholarship about community organizing and school reform (Warren, Mapp, & Community Organizing and School Reform Project, 2011) attempted to further conceptualize how community organizing groups worked with communities to achieve broad school reform objectives. While each of the case studies were of extremely different groups—from rural blacks in Mississippi to urban Hispanics in Los Angeles—authors unearthed patterns of how groups worked with communities on school reform efforts. First, groups achieved transformation through changing power relationships. Each group perceived education reform as part of a larger mission to address social inequities experienced in broader society. Each group’s experience was context specific because different communities have different histories, traditions, and values that would bring them to the work. They organized communities without focusing on individual struggles. Instead, they appealed to individuals as individual parts of broader communities. Further, they also sought to connect their organizing group with other networks of

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE leaders across the city, from business, government, and non-profit. Through this process, groups also attempted to shape the values of the particular community in which they worked. Next, despite the focus on community, organizing groups actually transformed individuals through the organizing process. When working on school reform issues, citizens involved moved from private individual to public actor with close attention given to personal growth and development. Any member who so desired would become a “leader” who could speak on behalf of the group’s cause. Finally, groups attempted to transform institutions. Again, rooted in public accountability, they attempted to make public institutions more responsive to community demand (for specific literature on democratic school accountability, see Jones, 2006). This process happened through a cycle of “demand” and “engagement” (Warren et al., p. 240). Recent scholarship has focused on the specific agents of organizing and school reform: adults and youth. For adults, Warren (2013) pointed to specific ways that parents act as social capitalbuilding agents. Parent mentors, as they are called in Warren’s study, created bonding social capital by working together on school-based activities such as literacy nights, tutoring and mentoring in classrooms, and operating school safety patrols, and on community-based activities, such as health outreach, a literacy ambassador program, and campaigns for housing quality and immigration services. They also acted as bridging capital agents by using their bonds to connect parents with groups within and outside the school, such as police, community members, other community organizing groups, health professionals, school principals and teachers, and policy makers (for more information about the Logan Square Neighborhood Association, see Gold, Simon, & Brown, 2002).

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Another strand of the organizing literature focuses on developing youth as change agents for joint school reform and neighborhood development (McKoy & Vincent, 2007; Taylor, 2005; Taylor & McGlynn, 2010). By youth getting more engaged in real-world problem-solving activities, they see more applications of education in their lives. Youth, in theory, would respond to these activities by increasing their self-efficacy and improving their academic achievement. This nascent literature provides largely qualitative accounts of the community organizing process and the ways that individuals are engaged in and benefit from the neighborhood planning and re-creation process. Again, these inquiries are often rooted in issues of social inequities that stem from the schooling system itself (Oakes & Rogers, 2006; Shirley, 1997; Warren, 2005). Venturing into quantitative inquiry, a group of researchers from the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University sought to document the impact of community involvement in school reform efforts (Mediratta…et al., 2008). Their analysis found evidence to suggest that organizing efforts sustained over a long period of time could yield statistically significant changes in school climate (e.g. teacher-parent trust, teacher outreach to parents), professional culture (peer collaboration, collective responsibility, joint problem solving), and instructional core (e.g. teacher influence in classroom decision-making, coherent curriculum and instruction). Findings also suggested that modest gains in achievement could be experienced as a result of these organizing arrangements. Another quantitative study documented the necessary role of authentic parent and community engagement for a school reform effort to be truly impactful (Bryk et al., 2010). Following Chicago school reforms over a 15-year period, Bryk and his colleagues examined schools that flourished and those that lagged behind in performance. The analysis

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE uncovered five essential components: collaborative building-based leadership, instructional guidance, professional capacity, learning climate, and authentic parent engagement. Their work from Chicago Public Schools posited that, in the absence of one of these components, the school reform effort was likely to fail. Their results were couched in a context of democratic localism suggesting that the tradition of Chicago school reform came to encapsulate a spirit of community engagement. These findings have been reinforced by another set of studies done by the Chicago-based group Designs for Change (2005) which asserted that schools which fostered higher levels of family and community partnerships were more likely to have higher gains in reading achievement. More recent research found that democratically-controlled (through the local school councils) neighborhood schools were more likely to exceed citywide averages for reading, have lower teacher turn-over, and cost less to operate than the centrally-controlled “turnaround schools” (Designs for Change, 2012). The conclusions from these studies spoke to urban communities across the nation who sought to address the educational inequalities located in inner-city schools. Indeed, school reform could not be divorced from its local context. Approaches that directly linked community organizing and school reform represented only one portion of literature that placed education in a larger community context. An increasingly attractive approach to school reform places education as one component within a wide array of interventions and supports rooted in a specific place, or neighborhood. While community organizing and engagement for improving education play a role in these place-based efforts, aspirations of place-based initiatives go beyond education. Focusing on comprehensive approaches to neighborhood improvement, place-based comprehensive community initiatives (PBCCIs) attempt to address housing, crime, human support services, and other so-called “pathologies” of urban life. In the next section, I will introduce PPCCIs and review the existing,

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE though limited, literature about the implementation of recent PBCCIs with an emphasis on the education strategies. Place-Based Comprehensive Community Initiatives to Improve Schooling

Historical background of PBCCIs. Contemporary PBCCIs got their inspiration from the federal “Model Cities” program started in 1966 by the Johnson Administration. President Johnson initiated a Task Force on Metropolitan and Urban Problems which studied the challenges faced by central cities and recommended solutions (Pritchett, 2008). While the recommendations were “more of the same: increased funding for public housing and urban renewal programs and greater promotion of regional government,” (p. 273) one major recommendation from the committee was the comprehensive transformation of neighborhoods. National concern about racial inner-city violence intensified in the “long, hot summer of 1966,” and this concern resulted in the passage of the Demonstration Cities and the Metropolitan Development Act 1966 (Biles, 1998). The Model Cities Program required cities to analyze problems of a targeted decaying neighborhood, establish goals and objectives for the changes that localities thought were necessary to address these challenges, develop a strategy to accomplish these goals, and conduct five-year forecasting for future programs (Hetzel & Pinsky, 1969). Citizens from the target neighborhood were required to be a part of the planning process. However, such “emphasis on citizen participation should not obscure the fact that the Model Cities Program is a city program” (Hetzel & Pinsky, 1969, p. 740). In other words, Model Cities intended to restructure the way cities interfaced with the federal government, and not simply improve one neighborhood. Model Cities changed the way localities dealt with the federal government’s grant-in-aid programs by allowing localities more flexibility in the way these programs operated, thereby placing final say of how grant dollars will be spent in the hands 104

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE of a city executive. It also sought to involve state governments in reviewing comprehensive plans developed by localities. The Model Cities “experiment” (James, 1972) was riddled with challenges and difficulties in actually accomplishing its goals. First, the Model City program was expanded to include 150 cities which represented a “dilution of the focus and intensity of the program,” given the need to oversee and manage the program (p. 74). As a result, the employment opportunities for so-called ghetto residents did not materialize (Harrison, 1974). Further, citizen participation in Model Cities programs was limited. While the program required certain thresholds for civic participation, localities struggled to engage citizens throughout the lengthy planning process. Further, local government sought to retain control over the program, as opposed to being controlled by poor (usually black and Hispanic) residents. Finally, the program suffered from bureaucratic hurdles at the federal level that prohibited federal programs from coordinating specific grant programs (DeMuth, 1976). In the end, less than ten years from the program’s beginning, it came to a halt. Arguably, the program was never given an authentic opportunity to succeed (Haar, 1975; Hetzel, 1994). The program did, however, mark a turning point in urban policy: attempting to take a comprehensive, place-based approach to tackling urban challenges such a health, education, and other welfare issues. Between 1970 and 1980, approaches to tackling social problems were often-times fragmented (The Aspen Institute, 2002). Also, citizens grew frustrated with the fact that so many urban problems persisted in the face of intensive government intervention. The example of Title 1 of the Elementary and Secondary Act provided earlier animates this point. Reagan’s belief that government could not efficiently tackle social problems meant a slash in funding to urban areas. As conservative ideology took hold in the country, social problems were framed as issues

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE of personal responsibility and that government could not effectively deal with these individual deficiencies. Indeed, a distinction was made between the deserving and the undeserving poor (Katz, 1989). In a time of declining federal aid to central cities, both national and local foundations reacted and birthed the idea of “Comprehensive Community Initiatives” (CCI) to address the lack of coordination between efforts and the lack of resources to handle the “concentration effects” of disadvantaged neighborhoods. The Aspen Institute’s 1992 Roundtable on Comprehensive Community Initiatives (CCI) brought together a group of professionals from social service professionals, residents, and government leaders who were involved with CCIs (Kubisch, 1996). Over the years, the Aspen Institute sponsored a series of papers that documented the lessons learned from practitioners and scholars involved in CCIs called Voices from the Field (The Aspen Institute, 1997; 2002; 2011). Across these publications, the major conclusion was that the community change process is a complex one. There are some specific insights that come from these publications. For instance, local organizations in poor communities are too weak to shoulder the change burden on their own highlighting the importance of joint capacity building and cross-sector collaborations (2002). The most recent publication emphasized the importance of having clear theories of change and scale as well as accountability tools. PBCCIs should, as the publication recommended, be organized like an initiative that has clear operational procedures, time limits for project completion, and the ability to build capacity (2011). Not surprisingly, these publications all spoke to the importance of aligning funding sources, from government’s direct program funding to the foundation’s dollars to support the planning process. The importance of focusing work on a particular place cannot be overemphasized. However, this work must result in systems change that can transform institutional cultures and

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE address power imbalances between residents who were served by the program and those who provide the services. Evidence from PBCCIs. What evidence exists to support or raise doubts about the potential of PBCCIs? I begin by presenting evidence from targeted place-based interventions initiated by the federal government. The Empowerment Zone / Empowerment Communities program launched in 1994 required localities who received the grant to submit locally-generated strategic plans for economic opportunity and sustainable community development, while demonstrating the community-based partnerships required to achieve a strategic vision for transforming the particular distressed area. Evidence suggested that Empowerment Zone programs on average showed modest positive impacts in employment levels and income in distressed neighborhoods (Busso, Gregory, & Kline, 2013; Herbert, Vidal, Mills, James, & Gruenstein, 2001), as well as improvements in the housing market measured by an increase in rental prices and increased levels of homeownership (Busso & Kline, 2008). However, some evidence suggested that results have been mixed in that not all sites experienced similar results (Oakley & Tsao, 2006; for an overview of differing local results, see Hirasuna & Michael, 2005). These mixed results may have been a result of the interconnectedness of social problems and difficulty in addressing one aspect—economic outcomes—without jointly addressing other factors that may cause neighborhood distress. Because of the emphasis on economic outcomes, studies simply ignored other social outcomes such as academic achievement or health. Evaluation studies of CCIs are scarce. Even when they have been conducted, usually the results were not published in academic journals. Conducting a scholarly search for the term “comprehensive community initiative” across 70 databases yielded only 58 results in peerreviewed publications. The number plummets to 4 when entering the term “results” into the

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE query. One major evaluation of CCIs was conducted by the Ford Foundation through researchers at the University of Chicago. Through their CCI replication work, the Ford Foundation launched the Neighborhood and Family Initiative in 1990. Evaluations of this effort showed that, across program sites, on average, neighborhood residents were connected with more jobs, increased the amount of physical revitalization work being done in these neighborhoods, increased the number of resources flowing to those communities, and increased organizational capacity, leadership skills, and relationships within the neighborhood through building new institutions (Chaskin, Chipenda-Sansonkho, & Toler, 2000). Several evaluation studies disseminated information about best practices and lessons learned for how to organize the CCIs, indicating that usually CCIs make some progress toward their goals, usually of housing, employment, or health (Barton, Powers, Morris, & Harrison, 2001; Cheadle...et al., 2008; Conner & Easterling, 2009; Gray, Duran, & Segal, 1997; Perkins, 2002), suggesting similar findings to the Aspen Institute’s Voices from the Field publications discussed earlier (The Aspen Institute, 1997; 2002; 2011). Of course, evaluating the true impact of these efforts has historically been, and continues to be, a challenge (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 1997; Judge & Bauld, 2001; Smith, 2011). Important to this review, most of these partnerships were focused on community health, community development, jobs, or supportive services (Brisson & Roll, 2008; Conner & Easterling, 2009; Chaskin et al., 2000; Hubbell & Dearing, 2003), but not education with only one exception (Kahne, O’Brien, Brown, & Quinn, 2001). Contemporary PBCCIs: Promise, Choice Neighborhoods and unanswered questions. After the election of Barack Omaba in 2008, there was a renewed interest in placebased efforts with the creation White House Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative (Taylor, McGlynn, & Luter, 2013a). Given the lukewarm success of previous efforts to transform

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE distressed neighborhoods by housing-only strategies such as the federal HOPE VI program (Popkin, Levy, & Buron, 2009), the White House needed to change and broaden its strategy. The HOPE VI Panel Study analysis revealed that residents who moved into new public housing after the old stock was demolished found that residents’ lives were not dramatically changed. Employment outcomes remained unchanged. Residents were not self-sufficient. HUD realized, based on these experiences, that truly transforming the lives of people living in distressed communities, particularly public housing, would require more comprehensive services, especially for the so-called “hardest to house” (Popkin, Theodos, Getsinger, & Parilla, 2010). Choice and Promise Neighborhoods, therefore, sought to broaden strategies of tackling distressed neighborhoods principally by linking school reform and comprehensive neighborhood improvement. Since Choice was overseen by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), it carried a heavier emphasis on neighborhood improvement by targeting areas with high proportions of public housing residents (Federal Register, 2012). Overseen by the US Department of Education (DoEd), Promise, by contrast, placed a heavier emphasis on school reform and no requirements to serve high concentrations of public housing residents (Federal Register, 2011). The White House required that proposals were interdisciplinary, coordinated, place-based, data-driven, and flexible (Taylor et al., 2013a). Notably, the launching of Promise Neighborhoods was inspired by the work of the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) and its orientation toward school-centered community revitalization (Harlem Children’s Zone 2003; Khadduri, Schwartz, & Turnham, 2008). This framework advanced the idea that closing the so-called achievement gap7 between children of

7

See footnote 1

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE color and whites could be tackled by attacking the problems of concentrated disadvantage by a holistic model of service delivery, community development, and school reform mechanisms. The model reflected the reality that school reform simply could not exist in a vacuum (Fusarelli, 2011). Also, it quite boldly stood in contrast to existing paradigms in that it “departs from the current trend in housing and education policy, which has primarily focused on expanding choice as a means of deconcentrating poverty and improving families’ access to quality neighborhoods and schools” (Khadduri et al., 2008 p. 5). Promise Neighborhoods also followed in the tradition of the DoEd’s Full Service Community Schools program where the federal government invested in the expansion of coordinated and integrated sets of academic, health, and social service delivery systems emanating from the schoolhouse and into local neighborhoods. Even before Promise Neighborhoods, DoEd recognized, at least through this grant program, “that in order for students and the members of the communities in which they reside to thrive, their schools must be effective” (Federal Register, 2010, p. 32429). Promise and Choice Neighborhoods represented the most comprehensive approaches to revitalizing distressed neighborhoods since the Model Cities program of the 1960s, yet carried with it an emphasis on public school reform and early childhood education. While these programs started in 2011, they have received virtually no scholarly attention. A scholarly search of 70 database yielded the following results for these search criteria (searched “all text” feature): Promise Neighborhood, 16 articles in peer reviewed publications; Choice Neighborhood 17 articles in peer reviewed publications (upon investigation, only 4 were relevant); Full-Service Community Schools: 69 articles in peer reviewed publications (none were directly relevant to the specific implementation of the DoEd’s program). These low numbers of publications are even more surprising when considering the diverse groups of scholars who might study these efforts:

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE political science (policy implementation), education (school reform, student achievement), social work (supportive service systems), psychology (social development), urban affairs and planning (community development). The limited amount of scholarship on these programs reveals a major gap in the literature. Scholarly journals have thus far featured commentaries about the programs (Quane & Wilson, 2011), descriptions of programs being implemented and institutional roles (e.g. Hudson, 2013; Miller, Wills, & Scanlan, 2013), and qualitative analyses of issues that these programs face on the ground (e.g. Taylor et al., 2013a,b). For example, Taylor and colleagues (2013b) discussed the challenges that a university faces being involved in a Choice planning grant. Officer, Grim, Medina, Bringle, and Foreman (2013) examined how a university could initiate school reform through community organizing using the Full-Service Community Schools program as a catalyst. Reardon (2013) examined the struggles of a Memphis community as they attempted to coordinate between the community and the city through a Choice Neighborhood Planning Grant. Most of what the scholarly and practitioner community knows about Promise and Choice Neighborhoods comes from think tanks such as the Urban Institute, the Promise Neighborhoods Institute, PolicyLink, and the Coalition for Community Schools. After analyzing these reports, it seems they fall into five categories: data and evaluation (e.g. Smith, 2011), finance and sustainability (e.g. Joseph & Connors-Tadros, 2011), community engagement (e.g. Promise Neighborhoods Institute, n.d.), capacity-building (e.g. Frontline Solutions & BCT Partners, 2012), and partnership development (e.g. Potapchuk, 2013). Based on the authorship and the open online availability of these documents, it is logical to infer that these tools were created for practitioners who are building Promise and Choice Neighborhood efforts in their localities. The

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE audience did not seem to be teachers or official school personnel. With only one exception that offers a “brief” look at Choice implementation (Pendall & Hendey, 2013), no studies have critically examined the implementation of Full-Service Community Schools, Promise Neighborhoods, and Choice Neighborhoods. While PPCIs may be promising practices, the scholarly field has dedicated little effort in systematically studying and analyzing these efforts to advance knowledge in the necessary pre-, during, and post-conditions for success.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Analyzing the Gaps Across the literature, three prominent gaps stand out: (1) gaps about implementation of PBCCI efforts like Promise and Choice Neighborhoods, (2) gaps about the school system’s and individual school’s role in PBCCI efforts, and (3) gaps resulting from potentially conflicting policy demands. First, implementation of these efforts is challenging and complex to state it mildly. Reviewing the CCI literature revealed that multi-sector collaboratives are rife with challenges that require careful attention to clarity in partners’ roles, the efforts’ theory of change and goals, benchmarks by which success will be measured, alignment with outside funding sources, the role that community engagement and residents will play in the efforts, and how the effort will respond to changing environments (The Aspen Institute, 2011). When educational systems become a part of the CCIs, another layer of complexity is added. Attunement to external political realities become important. As Honig (2009b) noted about education policy implementation, the interaction between policy, people, and place become important to understand success or failure. The complexities of policy implementation for Promise Neighborhood, Choice Neighborhood, and Full Service Community Schools have simply not been captured in current scholarship. “Third generation partnerships for P-16 pipelines” are becoming more prominent that grounds education reform in larger ecological realities which must be fit for the purposes they desire to achieve, appropriate for the context, and timely (Lawson, 2013). However, no literature explored exactly what those partnerships look like and how they will be implemented. Further, while Promise and Choice attempted to include community members and organizations in the reform of public schools, it is unclear the extent to which community members have actually been involved in the planning and implementation of these joint school reform and

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE neighborhood improvement efforts. As Bryk et al. (2010) contended, school reform efforts that do not include community engagement as an essential component of reform are more likely to fail. Shirley’s (1997) and Warren’s (Warren et al., 2011; 2013) work further highlights the benefits associated with community engagement in school reform. Next, no present studies examined how school systems were involved in the planning and implementation of PBCCIs. Literature presently is either written from a scholarly or a community-development practitioner's perspective. The few articles that did examine early implementation case studies were published in outlets foreign to the education world. With minimal exceptions (Miller, Wills, & Scanlan, 2013; Taylor et al., 2013b), these publications did not appear in outlets that are frequently read by educational scholars and/or practitioners. Uncharted territory means fertile ground when it comes to new understandings that could result in better policies and practices. A serious breakdown revealed itself between the school reform literature and Promise and Choice efforts underway, an area that my colleagues and I have attempted to address with colleagues in the recent Peabody Journal of Education special issue on universities’ roles related to school reform and neighborhood improvement (Kronick et al., 2013). Crowson and Boyd (1999) captured tensions between two competing strategies exposed by school involvement in PBCCIs: professional coordinated services and community development and empowerment. These conflicting approaches create serious bidirectional forces that can work against the reform efforts. In a related gap in the literature, we know nothing about the potential of conflicting policy demands placed on Promise and Choice projects. For example, the metrics for a successful Choice Neighborhood grant might be the number of children from a neighborhood receiving supportive services at a school. This metric is quite different from a school’s ultimate

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE metric for success: student achievement. Concerns about conflicting policy goals are especially relevant especially in a standards-and-accountability environment that sometimes seems to ignore larger trends related to distressed neighborhoods declining conditions for those who live in them (Fusarelli, 2011; Weiss & Long, 2013). The policy agenda advanced by the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education (BBA) group stands in stark contrast to market-based school reform. What do these conflicting demands mean for the federal-local nexus of interaction? Through Promise and Choice Neighborhoods, though, the same federal government that provides billions of dollars to advance the standards-and-accountability education reform agenda is supporting efforts that align with BBA’s conflicting agenda. Further, in cities that have open enrollment policies, one must question whether it impacts place-based efforts. If students are not going to school in the neighborhoods where the live because of school choice and open enrollment, how effective will a place-based approach to reform be (Silver, Weitzman, Mijanovich & Holleman, 2012)? Indeed, the assumptions of place-based efforts are challenged in an environment of school choice. Comprehensive school reform and education policy implementation literature suggested that conflicting policy goals can promulgate failure (Desimone, 2002). The reality is that the scholarly community knows virtually nothing about how school systems and individual schools navigate involvement in place-based comprehensive community initiatives that attempt to improve neighborhood conditions. Finally, and most importantly, the literature does not offer a comprehensive conceptualization of place-based school reform. Comprehensive community initiatives may involve school reform, but they may not. Community schools could be linked to a place, but this intervention emphasizes service delivery. School-centered community revitalization does not seek to address underlying inequities and policy-level forces that created distressed

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE neighborhoods. Developing the nascent concept of place-based school reform is a task that I will confront in this dissertation, along with examining the implementation of such efforts and how they are complicated by school choice. In the next section, I present a conceptual framework for place-based school reform and suggest the best method to answer my proposed research questions.

Putting the Pieces Together: A Conceptual Framework for Place-Based School Reform Up to this point, the literature documents the rise of the concept of place-based comprehensive community initiatives (PBCCIs) as beginning in the urban development field with an emphasis on alleviating the “concentration effects” experienced by residents of inner-city neighborhoods (The Aspen Institute, 2002; Biles, 1998; Pritchett, 2008). K-12 education reform was not at the center of early PBCCIs (The Aspen Institute, 2002). The earliest effort that placed the school at the center of neighborhood improvement, Hull House, operated from a different perspective: that creating a new, hybrid social institution that offered education as one of many services (others being health care, art, and civic clubs) could improve neighborhood conditions and increase connections between neighbors (Addams, 1998). More contemporary attempts at the school-as-social-center movement sought to broaden the mission of schools to include expanded services to the community and to the children (Children’s Aid Society, 2013; Dryfoos, 1994). These efforts, as conceived in these and other publications, were not connected to larger efforts of neighborhood transformation and instead were concerned with increasing student performance. Taken together, the literature does not offer a clear conceptualization of placebased school reform. However, given the foundations laid in the literature on neighborhood effects, PBCCIs, school-centered community revitalization, and community schools, and adding

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE new perspectives from urban planning and community development, it is possible to piece together a conceptualization of place-based school reform. Place-based school reform, as a concept, is relatively new. As discussed, no systematic studies have sought to understand how these efforts, such as Promise or Choice Neighborhoods, have been implemented in the research literature. Some publications have explained examples of models that closely resemble place-based school reform, such as school-centered community revitalization (Khadduri, Schwartz, Turnham, 2008). Other studies have examined particular components of these efforts in isolation, such as school reform (Dobbie & Fryer, 2011), health improvement efforts (Nicholas…et al., 2005), affordable housing (Mueller, Broton, & GozaliLee, 2010), or supportive services (Austin, Lemon, & Leer, 2005). Based on the review of the literature, it seems that the field of educational research does not necessarily know what exactly place-based school reform effort is, let alone its on-the-ground implementation. How was it planned to be implemented in theory, and what is happening in practice? What are its components? How does the place-based school reform effort interact with neighborhood residents? How is it interacting with the neighborhood? How is it interacting with the school? How does school choice complicate place-based school reform? It is clear that the literature is silent on these questions. Before deciding a methodological approach to inquiry, it is important to fully understand what exactly is meant by place-based school reform. Indeed, an important component of qualitative research is to completely understand the concept that is to be studied before selecting the method to study it (Glesne, 2010). To this end, I present a layered conceptual framework for “place-based school reform.” While the literature review has provided clues to the nature and definition of this concept, an actual definition does not exist. While concepts like “community

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE schools” and “place-based strategies” and “school-centered community revitalization” have been defined in the practitioner-oriented literature (e.g. Children’s Aid Society, 2013; Jennings, 2012; Khadduri et al., 2008), “place-based school reform” has evaded such a clear conceptualization. Interestingly, the empirical research literature has essentially left these concepts out of the research vernacular with the exception of some scholar/practitioners who have written about community schools (Kronick, 2005; Lawson & Briar-Lawson, 1997) and Promise Neighborhoods (Hudson, 2013; Miller, Wills, & Scanlan, 2013). In the first section, I will contribute a thorough conceptualization of the concept of “place-based school reform” in order to expose everything embedded in this term. Neighborhood and place. The concept of place-based school reform cannot be understood without an examination of “place” and “neighborhood.” While this may seem obvious, the concept of “place” or “neighborhood” in the literature on place-based school reform is not well-defined. Indeed sociologists, urban planners, and geographers have defined “place” (Gieryn, 2000; Johnson, 2012) and “neighborhood” (Jargowsky, 2005; Sampson, 2012); yet no consistent definitions dominate. For example, Gieryn (2000) claims that place is geographic location, material form (e.g. natural or artificial), and investment with meaning and value (e.g. people have emotional attachments). Johnson (2012) maintains that place is an ecological unit “in which populations are organized in accordance with economic and social forces and therefore distinguished by social, cultural, and economic characteristics” (p. 29). Technical studies of neighborhoods have relied on the census tract to define neighborhoods because of the consistency in reporting by the federal government (Jargowsky, 2005). This definition of neighborhood makes geographical areas easier to study over periods of time. These definitions, though, lack specificity when trying to define exactly what a neighborhood is.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Some school reform efforts are considered to be place-based if services are offered to neighborhood residents (Potapchuk, 2013), but this is a shallow conceptualization because it misses the tight connection between the neighborhood transformation strategy and the school reform effort. Just because services are offered does not mean that a school reform effort is linked to a “place.” While “place” on the surface means neighborhood or a particular physical geography within the city, the concept of place is deeper. As discussed in the “definitions” section in Chapter 1, a place represents the unique attributes of a particular place. However, neighborhoods are not necessary “places,” though it can be if there has been a process of placemaking (Sutton & Kemp, 2002). At the most basic level, though, it is important to define “neighborhood” for the purposes of this study. There are at least six different components to a neighborhood: -

The Physical (Built) Environment (Chaskin, 1997): The start point in understanding the neighborhood as place is to know that the neighborhood geography is composed of building, houses, and structures, including shops and stores, vacant lots, and spaces that are in varying levels of physical conditions and organized in specific ways. Collectively, these things form a physical environment and a visual image of the neighborhood. The visual image of the physical neighborhood is not benign and begins to forge interactive relationships between people and place. This also includes the housing and its organization into different types of residential settings and including the interior of the home sphere are all important issues must be confronted.

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The People (Chaskin, 1997): This includes the residents, stakeholders, employees, elected officials, and visitors which are the people who live and work in the neighborhood and has responsibly for shaping and influencing policies that impact its development. The

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE people, then, embrace or do not embrace the gangs, criminals, ministers, teachers, business owners and others occupying the neighborhood place. People are directly impacted by particular spaces, making them uniquely situated. -

The Organizational Network (Chaskin, 1997): This refers to the web of organizations that are found in the neighborhood, both formal and informal, which the residents create to help them grapple with myriad problems and difficulties, along with enhancing their social life. Examples include formal coalitions and groups (block clubs, tenant councils) and informal associations (e.g. social groups). Organizations reflect the idea of the neighborhood as a social unit that is organized through voluntary associations.

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The Institutional Network (Patterson & Silverman, 2013): This network consists of all of the supportive services, including the schools and police, which are located in the neighborhood. This institutional framework involves the relationships between those institutions and the people living there. Here, it is important to understand their individual and collective impact on the development of the neighborhood. The institutional network plays a significant role in mitigating the challenges that residents face and solving the problems they encounter.

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The Neighborhood Economy (Informal and Formal) (Sharff, 1987; Williams & Windebank, 2001): This component is comprised of the combination of opportunities for residents to participation in the exchange of goods and services. The formal economy is the group of exchanges that happen in the regulated environment. These can range from when residents patron businesses and commercial establishments to opportunities for formal employment. The informal economy refers to the set of unregulated transactions that occur between residents in order to secure goods and services. One example is child

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE care provided by a friend who is paid in cash (under the table) or in another commodity. Another example could be the drug trade in a neighborhood. -

The Neighborhood proximities and access (Maclennan, 2013): This is defined as ease of access to other city services and city institutions, both private and public. Through this lens, transportation and mobility across the city becomes clearer. If residents must struggle to access city services or shops/stores, then this becomes an additional burden (the burden of “proximity”) that residents encounter because of the neighborhood space. The physical location of the neighborhood is an important component of fully understanding the neighborhood environment. Space creates a relationship between people and place, which is interactive. Places are

socially constructed, multi-layered, and dictate certain life outcomes for its residents (GordonLarsen, Nelson, Page, & Popkin, 2006). In other words, places are not neutral spaces that are fixed at one point in time. People derive meaning from a place based on everyday interactions with other people, with the built environment, with organizations and institutions, and with the economy (Jorgensen & Stedman, 2001; Low & Altman, 1992). Further, the neighborhood place carries with it a reputation within the metropolis. When people living in an undesirable place disclose their place of residence, it can result in a stigmatization of the individual or group (Wacquant, 2008). These stigmas sometimes even become manifest when residents from distressed neighborhoods attempt to participate in the formal economy. Job seekers from particular ZIP codes fight the stigmatization of being from that neighborhood, which may decrease their chances of securing a job. The specific neighborhood of interest in this study in is a distressed neighborhood. One sociological definition of distressed neighborhood is the spatial expression of social processes

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE such as social exclusion, exploitation, abandonment, disinvestment, and racial stigmatization / domination (Sharkey, 2013). Kasarda (1993) defined distressed neighborhoods as “census tracts that simultaneously exhibit disproportionately high levels of poverty, joblessness, female-headed families, and welfare receipt” (p. 256). A standard definition that has been referenced by the US Department of Health and Human Services states that distressed neighborhoods are ones that 30 percent or more households live below the federal poverty line (Johnson, 2009). To simplify, the distressed neighborhood is a place that characterized by high levels of negative outcomes for neighbors who live within that space. These places have been the result of decisions made in the development of cities and are byproducts of the capital investment and disinvestment process, thus they have been created by a series of forces beyond the control of one neighborhood (Slater, 2013). In particular, distressed neighborhoods have been sites where the results of the intersection of race and class manifest, explained below. In the United States context, distressed neighborhoods are mostly inhabited by lowerincome blacks and Latinos which reflects the process of economic exclusion experienced by these groups in this country. In the words of Wacquant (2008), differently, “blacks [from distressed neighborhoods] in the United States suffer from conjugated stigmatization: they cumulate the negative symbolic capital attached to skin colour and to consignment to a closer, reserved and inferior territory itself devalued by its double status as racial reservation and warehouse for the human rejects of the lowest strata of society” (p. 183). Residents are usually disconnected from urban life. The very existence of these neighborhoods deteriorates the quality of life within the city. A distressed neighborhood suffers from breakdowns across all six layers of place described above and reflects the interconnectedness of the distressed neighborhood problem.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE These six components all intersect to shape the day-to-day experiences of residents within a neighborhood, but also to how a particular neighborhood relates with other neighborhoods. Distressed neighborhoods cannot be understood without understanding that they are the site and location where the intersection of racism and classism are manifested into very real circumstances for residents. For example, once banks partnered with governments to offer loans for home mortgages, some banks engaged in “redlining,” or the practice not giving home loans to people of color, thus creating an exclusionary housing market (Taylor, 2011). As a result of this lack of access to loans, many black and Latino citizens were relegated to the least desirable spaces in the city. Compounding the least desirable residential space is the economic oppression of blacks and Latinos in the labor markets (Bertrand & Mullainathan, 2004; Wilson, 1987, 1996). These limited resources prohibit low-income people from enjoying the same comforts that that middle- and upper-class people have: maintain their housing units, be able to purchase extracurricular activities for their children, purchase (or have access to) high-quality health care, and have connections with institutions that help navigate life issues (Duncan & Murnane, 2014). Even the concept of “distressed” has become problematic because it is sterile to the social exclusionary and racist processes that resulted in the present neighborhood’s condition. Perhaps more appropriate terms for these neighborhoods might be “exploited” or “underdeveloped.” Distressed neighborhoods can either be siloed or collective/unified. When considering the variety of groups (“communities”) of people and institutions within the neighborhood, it is important to understand the level of cohesion because it helps to show the neighborhood’s chances of being a desirable place within the city. Distressed neighborhoods can also be siloed. In other words, groups within the neighborhood operate completely independent from one another. While there may be contact between groups through capital transactions (e.g.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE storeowner, customer), there is no unified sense of camaraderie. Groups within the same space are in competition with each other for resources in the city (Wilson & Taub, 2011). Institutions, while part of the neighborhood environment, are actually disconnected from the people, especially youth, living in the neighborhood which in turn makes individuals disconnected from the very institutions that exist to serve them (Lewis & Burd-Sharps, 2013; Roy & Jones, 2014). Residents in soiled communities experience life with minimal contact with formal institutions that claim to be able to help them, with a few exceptions (e.g. if a resident lives in public housing, they cannot avoid the local housing authority). Unified communities, in contrast, are defined by higher levels of social cohesion and social capital (Gittell & Vidal, 1998). Struggles of different groups as they attempt to improve their life and neighborhood conditions are thought to be common to everyone within the neighborhood. Planning for the future of the neighborhood happens in conjunction with the many different groups (Myerson, 2004; Sirianni, 2007). Groups within this particular place know and understand that improving neighborhood conditions cannot happen without a shared vision for a better place to live. Internal and external. It is essential to more completely understand the neighborhood environment and how it is situated in the realities of both on-the-ground experiences of people in neighborhoods as well as larger social processes that have shaped (and continue to shape) neighborhoods over decades. These distinctions are important because they start to expose what the neighborhood effects literature attempted to make clear: that individuals within neighborhoods are insufficient units of analyses. This is so because individuals within the neighborhood can only control their neighborhood up to a point. Individuals are beholden to forces from outside the neighborhood. It is important to make clear these distinctions because they dictate the appropriate policy responses and interventions that attempt to ameliorate the

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE factors that contribute to the level of distress of a particular place. Further, no strategy that seeks to fundamentally transform a place can ignore one category or the other. Essentially, comprehensive place-based strategies must seek to address both issues internal and external to the neighborhood if they have a chance at being successful. In the next part, I will explain two distinct kinds of forces that shape distressed neighborhoods: internal and external forces. As shown by the figure below (Figure 2.2), a family’s level of social vulnerability is a product of both external and internal forces. These distinctions will be explained below. Before moving forward, it is important to point out that developing the conceptual framework of place-based school reform helps to more deeply understand the concept under investigation. With the addition of the internal and external lenses, it becomes more clear that within-building, or building-based, school reform models do not provide a sufficient framework to address the variety of factors that could impact student performance. These factors are hidden, though, when using the individual student or the individual school as the unit analysis. It is not the intention of this study to dissect and understand all internal and external factors that impact student performance. To do so would be a monumental task beyond the scope of an individual study. Instead, this conceptual framework clarifies the concepts that are embedded in place-based school reform. Internal. Factors internal to the neighborhood suggest a set of factors that can hypothetically be manipulated in the context of the neighborhood environment. The “neighborhood environment” represents the set of factors, practices, and cultural norms that people (children and families) within neighborhoods directly see, hear, and breathe on a daily basis as they engage in public activities, referred to as micro- and meso-system influences (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Internal factors are concerned with the happenings within a

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE neighborhood on a daily basis that can be studied, measured, and potentially manipulated. A combination of individual, familial, neighborhood and institutional characteristics are located internal to the neighborhood. While these are impacted by larger social processes, their manifestations are real and palpable to residents. When looking at neighborhoods through the “internal” lens, a particular set of interventions become apparent and necessary to overcome these challenges. For example, some interventions seek to increase individual family income in hopes that it will help child development, in particular school performance (Duncan, Magnuson, Votruba-Drzal, 2013). Each component under this umbrella could be described in detail within its own right. In fact, nearly each component included has its respective literature. External. The neighborhood effects literature has sought to explore the ways that neighborhoods exert an independent influence on the life outcomes of residents, thereby elevating the level of analysis to that of the neighborhood—not the individual. In the words of Patrick Sharkey (2013), these studies attempted to explore “the ways that structural disadvantage and aspects of social organization within neighborhoods can influence patterns of behavior within the boundaries of the neighborhood, thereby influencing the life course trajectories of neighborhood residents” (p. 20). However, my conceptual framework goes a step further and seeks to view the factors that actually shape the neighborhood environment as a result of processes that are independent of any one neighborhood. When looking at the external environment, I shine a light on the various mechanisms that shape neighborhoods, yet cannot be directly impacted by residents within a given neighborhood. These components shape experiences and constrain choices of residents within neighborhoods, yet are not easily manipulated through traditional place-based interventions. These represent various social processes that usually result in the distribution of resources between neighborhoods and/or cities

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE and contribute to the stratification between them. For example, the land tenure system and the private land market dictate the cost of land and therefore who can purchase and control the land. Landlords further set prices that constrain who can live in their property.

Figure 2.2: Path of social vulnerability

Elasticity of neighborhood distress and positive “concentration effects.” Not all distressed neighborhoods are created equal. In a similar way that neighborhoods fall into different levels of segregation across five measures of evenness, exposure, centralization, centralization, and concentration (Massey & Denton, 1988), neighborhoods can fall into different categories of distress. While these categories are not as defined through the literature, intuition 127

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE suggests that some neighborhoods are more distressed than others. For example, the official definition of distressed neighborhood is what a census tract has a poverty rate of over thirty percent (Kingsley & Pettit, 2003). However, there has been distinction between “extreme poverty” and “high-poverty” neighborhoods (Kingsley & Pettit, 2003; O’Hare & Mather, 2003). Some markers for levels of distress include poverty rate, share of families with own children headed by females, share of population 16-19 not attending high school and do not hold a high school diploma, and share of males 16 years or older who are not employed (Kingsley & Pettit, 2003). No conventions exist for categories for neighborhood distress, so for conceptual ease, a Likert-scale of distress may be helpful: somewhat distressed, distressed, very distressed, and extremely distressed. The purpose of this study is not to tightly define these categories, but the point here is to suggest that not all distressed neighborhoods are the same. The classification system is elastic, in that it can change in relation to a change in certain characteristics. Sharkey (2013) conceptualizes this phenomenon as “contextual mobility.” Formally, he defines it as the “overall degree of movement [by individuals and families] in US society across neighborhoods that are characterized by different levels of economic resources and status.” Put differently, it is the status change of neighborhoods, regardless of the source of changes. The concept of contextual mobility not only describes the extent to which families and individuals are able to physically change their neighborhood environment (and therefore change the status of the neighborhood in which they are located), but it is also used to describe the change of neighborhood status. People do not necessarily have to physically change locations to experience contextual mobility. The concept of mobility has been used in other sociological contexts, such as class mobility, to refer to the extent to which people are stuck in their life positions. If someone experiences upward class mobility, s/he improves his/her economic

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE standing in society and enjoys the benefits of this upward move. Research has documented how likely people are to experience class mobility within particular societies (Corak, 2006; Jäntti…et al., 2006). Sharkey (2013) makes the point that blacks are not likely to experience much contextual upward mobility because they often become trapped in distressed neighborhoods— even when physically relocating. This “reghettoization” process (Patterson & Yoo, 2012) occurs when blacks change residential locations to formerly white areas and experience similar social situations to the previous ghetto from which they came. Reghettoization is characterized by a reproduction of segregation and racial isolation in areas where this was not common before blacks arrived. It is yet one more outcome of the racist system of housing settlement patterns in cities. Evidence of reghettoization process is offered by Patterson and Yoo’s recent research examining the settlement patterns of housing choice voucher recipients in Northeaston, NY. Once HCV recipients arrive a place, whites leave. The cycle of reghettoization begins. Because of such a phenomenon, black families who physically relocated experienced no contextual mobility. While blacks are unlikely to experience much contextual mobility in their lives, the story does not end there. Through some evidence offered by comprehensive place-based initiatives, it is appears that it may be possible to transform a distressed neighborhood into a neighborhood that can serve as a platform for residents to experience their full potential and achieve high levels of social stability (Busso et al., 2013; Chaskin et al., 2000; Greenberg, Williams, Karlström, Quiroz-Becerra, & Feston, 2014). Wilson (1987) uncovered the cumulative disadvantage caused by the “concentration effects” of living in a distressed neighborhood. With new evidence from comprehensive place-based efforts, these concentration effects can potentially be flipped with a coordinated system of interventions that address different levels of interventions (individual,

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE family, neighborhood, and institution) at once. In essence, the neighborhood can experience positive concentration effects that are embodied by place-based reform efforts when many sectors align resources and agendas (Kania & Kramer, 2011). However, as the “internal vs. external” framework makes clear, these place-based (internal) interventions will always be incomplete because they cannot penetrate the social processes (external) that have impacted (and continue to impact) neighborhood development (Table 2.1). If a family’s level of social vulnerability is a product of both external and internal forces, then this level of vulnerability will not be fully addressed without both levels. Sharkey (2013) calls for a “durable” urban policy in this country that would attempt to ameliorate social vulnerability, which would involve actions at all levels of government. This requires confronting the mass imprisonment paradigm, a history of urban disinvestment, and the unfriendly-to-lowwage-workers world economy, among other things. Now that the concept of place has been extensively explained, I will turn my attention to one particular component of a comprehensive place-based strategy anchored in one target neighborhood: place-based school reform.

Internal to neighborhood PEOPLE - Family / home o Social capital o Family structure o Educational infrastructure (home, neighborhood) o Family social characteristics (SES, educational attainment) - Social networks o Peers o Kinds of role models o Risky behavior exposure o Drug activity o Prevalence of violence - Elected officials

External to the neighborhood Policies (National, State, Local) - Housing policy - Education policy (curriculum, school staff) - Health policy - Transportation policy - Welfare policy - Transportation policy Political economy - Labor market - Hiring practices of companies - Financial institution locations across the metropolitan area - Criminal justice system - Anchor institutions (across the city and 130

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE region) BUILT ENVIRONMENT - Housing quality - Land tenure system - Crime / perceived social disorder Governance - Social institutions - City governance - Medical facilities - Regional governance - Special purpose governments (housing - Road conditions authorities, utilities, school boards, etc.) - Green space - Water purification systems Social phenomenon - Racism - Environmental issues (as a result) - Classism INSTITUTIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS - Mass incarceration - Amenities (commercial activity, food access, entertainment, gyms, etc.) - Environmental degradation - Education (schools / child care) City planning - Community building institutions - History of development within the city - Community development efforts - Extracurricular activities available to children/opportunities available to - Exclusionary zoning laws residents - Suburbanization - Anchor institutions (in n’hood) - City master plans - Fire/Police - Other neighborhoods in the city - Trash / recycling Metropolitan housing - Segregation NEIGHBORHOOD ECONOMY - Jobs available - Residential mobility patterns - Formal sector Ideology - Businesses / commercial activity - Neoliberal - Progressive - Informal sector NEIGHBORHOOD PROXIMITY AND ACCESS - Travel routes and modes - Physical location of neighborhood in relation to other city/private services - Environmental hazards of neighborhood location Table 2.1: Mechanisms of Social Vulnerability Emanating From… Place-based school reform. In a similar way that neighborhoods act to “fix” residents in class positions across generations, schools perform a similar function. The contribution of schooling to the reproduction of the current status and economic hierarchies (a process called social reproduction) has been documented in the educational stratification literature (Bowles & Gintis, 1976, 2002; Entwisle & Alexander, 1993; Hauser, 1970; Kao & Stephen, 2003; Weis, 1990, 2004). Serious disparities in educational attainment and achievement have been

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE documented between racial groups, with upper-income whites and Asian Americans experiencing more success and blacks and Latinos experiencing less success in the educational system. These differences in educational attainment and achievement have an impact on later-inlife outcomes. The exact social processes that lead to educational disparities has been a source of considerable amounts of scholarship, but there is a broad agreement that school effects and neighborhood effects interact to reinforce one another (see Figure 2.3). In other words, students from low-income / working class neighborhoods tend to go to school with children from similar backgrounds. Because (1) school and neighborhood effects are conceptually difficult to unravel and (2) schools tend to reinforce (perhaps create) labor market disparities between racial and class groups, any attempt to improve one cannot be done absent the other. Neighborhoods and schools are both subject to external pressures that are beyond their control. So, efforts that attempt to reform one of these entities are beholden to certain factors that they will not be able to change when working in isolation.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE

External Policy /government Internal (esp. school district, People school choice policy, supply of Built environment schools) Institutuions Political economy Organizations (esp. labor market) Neighborhood Housing market economy Social phenomenon Neighborhood proximity and access

School Curriculum

Child

School facilities

Attitudes Teacher qualifications/experie Motivations nces Extracurricular School administration Sorting/tracking Course offerings

Academic performance Academic attainment Social and economic achievements

Figure 2.3: Basic path diagram showing how neighborhoods and schools impact child educational and social outcomes (inspired by Hauser, 1970)

Because of the complexity of this task, it requires new models that can address both school and neighborhood improvement. There have been some school-based and school-linked interventions that attempt to address the observable symptoms that children carry with them to schools (Lawson & Briar-Lawson, 1997). These interventions are mainly service-based and ameliorative in that they operate with a theory of change claiming that students will be able to succeed academically and socially if they receive an intensive mix of service delivery (Say Yes to Education, 2012). Observable symptoms are stressed because any system set up to offer services to students who need it rely on the system’s ability to “diagnose” a student’s difficulty. If a system of service providers cannot tell (observe) a student is struggling with a particular challenge, it will go unaddressed. Further complicating the issue, these systems sometimes lack the capacity to help all students who they observe struggling with a particular challenge.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Usually, community schools strategies operate within this framework because they operate individual programs usually at the building level. These efforts will sometimes reach out to parents of children to offer them services on an individual or case-by-case basis to families who show up to participate in these interventions. Their theory of change does not involve the neighborhood because, as the theory goes, fundamental transformation of the neighborhood is not necessary if a student is offered an appropriate mix of services. These efforts are likely fail because they do not account for all factors that impact educational achievement (see Figure 2.3). While these efforts may produce a few “wins” in the short term (e.g. students who overcome neighborhood barriers), they will ultimately fall short of true transformation for entire populations of disenfranchised groups. These efforts are likely to fail because they ignore the root causes of the children’s educational difficulty: the neighborhood, which has been created by a long history of exploitation, disinvestment, racism, and uneven development. A new model will be required to jointly tackle the challenges of schooling and neighborhoods. This new model necessarily requires partnerships beyond traditional school professionals (e.g. teachers, administrators). This new model will require a change of thinking that conceptualizes the school as a neighborhood anchor—the driving force behind the improvement of the neighborhood. This new model is place-based school reform. Place-based school reform (PBSR) accepts the comprehensive school reform model because it acknowledges that inner-city school curriculum needs to be transformed. New pedagogical strategies will be required to transform how students learn. Staff need to be equipped with different tools in order to teach in new ways that connect classroom learning to real-world problems. PBSR also accepts the service model because it acknowledges that students are facing difficult challenges that will require service interventions for families and

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE children. Service providers in schools and neighborhoods should be linked in order to provide a coordinated service mix. PBSR goes a step further by confronting the challenges faced in the neighborhood. The place-based school reform strategy is a comprehensive approach to improving a particular neighborhood’s educational infrastructure (Taylor, McGlynn, & Luter, 2013b). The primary goal is not necessarily comprehensive school reform, as conceptualized in the literature. However, depending on the particular strategy, school reform may be a primary goal. Such strategies are concerned with creating interactive linkages and connections between neighborhood-based institutions with the goal of bolstering the educational outcomes for all children. These strategies can be characterized by getting institutions to align their work (e.g. programming, supports) with the mission, goals, and policies of the local schooling system. It places education in a broader context than just the school building, though schools are seen an important neighborhood institution that shapes the consciousness of children attending it. Instead, attention is paid to bringing together a multi-sector institutional collaborative anchored in a specific place, and these institutions commit to developing the educational opportunities for children in a particular neighborhood. Institutions located within a particular neighborhood come together to offer their services to residents who live in a particular place. Education happens through both formal programming and informal socialization of adults who live in the neighborhood, but also supportive and caring adults who work there. Further, these strategies advance work alongside neighborhood-based community groups and residents to infuse the home environments with tools necessary to support education for children. Examples of building educationally supportive home environments include desks in the home, a quiet place to study, a computer connected to the internet, ample school supplies, and someone in the family able to

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE help children with homework. Figure 2.4 below contrasts PBSR with other reform efforts that were explained in chapter two: community schools, school-centered community revitalization, and the traditional neighborhood school. Traditional Neighborhood School

Community School

Framework

Academics

Academics, Service delivery (parents and children)

Supportive Service Delivery

Districtprovided basic services

Districtprovided basic services; Expanded – external partners; referrals

Role of Neighborhood Residents

Minimal (required to enroll neighborhood resident children)

Moderate (facility usage open to residents, community meetings housed at school)

Attendance Zone

Yes

School District

Leader

Depends on locality / school choice Partner

SchoolCentered Community Revitalization Academics, service delivery, community revitalization

Place-Based School Reform

Academics, service delivery, community revitalization, critical consciousness, confronting the root causes of distressed neighborhoods (internal and external) District-provided District-provided basic services; basic services; Additional Expanded – services not external partners; clear (expanded referrals linked health care for between school children, but not and necessarily neighborhood linked to a school site) Active Active (organizing to (organizing to improve improve neighborhood, neighborhood, advocating for identifying job training neighborhoodthrough school) based issues that impact educational performance) Depends on Focused on locality / school serving a target choice neighborhood Partner Partner 136

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Extracurricular Driven by school and/or activities students

Dependent on needs of children and availability of local partners

Not clear

After-school programs

Some have them, some do not

Some have them, some do not

For all students and families

Goal

- Student achievement

- Student achievement - Student social / emotional learning - Meeting needs of surrounding community

- Student achievement - Address children and family’s economic, social, and physical wellbeing - Decreasing student mobility

Core elements

- Comprehensive school reform (CSR) meant to address the “core functions” of schooling

- Engaging instruction - Expanded learning opportunities - College, career, and citizenship programming - Health and social support - Family engagement - Community engagement - Early childhood development - Youth development

- School improvement - Housing strategy - Early childhood education - Children’s health - Workforce and economic development (Khadduri et al., 2008)

Driven by needs and talents of children, neighborhood residents; programming linked with neighborhood redevelopment For all students and families, school-based and neighborhoodbased - Bolster educational outcomes for children, including readiness for Kindergarten / 1st grade, student achievement, social/emotional learning, critical consciousness - Needs assessment - Asset mapping - Enrichment activities - Cradle-to-career strategies - Supportive services - Interventions linked back to neighborhood - Early learning - Workforce and economic development - Problem-based learning - School improvement 137

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE activities (Coalition for Community Schools8) Framework: Collaboration, prevention, and systems change (Kronick, 2005)

Framework: Neighborhood development, youth development, multi-sector collaborative (Taylor, McGlynn, & Luter, 2013b)

Figure 2.4: Comparison of PBSR to other similar models Now that the conceptual framework has been discussed at length in order to clarify exactly what is under study in this dissertation, I now move to explain the most suitable method for studying it.

8

http://www.communityschools.org/

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE CHAPTER 3: Single-Case Study Context In this section, the method best suited to study the concept of place-based school reform is studied: the case study method. The discussion continues by discussing the context and units of analyses identified for the study. Case Study Method

Place-based school reform efforts are rare. That is, it has not been until the last ten years that they have been implemented at all. The expansion of these efforts has been even more recent—within the last five years. They are unique, particular, and are all inextricably linked to their local contexts and circumstances. Case studies seek to investigate just these kinds of phenomenon (Yin, 2009). Probably the most distinguishing feature of case studies is the narrowing of a sample to the “specific One” (Stake, 2005, p. 444). Stake (2005) outlines the various dimensions that case studies seek to uncover the uniqueness of each case: “1. The nature of the case, particularly its activity and functioning; 2. Its historical background; 3. Its physical setting; 4. Other contexts, such as economic, political, legal, and aesthetic; 5. Other cases through which this case is recognized; and 6. Those informants through whom the case can be known.” (p. 447) Case study as a methodology makes sense in this situation because the intent of this study is to understand and describe how individuals deal with a particular approach or intervention in a particular place at a particular time and within a particular political context (Marriam, 2001; Yin, 2009). Further, this study seeks to develop the theoretical, conceptual, and practical understanding of an emergent model of school reform: place-based school reform. 139

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Single-Case Holistic Case Study Design: Northeaston as the Site Northeaston

While the case study research methodology allows for the examination of multiple sites, I have chosen to focus on a single case: the local Promise Neighborhood effort in Northeastona northeastern city that I refer to as Northeaston, United States. The rationale for choosing a single-case study is the following: place-based school reform in a revelatory case because it, as a concept, has only recently come into existence. Further, there are not many researchers in the country who are positioned to study them because only twelve implementation sites in the nation exist. Single-case study designs are appropriate to study these kinds of cases that have been previously inaccessible to social scientists (Yin, 2014). The case study will be holistic because of the revelatory nature of the case. In other words, no logical subunits can be identified within the larger case. I am purposefully not studying one particular initiative within the Promise Neighborhood effort (e.g. school transformation plan, violence prevention programming, service coordination systems). Nor am I examining the collective impact of several efforts on student or neighborhood outcomes within the Promise Neighborhood effort. To do so would lend itself to an embedded case study design with multiple units of analysis. Instead, because the concept of “place based school reform” is in its nascent stages, the holistic case study will seek to examine exactly what Promise Neighborhood looks like on the ground within a larger context of a distressed neighborhood and a Rust Belt city. As discussed in the literature review, some scholars and practitioners have looked to place-based approaches to jointly improve neighborhoods and schools. NortheastonNortheaston represents one of these areas through three main efforts: Promise Neighborhoods (federal effort serving the Upper East Side of NortheastonNortheaston), Choice Neighborhoods (federal effort serving the lower East Side of NortheastonNortheaston), and Promise Zones (state effort serving 140

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE South NortheastonNortheaston). This case study will focus on the Promise Neighborhood effort. This particular effort is made unique by at least three characteristics. First, the effort is led by a large foundation that is linked with a large Northeastonfor profit institution in Northeaston. Second, the group of schools included in the effort includes one charter school. Third, a “very high research activity” university is located adjacent to this neighborhood. Given this context, it becomes clear why studying a place- (neighborhood-) based school reform effort in Northeaston Northeastonwould be interesting. Northeaston’s Northeastonstruggle with racial isolation and school choice make this case interesting, yet Northeaston’s Northeastonexperience is not completely unique. Other northeastern cities have experienced similar conditions such as Boston and Philadelphia. However, the uniqueness of this case is found in at least three reasons: (1) Northeaston Northeastonreceived one of twelve federal grants to implement place-based school reform, (2) school choice, open enrollment, and criterion schools complicate the connection between neighborhood and schools, (3) the placebased school reform effort is headed by a major external organization linked to a private financial institution that has operated a charter school for ten years. Northeaston Context

The context for this single case is multi-faceted and serves as a fascinating backdrop to the study. Northeaston is a Rust Belt city that has experienced population decline over the last four decades, from a peak of 580,132 in 1950 to a population of 261,310 in 2010, a nearly 55% decline (Social Explorer, 2015; Silverman, Yin, & Patterson, 2012). Demographically, Northeaston’s population, like many other northeastern cities, was overwhelmingly white until the 1930s and 1940s when large numbers of African-Americans moved in as a result of the Great Migration (Taylor, McGlynn, & Luter, 2013a,b). Currently, the population is much more 141

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE divided between racial groups: 46.2 % white, 37 % black, 9.7 % Hispanic, 3.8 % Asian, 2.6 % 2 or more races and 0.3 % other (ACS 2013 5 Year Estimates, Social Explorer, 2015). In Northeaston, blacks are mostly “stuck” in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty (Patterson & Yoo, 2012; University at Northeaston Center for Urban Studies, 2014; Weremblewski, 2009). Northeaston Public Schools These demographic changes have also driven changes in the public schooling system. Currently, the enrollment is 30,831 (2011-2012), down from 45,721 in 2000-2001—a decline of approximately 33% (New York State Education Department, 2013; Thomas, 2012). Overall, the region also experienced a decline in public school enrollment, but Northeaston lost the most students in the region, both in raw number and percentage (Thomas, 2012). Despite Northeaston’s white population being the largest racial group (50.2 %), the school demographics look different. Blacks comprise 50 % of NPS’s enrollment, followed by 21% white, 17% Hispanic, 7% Asian, 1% Native American, and 3% identifying as multiracial. 76% of NPS students are considered to be economically disadvantaged. These are key indicators of family poverty, so nearly 3 of 4 NPS students would be considered to live in poverty. In 2011-2012, of the only 56% of students who graduate from NPS (almost one out of two students do not complete high school on time), 32% of them matriculated into a four-year college and 44% of them matriculated into a two-year college (New York State Education Department, 2013). The state’s accountability office indicates that NPS did not meet adequate yearly progress with any student group except for American Indian. Elementary/middle level English Language Arts (ELA) and Science results are the same—no group’s performance index was greater than or equal to the established effective annual measurable objective except for American Indian. Math results are worse, as no group met this benchmark. Secondary results indicated similar trends.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE ELA results showed that white students were the only group that met this criteria, but math results showed that no groups performed at acceptable levels (New York State Education Department, 2013). Northeaston Public Schools

The context of the Northeaston Public Schools has also, like many other inner city districts, been through about forty years of desegregation efforts. While an entire analysis of the desegregation of Northeaston Public Schools is beyond the scope of this dissertation, it is sufficient to say that desegregation has failed to produce the desired result of racially integrated schools (Pasciak & Lankes, 2014). Most of NPS schools have over 80% minority (black and Hispanic) enrollment (Kucsera & Orfield, 2014). One of the main levers of desegregation was the NPS controlled choice plan which ushered in an era of school choice to NPS the neighborhood school ceased to exist (Rossell, 1987). As discussed in the literature review, the existence of open enrollment and school choice intentionally erodes the connection between neighborhood and school. Currently, NPS requires that families “choose” schools for their children to attend. Some schools are designated as criterion schools that screen students based on test scores, entrance exams, teacher recommendations, interviews, or a combination of all of these factors (Pasciak & Lankes, 2014). Over the last decade, NPS has opened several charter schools. As of 2013-2014, fourteen charter schools operate in Northeaston, creating even more “choice” for families and competition for the local school system9. Politically, the school system has been under pressure from the state education department to dramatically increase performance. As a result of these pressures, the district has

9

New York State Education Department, Charter School Office http://www.p12.nysed.gov/psc/csdirectory/county/county/erie.html

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE been in a state of transition for the last four years both within the central office as well as on the school board. Race has also played a central role in this transition. NPN secured the support of NPS from Dr. Thomas Roberts10, the black superintendent at the time who had been in his position for six years. He agreed to only support one application from the city, and the history and reputation of Local for Profit Institute (LFPI) and the Bellevue Foundation (BF) cemented Dr. Robert’s support. Since Roberts left the district in 2011, there have been four superintendents between 2011-2015. Dr. Roberts was replaced by a white female interim superintendent, Nadine Stone. A national search resulted in the hiring of a black female superintendent, Dr. Emma Herrera. After two years, and school board elections that resulted in a white-majority board, the black female superintendent was removed and replaced by a white male interim superintendent Dr. Leland Payne. The white majority board then replaced Dr. Payne with Dr. Jerry Burns, another white male local superintendent who would be another interim appointment. The board is in the process of debating how to replace Dr. Burns. Presently, the state is debating the possibility of legislative changes that may result in a state takeover, mayoral control, additional charter schools, or some combination of these interventions. Such drastic and neoliberally inspired policy interventions are becoming increasingly common for low-performing urban school districts (Lipman, 2011a,b). In 2011, Northeaston also became the site of another urban redevelopment strategy that had education at its center: Communities Investing in Education. Taking cues from the Kalamazoo Promise where private donors “promised” students who have attended a city’s public school district for their entire lives free college tuition, CIE sought to attract more people to live in Northeaston (Bartik & Lachowska, 2012). CIE does consider itself a city-wide turnaround

10

Pseudonyms have been used for all local players in Northeaston who played a role in the Promise Neighborhood effort.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE strategy because they are incentivizing people to live in the city where tuition is guaranteed (in this case, Northeaston). The model includes a wide array of support services for students and families, including legal clinics, after-school and summer programming, college preparation efforts, and mental health services. Their logic is that students and families need assistance in overcoming the social/emotional, health, and financial barriers for educational success. At the time of writing, CIE implemented its college scholarships, hired family support specialists in nearly every school, opened its legal and mental health clinics, created a framework for after-school programming, implemented a student support database to help coordinate interventions and monitor progress toward high school graduation, supported summer enrichment programming, and started to support college access efforts across high schools through university partnerships. CIE also formulated several advisory groups on specific issues (e.g. college access, mental health, database), which were comprised of nonprofit, government, academic, and community leaders. CIE was not implemented with Promise Neighborhood in mind, but their leadership teams were aware of each other and worked together when interests aligned. They were conceptually linked because of their interest in attracting people to live in a target geography, but PN was specifically interested in a neighborhood, while CIE was interested in the overall revitalization of the City of Northeaston. The Northeaston Promise Neighborhood Context

The Northeaston Promise Neighborhood (NPN) is situated in the northeast corner of the city. Within its boundaries, there are five educational institutions (of which three are affiliated with NPN), a federally-qualified community health center, a commercial corridor (known as the Sales Ave. Commercial Corridor), and a city park. Within a half-mile of the neighborhood, there is a city-managed community center, a very high research activity higher education institution 145

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE with a student population of over 25,000, and a Veteran’s Affairs hospital. NPN is home to 12,684 residents: 71.1% black, 21.2% white, 4% Hispanic/Latino, 3.2% Asian, and 3.1% other (Native American, mixed race, or two or more races). Renters dominate (57.6%) the neighborhood, but homeowners represent a substantial population (42.4%)—almost mirroring the Northeaston housing tenure figures. 12.2% of the housing units are vacant, which is slightly lower than the city’s vacant housing figure (15.7%). NPN’s own needs assessment indicates 14 “signs of trouble” (Northeaston Promise Neighborhood, 2010). Fewer than half of children have a medical home. Only one in four kindergarteners are functioning at age-appropriate levels and are therefore not kindergartenready. Fewer than 20% of neighborhood children are academically proficient in core subjects. Chronic absenteeism also plagues these students. Less than half of ninth graders actually graduate within four years. Less than half of students do not get the recommended servings of vegetables, nor do they get 60 minutes of daily exercise. More than 60% report not having a caring adult at home or at school. A 16% mobility rate serves as a barrier for stability in the educational experiences of children. Only 23 % of students of children in NPN schools are from the neighborhood. Less than half of children have access to the internet at home and in school, and teenage girls are just over 50% more likely to get pregnant than their statewide counterparts (15% of NPN girls versis 6% of girls in the state). Finally, one of eight youth report neither being employed nor enrolled at school. NPN: The Lead Organization

Because of these risk factors, the lead organization, known as the BF before the implementation of Promise Neighborhood, chose to focus its work in this neighborhood. BF is the philanthropic arm of a private, for-profit institution in the city of Northeaston that has access 146

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE to large amounts of capital. For confidentiality purposes, I will refer to this institution as the LFPI. To establish sufficient context, the lead organization’s defining characteristics will be described. NPN employees, of which there are approximately 17, are officially employed by LFPI, complete with LFPI e-mail addresses and using LFPI-owned computers. This public/private partnership of NPN is primarily led by this private organization. In 1992, the LFPI organization decided to strategically invest in education through involvement in a NPS location, which would later become known as Bellevue Community Charter School (BCCS) in 2004 when the school was converted into a charter school under the management of BF. BF currently operates as the education management organization (EMO) for BCCS (Miron, 2007). Since this school was converted to a charter school in 2004, the charter school operates under the NPS teacher’s union contract. BCCS experienced a dramatic turnaround in academic performance once BCCS took over the school (Jacobson, Brooks, Giles, Johnson, & Ylimaki, 2007; Jacobson, Johnson, Giles, & Ylimaki, 2005). The school went from one of the lowest-performing schools in the district to one of the highest-performing. However, in recent years, performance has worsened to the point that the school is not meeting Adequate Yearly Progress in 2012-2013. Beyond experience in managing a school, LFPI and BF have a history of charitable giving within Northeaston. In 2013, their I-990 reports that they had $5,176,431 in assets. It also shows that LFPI’s charitable foundation made contributions and awarded grants in excess of $19 million. Of course, because LFPI is an international institution, not all of these resources went to local organizations. Based on a news release in December 2014, they awarded $120,000 in grants to local community development groups. However, there are no available figures to accurately measure the amount of dollars they contributed to local non-profits. 147

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Based on these experiences, LFPI and BF decided to expand their impact to a target geographical location and into additional schools which led them to apply for the Promise Neighborhood competition. LFPI staff and nonprofit partners visited the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) in an attempt to search for policy and programming ideas and design features of their comprehensive PBSR effort. In other words, LFPI was trying to build new policy from previous practices of organizations who had done similar work before them, a characteristic of organizational learning in education policy implementation (Honig, 2006). While LFPI had a presence in a school within the neighborhood, they did not have an organizational presence in the neighborhood until they implemented the Promise Neighborhood model. In other words, while LFPI, as a business, had been working in one school, they had not yet created a separate organization to work on redeveloping the entire neighborhood. In 2011, LFPI was awarded a year-long planning grant to build the partnerships necessary to implement the Northeaston Promise Neighborhood effort. It is notable that NPN was building a new organization from scratch during this year-long planning grant. After a year of planning, they applied for and were awarded one of five implementation grants around the country. After receiving the $6 million implementation grant, LFPI matched the grant with another $6 million. Since that time, they received another $6 million from the Children’s Foundation (pseudonym) for their dual-generation work between parents and children in early grades. NPN was also awarded a US Department of Justice Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation grant for just short of $1 million. NPN’s for-profit mindset and corporate culture shaped their orientation toward the PBSR effort. The characteristics of the organization will be discussed in the context of research question one, but a brief explanation of how their corporate status influences their partner 148

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE relations will help to establish the context of the case. When interfacing with partners, NPN structures service contracts that are revisited on an annual basis. These contract renewals are dependent on an individual partner’s ability to meet data targets.

Before doing any work with

the school system, they negotiated a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with NPS, in coordination with another district-wide reform group (referred to as “Communities Invest in Education,” to be discussed later). This MOU granted NPN access to student data and allowed NPN to coordinate student data into their data systems which were specifically built for the NPN effort. NPN also used some internal data systems that were designed specifically for LFPI’s business operations. Next, because my study explores the impact of school choice on the implementation of Promise Neighborhood in Northeaston, I will provide a brief overview of the context of school choice in the Northeaston Public Schools. School Choice Context In 1976, the federal courts ordered a desegregation plan to be implemented in Northeaston. The city implemented an intricate desegregation plan implemented in three phases, which included the creation of magnet schools and closing schools with predominantly black and white schools. As a result, Northeaston was considered one of the most desegregated school systems in the country, with only three of 18 magnet schools falling outside of the district’s 50% white, 50% minority guideline for desegregation. In the 1982-83 school year, courts ruled that Northeaston met its obligations and lifted its requirements (Rossell, 1987). Some observers heralded the legacy of the plan successful, as schools were substantially less segregated until the mid-1990s. Recent reporting in the local Northeaston newspaper despondently reminded its citizens that Northeaston Public Schools (NPS) have returned to pre-desegregation levels of the early 1970s. One of the service providers in the study affirmed this observation when she

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE exclaimed that school choice “resulted in the opposite of what it was designed to do in the 70s with desegregation. It's actually made our schools more homogenous, poorer, and more African American.” Within the last ten years, NPS implemented an open enrollment system meant to give families from all corners of the city an opportunity to attend any school. The logic went that, given the housing segregation patterns, open enrollment would thwart similar segregation within schools. The school system, however, did not implement a pure open enrollment plan. NPS made six of its schools into “criterion schools,” where admission decisions were made based on a combination of factors, among them test scores, teacher recommendations, and placement exams (Pasciek & Lankes, 2014). It seemed to be common knowledge that these schools were havens for whites, and at times explicitly described as schools meant to attract middle-class families to the city. Given the racial imbalances at these schools, a local parent group lodged a federal civil rights complaint. The other “open enrollment” schools are almost uniformly low-performing. In NPS, another aspect of choice is present—charter schools. 14 charter schools, including one NPN school—Bellevue Community Charter School (BCCS)—compete for public school students from the other 54 NPS schools. These schools operate lottery enrollment systems for families who sign up to enroll at the school. While most charter schools provide busing to attract students from across the city, they are not required to do so. BCCS, in fact, chose not to provide busing as to encourage more neighborhood residents to attend the school. These factors together made Northeaston an incredibly precarious candidate for a PBSR approach to school improvement. In the next chapter, I discuss the data collection and analysis techniques.

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CHAPTER 4: Data Sources and Analytic Strategy Data Collection While the case study methodology drives the selection of the unit of analysis, it does not prescribe the data sources from which the case can be studied. The strength of case study research comes with the variety of data sources from which researchers can pull (Yin, 2014). Baxter and Jack (2008) claimed, “Each data source is one piece of the ‘puzzle,’ with each piece contributing to the researcher’s understanding of the whole phenomenon” (p. 554). Data were collected using three sources: (1) purposeful interviews with school system and building leaders, the place-based school reform effort staff, and neighborhood residents, (2) field observations where building- and community-based professionals worked on implementation of the effort, and (3) documents and archives developed by the PBSR effort and documents from the school system related to the effort. Data from these three sources were be collected in order to gather perspectives from multiple angles so that stories and themes can be corroborated (Yin, 2014), triangulated (Stake, 2005), and crystallized (Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005). Through multiple sources of data collection, I can work toward a “deepened, complex, and thoroughly partial understanding of the topic” (Richardson & St.Pierre, 2005, p. 963). I can use these multiple data sources to achieve convergence of evidence that can cogently support my findings (Yin, 2014). For a comprehensive overview of my data collection protocol, see the appendix. Interviews. For the interviews, the participants were selected purposefully as people wellpositioned to be knowledgeable about on-the-ground issues related to implementation and school choice. More specifically, these participants were chosen because they would highlight a typical case in order to represent what was typical or normal in this implementation case (Patton, 2002).

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE The interview questions were primarily concerned with how school leaders and officials, PBSR staff, and residents mitigate tensions on-the-ground as they unfold within these particular political overlays. A semi-structured interview protocol was developed using Seidman’s (2006) threeinterview model for in-depth phenomenological interviewing.

Promise Neighborhood staff

members, along with other participants, agreed to give me up to 1.5 hours per interview, which prohibited my ability to schedule three separate interviews.

Therefore, the three-interview

protocol was condensed to one 1.5 hour-long interview. Seidman (2006) acknowledged that the three-interview structure sometimes is not possible to achieve because of real-world constraints, such as participants being unavailable. He reported that on occasion his team “conducted interviews one, two, and three…all in the same day with reasonable results” (p. 22). In my case, it is possible that participants did not have as much time to relate with me, which may have resulted in constrained answers. The fact that I had been involved in another place-based school reform effort in the same city, though, meant that many participants knew me personally (especially service providers and school system staff), which hopefully allowed me to overcome this potential limitation. Further, my one-time interview structure may have meant that participants did not have sufficient time to reflect on their experiences and completely put their responses in the context of their lives. To address this issue, I sent participants the interview questions in advance and also allowed them to contact me after the interview in case they had further reflections on the questions and the concepts under investigation. My constrained interview structure attempted to combine all three interviews into an hourand-a-half sitting. Questions in the first 15 minutes sought to understand life history and how the participant came to be involved in this work. Questions in the next 30 minutes were about the

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE details of the concept under investigation. Questions in the last 30-45 minutes sought to understand the meanings and interpretations that participants assigned to those details. The interview protocol was sent to participants before the interview so they could begin to reflect on their experiences. Questions were developed in coordination with a supervising researcher from the researcher’s host university and were constructed with the participant’s every day, lived experiences in mind. I attempted to maintain a reflexive stance by recording biases, uncovering assumptions, and exploring epistemological awareness that would color how interviews were structured and how meanings were interpreted (Glesne, 2011; Koro-Ljungberg, Yendol-Hoppey, Smith, & Hayes, 2009). Given that I advocate for the place-based approaches to education reform, an attempt was made to bracket my assumptions and biases and let the participants create meaning based on their experiences and using the language that best reflected their understandings (Groenewald, 2004). After each interview, questions were revisited to ensure they would more accurately explore the phenomenon at hand and represented an initial step in data analysis, ensuring that the questions actually explored the research questions at hand (Glesne, 2011; Rubin & Rubin, 1994). Each interview lasted between one to two hours and happened in a context chosen by the participant. The participant was given the opportunity to select the site as an attempt to be “flexible” and allow interview sites to “emerge” naturally through interaction with the participant (Seidman, 2006, p. 35). Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed by the researcher. Field observations. For the field observations, Spradley’s (1980) guidelines for selecting appropriate social situations served as a guide for how to best study the research questions in the field. Since the unit of analysis was a particular PBSR effort, I needed to locate a “network of social situations” where similar participants share common experiences across sites (p. 43). Additionally, I needed to consider accessibility, simplicity unobtrusiveness, permissibleness,

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE frequently recurring activities, and a site where participation was welcomed (Spradley, 1980). As a result, I chose to study school collaboration and community meetings at locations within the boundaries of the reform effort when possible. These meetings happened when service providers met with members of the public school or with members of NPN administration.

Other

observations may necessitate travel to other parts of the city, especially when meeting with central office officials. Field observations were audio-recorded and served as a foundation for creating field notes with accurate details. I was sensitive to participants’ thoughts and concerns about audio-recording, as I gave participants the option to turn off the recording at any time. Field notes were transcribed, and I added analytic memos which were included in analysis. Since field observations were conducted after interviews, the research saw the field observations as a step toward analysis because they required sense-making of the situation through the writing of analytic memos (Morgan, 1997). Documents and archives. Because the Promise Neighborhood effort is a federal implementation grant project, I will exploit the fact that many things must be documented in order for the project to launch. Documents and archives can be helpful sources to corroborate findings uncovered through interviews and field observations (Yin, 2014). Yet, these sources are a potential source of bias for a variety of reasons. Specifically, people who prepare the documents may alter them to reflect what the organization’s leadership wants to portray. Also, documents and archives serve as communications between organizational players who have certain, potentially conflicting, goals and can sometimes reflect “unmitigated truths” (p. 108). I will use documents and archives to learn about the NPN formal organizational structure so I can understand what this place-based effort was planned to be on paper, such as the NPN grant

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE application, needs assessments, maps of the area, and other planning documents. To the extent possible, I will also use meeting notes between NPN stakeholders to understand any patterns that emerge when NPN interfaces with the school system, residents, and service providers. News stories will also serve as a helpful data point to understand how NPN is being explained to the public. Data retrieved from documents and archives will help to set the stage for the research, but it will also allow me to uncover contradictions and explore discrepancies between the plan and the implementation. My Case Study Design plan (Yin, 2014) presents a summary of my research design in Figure 4.1. Appendix A explains in detail the case study protocol, including interview questions for each stakeholder group.

Questions

- Question 1: How is a place-based school reform strategy conceived in theory, and how does it change in practice? - Question 2: What are the components of place-based school reform when implemented? - Question 3: How does school choice complicate the development of placebased school reform strategies?

Propositions

Question 1 In theory, based on design characteristics of place-based school reform and the Promise Neighborhood grant application, I would expect to see: - School reform / transformation strategy - Early learning - College / career connections - Family/community services - Community development Question 2 In practice, I would expect that there would be tensions between the lead agency, the school district, service providers and neighborhood residents about how the programming unfolds. However, I am unsure what the tensions will look like, but I would expect that there will be conflicts between goals, outcomes, and processes of neighborhood engagement. I would expect that neighborhood residents have worked with NPN staff to guide program planning and implementation.

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Theory/Concept: Cross-sector partnership challenges (Selsky & Parker, 2005; Bryson, Crosby, & Stone, 2006); Place-based school reform (Chapter 2). Question 3 I would expect that school choice dilutes the neighborhood benefits of NPN because children from the neighborhood, by and large, are not attending the neighborhood schools. This issue could also impact the family/community services, making it unnatural for students in the school (who live outside the neighborhood) to use NPN service delivery systems. Unit of analysis

NortheastonNortheaston (city) Promise Neighborhood (organization / neighborhood)

Linking data For question one, I generated codes based on my conceptualization of placeto based school reform (Chapter 2), which was supplemented by an emergent propositions coding scheme for concepts not originally detected in my conceptual framework. For research question two, I generated codes based on cross-sector partnership literature, which was supplemented by an emergent coding scheme. Finally, for question three, I will use a “grounded theory” approach that allow participant perceptions to drive the analysis. I will also use visual mapping through logic models to attempt to trace how events have unfolded in implementation (Wholey, 1979; Yin, 2014). Interpreting findings

Attempting to find rival explanations for patterns in the data (Yin, 2014; Rubin & Rubin, 1994).

Figure 4.1: Case Study Design Plan

Data Analysis Data analysis occurred in two phases given the two sources of data. Groenewald’s (2004) five steps of qualitative data analysis served as a framework for moving forward with analysis, beginning with the previously-discussed bracketing and phenomenological reduction. After transcription, I conducted a complete reading of the transcripts in order to “stay with” the data and search for initial major ideas raised by the participant. In this step, I attempted to maintain an open mind and let major ideas from the perspective of the participant emerge (Seidman, 2006). Given the amount of conceptualizing done for research questions one and two, these questions required different analytic strategies. For questions one and two, I first generated a set

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE of theory-based codes for place-based school reform (question one) and cross-sector partnerships (question two: Bryson, Crosby, & Stone, 2006; Selsky & Parker, 2005) (Saldaña, 2014). For question one, I used codes such as “underdeveloped neighborhoods,” “systemic intervention,” “individual intervention,” “educational intervention,” “health,” “supportive services” and “parent engagement” based on my literature review about place-based school reform. The purpose of this inquiry was to understand the extent to which participants, who were implementing place-based school reform, aligned with or departed from my theoretical and conceptual overview. For research question two, I used codes based on the cross-sector partnership literature, such as “government/non-profit partnership,” “business/government partnership,” “formation,” “implementation,” “process – forging agreements,” “accountabilities – inputs,” and “contingencies and constraints – power imbalances.” I intentionally chose these codes because my research question attempted to understand the issues and challenges that arose from the perspective of participants about the implementation process. These codes seemed more appropriate than, for instance, collective impact frameworks for two reasons (Kania & Kramer, 2011). First, collective impact frameworks grew out of the practitioner literature, which was not necessarily derived from empirical studies into major partnerships between different groups. Second, my research question was more about process and less about outcomes. In other words, I was not as concerned with whether or not these partnerships were making an impact on particular metrics. Instead, I wanted to understand the process of how different groups came together to implement a specific strategy, which is the evidence base from which the cross-sector partnership literature draws. These coding schemes needed to be supplemented with inductive, data-driven codes to ensure that I captured thoughts and ideas that laid outside the theoretically-driven codes (for example, see Trujillo, 2013). For research question three, I relied completely on an inductive,

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE emergent approach to developing codes, more so in alignment with “grounded theory” approaches to data analysis (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). The reason was because no literature offered guidance about how school choice interacted with neighborhood-based approaches to school reform, with the exception of the recognition that open enrollment creating incentives to end attendance zones (Merrifield 2008b). All of the inductive, data-driven, emergent coding schemes were developed and recorded in order to cluster similar ideas together across interviews and pull out units of meaning (Rubin & Rubin, 1994). I paid particular attention to stories, metaphors, contrasts and counter-examples, outliers, and surprising items raised by the participants. Together, these techniques were used to then cluster codes together in order to eventually formulate themes across the data (Miles & Huberman, 1994). To take one step in ensuring validity, transcriptions were also read for “internal consistency” to ensure that stories were consistent across interviews (Seidman, 2006, p. 25). To ensure confidentiality, names and identifiers that refer back to the actual city site and personal information of the participant were assigned pseudonyms. After the field observations were added to the data set, data were combined in an attempt to “explicate” the data. Conceptualized by Coffey and Atkinson (1996), this process is a way to determine essential features and relationships between what data revealed and how they related back to research questions. The field notes required a separate data analysis technique of domain analysis (Spradley, 1980). This process led me to examine relationships between concepts uncovered in the field by taking the concepts in their natural form and clustering them into meanings. The interview analysis coding scheme was applied to field observations to examine the relationships between data uncovered in the formal interviews and data generated in the field. Two sources of data helped to triangulate interpretations made from the data, as an attempt to confirm findings (Miles & Huberman, 1994).

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE After summarizing initial themes from the data, I engaged in an exercise around displaying data which allowed extraction of general themes across all interviews (Groenewald, 2004). A visual schematic represented a step toward making sense of the themes in the larger theoretical framework of the study (Glesne, 2011; Miles & Huberman, 1994). I also used visual mapping through logic models to attempt to trace how events have unfolded in implementation (Wholey, 1979; Yin, 2014). Using the results from the domain analysis and the interview coding scheme allowed the research to make some inferences and make sense of the issue under study. Researcher positionality In search of my “own subjectivity” (Peshkin, 1988) and as a way to be transparent about how I came to this study and perhaps interpreted the results, this section attempts to uncover the my positionality related to place-based approaches to education reform (Freeman, deMarrais, Preissle, Roulston, & St. Pierre, 2007). I arrived at my PhD program at this university in order to study the interactive linkages between schools, neighborhoods, and universities. As a result, I accepted a position in a research center that allowed me to work on the planning of a Choice Neighborhood planning grant. Too often had I read about school reform efforts that failed because they ignored the most important components of education: the needs of the students and, therefore, the needs of the families. My work at my previous institution was around building an after-school program that connected a university with a community schools effort (Luter, Lester, & Kronick, 2013). Adding to my own subjectivity, my mom and one sister are educators at urban schools in Virginia and Arkansas, respectively. The programs with which they are affiliated make conscious attempts to connect with local communities, and they have achieved great success.

My

motivations to study this concept rise out of my frustration with what I have seen fail and what I have seen succeed. I want to study what I hope to change (Glesne, 2010).

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE My position with Choice Neighborhoods put me in the middle of the effort to reintroduce the importance of place in Promise’s approach to school reform.

Northeaston Promise

Neighborhood had gotten a head start, and they already started implementation. Because of the connections I had in the local community, I have access to both upper- and lower-level gatekeepers who could let me in on the ground and at the “top” to see what was happening with their implementation (Seidman, 2006). Not only would this help with my doctoral dissertation, but it would help me be a better Choice Neighborhood planner. Perhaps the “Optimistic Implementer I” was developed through this project. My involvement in the local community also extends to the local after-school network. Seeing how these after-school professionals interfaced with a place-based effort could help build a place-supportive infrastructure across the city. My research is designed with practitioners in mind, so that I might be able to experience praxis. Scholar Adrianna Kezar (2000), borrowing from Freire (1973) and educational theorist John Dewey, discussed the concept of “praxis” in order to conceptualize how educational research can continue to progress and be relevant. Kezar notes, “Praxis sees theory and practice/action/experience as a continuum” (p. 464). The concept of praxis is also connected to the concept of “reflective practice,” a familiar term to educational research (Calderhead, 1989; Schön, 1987). My research grows out of a “Reflective Practitioner I” that can bring theory alongside practice in schoolcentered community revitalization efforts.

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CHAPTER 5: Data Collected Up to this point, I have established the need for the study, surveyed relevant literature, justified the single-case study and explained the context, and outlined a research strategy to investigate the unanswered questions from my literature review. To recapitulate, this study will examine a place-based school reform (PBSR) effort, Promise Neighborhood, in its early implementation stages. A theoretical account of PBSR has been presented which distinguishes this approach to improving urban schools, and this account will be compared with how participants defined this effort in practice. The research questions that drove this investigation are as follows: -

Question 1: What are the theoretical and conceptual dimensions of place-base school reform?

-

Question 2: What are the components of place-based school reform when implemented?

-

Question 3: How does school choice complicate the development of place-based school reform strategies?

In this chapter, I will offer background information about the site: a mid-sized city in the Northeast that I call “Northeaston” and its associated public school system. I will also offer a brief portrait of the actual Promise Neighborhood under investigation. This background information also includes information about the lead organization that operates the Promise Neighborhood: a for-profit institution based in Northeason that has been operating a conversion charter school since 2004. Next, I will present results in order of research question.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Now that the context has been established, I will begin to present the results of the study designed to understand what PBSR looks like in practice. First, I will explain the participant demographics, the emergent sampling technique, and an overview of materials analyzed. Then, I will present the findings of each research question in order. Demographics, Sampling (Revisited), and Data Sources The interview sample for this study included 28 participants from five groups: building staff, NPN administration, NPS administration, residents, and service providers. Table 5.1 below provides a demographic overview of the participants. The sample is noticeably well-educated, representing that many people operating and guiding this NPN effort are well-credentialed. Most participants are over the age of 45, reflecting the wealth of experience in either private or nonprofit work, with the exception of residents. Nearly all participants are also not residents of NPN, so there will be some expected challenges of building legitimacy within the community as the new organization is built. Table 5.1: Participant demographics Characteristic

Classification

Sex

Female Male

21 7

Black Hispanic White Other

11 2 15 1

HS degree Some college Bachelor’s Graduate

1 2 4 20

Race/Ethnicity

Count

Total

28

28

Level of Education

Age

20-30 31-40

27 (1 missing)

4 5 163

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE 41-50 51-60 61-70

Role

Building staff NPN Administration NPS Administration Resident Service Provider

Resident of NPN

Years working with NPN (NPN admin, providers only)

Yes No

6 8 2

25 (2 refused, 1 missing)

5 7 6 5 7 7 21

0-1

0

1-2 2-3 3+

7 3 2

28 (2 people fell into 2 categories) 28

12

The sample was obtained by obtaining a list of NPN building, administrative, and service provider contacts from NPN (as discussed in Chapter 3). However, it was not possible to get the entire sample based on the initial list of contacts. A deviation from my original sampling strategy was necessary because (1) it became clear that not all staff members could knowledgably speak about the research questions, (2) some staff members did not want to be interviewed, and (3) contacts for all groups could not be secured from NPN. A purposeful sample was built from a list, reflecting key informants from the NPN administrative team (CEO and relationship managers) and building staff (building principals, service coordinators). NPN staff offered two recommendations about NPS informants. After interviewing them, I used a snowball sampling technique to discover the informal NPS points of contact and people who would be willing to speak because of their previous experience working with NPN. Snowball

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE sampling was also used to locate residents willing to speak about NPN. Through this process, I learned about the power dynamics of NPN, especially about the (1) deteriorating relationship between NPN and NPS and (2) extent to which NPN attempts to prevent residents from becoming burnt out or overtaxed from outsider inquiries (Noy, 2008). For field observations, I relied on internal meetings, relationship manager and partner meetings, public events, and NPN events specially designed for parents with young children. NPN staff provided dates and times of events that they would allow me to observe that fell within a four-month window. Table 4.2 provides an accounting of all field observation sites. At these meetings, I took detailed field notes, transcribed them, and analyzed them alongside the interview transcripts. All meeting materials were taken and analyzed, as well. Table 5.2: Field Observation Descriptions Site 1: NPN staff meeting

Description Relationship managers come together with CEO to discuss pertinent issues.

2: Early Learning staff meeting

The Early Learning relationship manager convenes early learning partners to discuss pertinent issues. NPN Community Engagement staff members 9: Agenda, Business code work with resident-led Community Council to of ethics, Code of ethics discuss pertinent issues and community cover sheet, Holiday governance. Dinner served to residents. basket registration sheet, NPN calendar of events, Community event schedule, 2 Gang prevention program flyers, Code of ethics meeting agenda NPN dual generation staff members and 7: PSN flyer, PSN Male invited speakers work with parents of children flyer, Waverly Housing in Pre-K or kindergarten to discuss Improvement Services educational / personal / professional flyer, Tax preparation

3: Community Council meeting

4: Parent Success Network (PSN) meeting

Artifacts collected 3: PowerPoint presentation, public announcement of event, and internal document about the public event 1: Agenda

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE development topics. Dinner served to residents. The topic was services offered by the local community college for job development-related issues.

5: Parent Success Network NPN dual generation staff members work meeting with parents of children in Pre-K or (Financial education series) kindergarten to discuss educational / personal / professional development topics. Dinner served to residents. The topic was managing credit. 6: NPN public event NPN staff hosted a public event where they screened a documentary about policy issues related to child development.

7: Dual Generation staff meeting 8: Grassroots communications staff meeting 9: Parent Success Network meeting

workshop flyer, Parenting classes flyer, PSN Newsletter, Northeaston Community College workforce development center registration form 2: PowerPoint about credit education, Mock credit report

5: NPN informational brochure, Information about the documentary screened that evening, Documentary promotional flyer, Sponsor thank-you sheet

The Dual Generation relationship manager N/A convenes dual generation partners to discuss pertinent issues. The NPN internal “Grassroots N/A communications” committee convenes to discuss internal and external communications strategies. NPN dual generation staff members and N/A invited speakers work with parents of children in Pre-K or kindergarten to discuss educational / personal / professional development topics. Dinner served to residents. The topic was managing stress around the holidays

Finally, data were generated from several documents collected from the internet, NPN staff members, and NPS employees. The document analysis served to triangulate interviews, but they also helped to formulate interview questions, as well as clarifying questions I had about the implementation of Promise Neighborhood. Since the Northeaston Promise Neighborhood was a grantee of the US Department of Education, documents about the planned effort were readily 166

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE available. Other documents, such as data agreements between the district and NPN and the EMO agreement between the district and BF, were secured from key informants within the district. Table 4.3 below provides a comprehensive list of documents analyzed. Table 5.3: Documents Analyzed Document

Source

1: NPN Grant Application 2: NPN Supplemental Documentation: Comprehensive list of programs, evidence supporting the program, and phased implementation strategy

US Department of Education website US Department of Education website

3: NPN Byrne Criminal Justice overview US Department of Justice website 4: Data sharing agreement between NPN, NPS, and CIE NPS informant 5: Educational partnership agreement between NPN and NPS informant NPS to operate Northeaston Elementary School 6: Percent of neighborhood children attending NPN schools

NPN staff

7: News article, LFPI CEO’s perspective about the low- Local newspaper website performing Northeaston Public School system

In summary, data for this project were generated from 28 in-person interviews, nine field observations, 27 artifacts collected from those field observations, and seven documents. Interviews with informants from multiple organizations helped to verify accounts made by the lead organization under investigation—an intentional step to ensure trustworthiness (Shenton, 2004). My data were supplemented by my reflective commentary and early memoing so that I could capture theoretical and practical insights when in the field as to begin the analysis process (DeCuir, Marshall, McCulloch, 2011). Collecting data such a variety of sources is my attempt at preserving the integrity of qualitative research methods to ensure that my claims are supported in

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE line with standards of the field (Freeman, Preissle, Roulston, & Pierresee, 2007). Now, I will turn my attention to presenting the results to each research question over a series of three chapters.

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CHAPTER 6: Results for Research Question 1: What are the theoretical and conceptual dimensions of place-base school reform? At the end of chapter 2, based on a synthesis of the literature, I engaged in a comprehensive theoretical “fleshing out” of the place-based school reform (PBSR) concept. This theoretical account was contrasted with other similar concepts—neighborhood schools, community schools, and school-centered community revitalization. However, this theoretical account, while useful, should be contrasted with an account of what PBSR means in a contextualized setting as it is being implemented from the perspective of those actors implementing it. My focus for this research question is how the lived experiences of actors in the field make meaning of the kind of project on which they are working to make it a reality. This was accomplished by asking participants from the five identified groups about their perspectives on what Promise Neighborhood was trying to accomplish or do and what makes NPN unique (see Appendix A for complete interview protocol). Based on these questions, I could decipher what participants perceived were the conceptual or theoretical underpinnings of such an approach, as well as the theory of change that they felt drove the initiative. In this section, I present results in an almost logic model kind of a format: a participant-generated rationale for why PBSR was needed in this particular place, goals for the effort, its programs and initiatives, and the role that PN plays within the neighborhood and in the city (See Figure 6.1). The sophistication with which different participants articulate these aspects of the PBSR under investigation differs, and I will show how these articulations differ. Finally, I conclude by comparing and contrasting the participant-generated conception of Promise Neighborhood with my theoretical account offered in chapter 2.

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Figure 6.1: Research Question 1 Schematic Reasons for PBSR

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Underlying the participants’ understandings of just exactly what PBSR is requires an explanation of why there is an intervention in the first place. Participants cited the poor conditions of the neighborhood, low academic performance, parents that do not have threshold skill levels or knowledge bases and therefore need support, and a “suppressive” economy as reason for intervention. Participants quite explicitly linked poor neighborhood conditions to poverty and, in some cases, the residents’ individual behaviors (driven by a culture of poverty argument). Poor Neighborhood Conditions. Many participants from all groups mentioned the poor neighborhood conditions as a main reason for an intervention. A building-based employee expressed this sentiment by saying, “It seems to me that this ZIP code, in terms of Northeaston, is high-crime. High poverty area. So in a way, it's to be impactful to you know help the community rise out of all the issues that are taking place here in a variety of ways.” A service provider who works in a school context put it differently that the intervention is, “the acknowledgement of the condition of our neighborhoods. And wanting to do something about it, for whatever reason…that you acknowledge that there is something not…quite right with the situation, and that you're willing to put finances towards repairing it.” An NPS staff member articulated the problems of “drug abuse, alcoholism, unemployment rates low SES levels, and single-parent families” that “are consolidated to a great extent in [this] ZIP code” is “why it was chosen.” One of the residents claimed, “When outsiders thinkin', you know it's a bad area,” and that’s why their neighborhood is getting all of the attention. While that resident did not feel that the neighborhood is as bad as outsiders said it was, another resident was more specific when she said, “in the neighborhood where people might be low-income, not had finished school, don't 171

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE have a job, don't want to have the mentality that they could just going to get assistance.” Another resident decried the situation in the neighborhood, “Because you know how kids are growing up now. It's terrible out here…You know, kids 13 years old, 12, overdosing on drugs. Because of the ghetto!” She went on to discuss the difficult situation that children face in the neighborhood: “It happens more in the ghetto. It happens more in the black community. It happen - it's so many murders - nothin' but black people.” As a result, she recalled the Stop the Violence Coalition’s attempts to work with youth in the neighborhood which was in part started by NPN. These negative neighborhood conditions were the reason why NPN exists. A building-based staff specifically raised these negative neighborhood conditions, but linked the problem with race: You see all the other factors. The lack of health care. The fact that it's a food desert. The fact that the housing stock is dilapidated. There's all these other things that are prevalent in this neighborhood, and it's not to say that it's intentional because it's the black neighborhood. It's just that this neighborhood is so distressed that that and it just so happens that it's completely, it's almost 97% African-American, and that's just the reality of it.

Poor neighborhood conditions directly resulted in a variety of other factors, such as poor health care, food insecurity, and unstable housing. In his case, he saw this as a problem that was interwoven with a racial injustice problem, to be discussed later. A NPN staff member further articulated how residents of this particular neighborhood felt the stressors associated with this place: They feel that in their property values, they feel it in crime. They feel it in economic downturn. They feel it- they can't get jobs, they can't go shopping there. There's no grocery stores. Our employees both live and work there, as well…

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE In this case, this NPN staff member cited many neighborhood problems with which residents and NPN staff grapple. The problems seemed to be very real for this staffer, and he took it somewhat personally. In the NPN staff meeting (field observation 1), the PowerPoint included neighborhood challenges like single parent households and other negative social indicators. They also discussed a “blight fighting” campaign to be launched soon where residents identified blighted properties and tackle the issue through public art. The NPN project narrative also makes clear that the neighborhood conditions, such as single-parent households, an aging housing stock, and vacant properties, were motivating factors for the intervention. Neighborhood conditions, in many participants’ viewpoints are one of the big reasons for poor academic performance, which is the next reason for why the PN intervention exists. Poor Academic Performance. While participants did not offer as many details about the academic performance of children in NPN and its affiliated schools, it was clear that one of the main issues that NPN is attempting to counter is the academic performance of these children. A service provider mentioned the NPN “programs to decrease the achievement gap,” and a building staff member simply stated, “The focus is to promote academic achievement.” A NPN administrator linked “changing the community” with “the aspects of what will go into that. And the bottom line for changing, again, is education.” Over half of the participants mentioned the importance of education and academics to the effort, and a logical extension of this is that students in the neighborhood are not performing well on formal academic benchmark testing. The NPN project narrative, along with the accompanying document of all their programming, indicates that student performance is a motivating factor for the intervention.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Participants in this study made the link more explicitly between neighborhood improvement and academic success. A building staff member simply stated, “What benefits our neighborhood benefits our school and benefits our kids.” One of the service providers noticed, “I think that this particular zone has a bias toward the educational component of the project. And and that's very, very important.” A building staffer clearly connected education and overall quality of life improvement by saying, “Because if you can change educational outcomes for students, kids, then you can change what happens for generations to come. So I think that's really the main lever that we're trying to pull.” Knowing that it is difficult, also, for students from this community getting into college, some participants mentioned that NPN is trying to change this trend by advancing a “cradle to college” effort. One service provider mentioned that NPN was trying to “get as many kids through school and college as they can” presumably because of the challenges that students experience in the neighborhood. Residents were not as clear about the connection with academic performance, serving as a counter-example to this theme. One resident simply said that they knew that NPN was “dealing with the schools.” Another resident was aware that one NPN administrator was involved in the turn-around of BCCS, which made her trust that NPN was doing good things. She went on to say that teachers at the NPN schools are “trying to educate [our children]” and left it at that. Another resident put it differently: “They want it better for the kids,that's all their money - their main concern is what's better for these kids.” These residents knew that school improvement was important to turning around the neighborhood, none of the residents discussed the poor academic performance of neighborhood children as a motivation for the neighborhood improvement effort. Still, most of the participants in the sample recognized that poor academic performance was a primary rationale for the PN initiative. Neighborhood conditions and

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE academic performance were not the only drivers, but it was also recognized that parents’ skills and competencies served as a driving force for intervention. Parents “Don’t Know.” A NPN administrator simply summed up this position by saying, “Many of the parents don't know the resources available that can help them out of the situation.” A NPS administrator mentioned a similar sentiment: “If you don't even know that there are structures and agencies and systems out there, then you're more likely to not to be able to access it or to try to.” This similar comment said that parents are struggling to live in a precarious neighborhood environment, and there are services that can help them. However, parents do not know about them. As a result, intervention was needed: Promise Neighborhood. In some cases, parents also lack the skills and abilities that could help them live better lives. A service provider offered financial literacy as an example: “because a lot of times, there's financial literacy. Parents don't know a lot about even simple things like acquiring a bank account. You know they meet the parents where they are. An entire “dual generation” strategy was constructed because of the struggles that parents experience. A former NPN staff member and service provider, alluded to the lack of skills that parents have in this quote: “So you have everything from the time when a child is born in the hospital and empowering the parents with the tools they need to be successful in parenting….” A service provider was sympathetic to why these parents did not have the skills. She said, “Parenting is the last thing on their mind right now. You know they’re worried about all the economics. You know they're worried about getting a job. They're worried about their finances.” Still, in her estimation, parenting classes were necessary. The field observations (4, 5, 9) where I observed the Parent Success Network programming animated this sentiment that parents simply do not know things and just need someone to tell them. During field observation

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE four, the staff member in charge would pause and ask parents questions, such as, “Do you know what networking is?” or “Do you all know what [an elevator speech] is?” The embedded assumption is that parents simply do not know, even though some of them did know and actually did answer the question. Field observation five offered parents information about credit, such as why the store “Rent to Own” charges them more for household items or how to improve their credit. Field observation nine offered parents tips about how to stay calm and stress-free over the holidays, such as by stopping to appreciate small things or clear away clutter in their houses. Again, because parents do not know about many things, they need an intervention. A “Suppressive Economy.” I will revisit a service provider’s full quote here, as it brings up the larger point about why the PN intervention is necessary for parents: [Think about] Maslov's [hierarchy of needs]. You know, parenting is the last thing on their mind right now. You know [parents are] worried about all the economics. You know they're worried about getting a job. They're worried about their finances. They're worried about all those things. And whether or not they're a good parent. They're all, to some level, of course they care about that. To go to classes for that, it just is not high on their priority list. This was a common undertone of many participant’s comments. The phraseology of the “suppressive economy” came from an NPS employee, an informal contact for NPN within the district, quite blatantly exclaimed: [We need programs] that allow parents just to have enough support so that things are a little easier so that they can navigate what is often a very suppressive economy that doesn't give second chances. [Regarding the children of these parents] It's not enough when you have to navigate an economy alone, which is what many of these young people haven't chosen to grow up in. I don't care how educated you are…for young people to navigate the modern economy is a cruel trip that we're putting them on. They have very limited options with regard to their career paths because the suppression of this economy makes it very difficult to have those choices.

A senior LFPI said in a public forum, which was later published in the newspaper: “I am 176

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE seriously concerned that any regional economic progress will be hindered since the majority of high school students lack the basic skills required to become contributing members of the workforce.” While this was framed as a city-wide problem, he acknowledged that it was a problem in this target geography. If students do not have the necessary skills, they will not be competitive in the job market. However, when these students from underdeveloped neighborhoods attempt to compete with students from developed / affluent neighborhoods with high-quality schools, they will not be successful. All of the job training classes offered (that were observed during the field observations) were for professions like medical coder or a pharmacy technician that, at most in Northeaston, pay around $37,000 per year, but the median salary range for the job is $31,00011. Indeed, this is a decent wage, but it cannot move someone singlehandedly into the middle class. I will revisit a NPN staff member comment: “And [residents] feel it in economic downturn. They feel it- they can't get jobs.” During field observation four, the presenter mentioned that “in this type of an economy,” it’s important to know how to interview because jobs are so difficult to secure. The suppressive economy, while only explicitly mentioned by four participants, seemed to be an invisible force that served to cement the need for the PN effort. This seemed to mainly come up when discussing parents’ difficulty in securing jobs, but it appeared in other ways. A service provider framed the concern about the economy in this way: “So when people are given opportunities based on race, or based on economics, that hurts everybody, and I think that we have finally to a certain extent learned that.” Residents of the neighborhood are mostly black and therefore are not being afforded the same opportunities (such as jobs or housing), as other

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Obtained a local estimate from www.salary.com

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE groups in the city. A current service provider discussed how problems were interconnected based on her recent experience at a city-wide meeting: And, we were talking about the map for Child and Protective Services (CPS) most incidents. [There] could be a transparency laid on top of the map for most sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Which could be a transparency of the map that's the most teen pregnancies. Which could also be an economic map of this region. And somebody expressed outrage.

A building staffer also discussed the intersectionality of these social issues with an economic overlay as he discussed the contentious issue of neighborhood schools: The problem is the need for neighborhood schools is an economically charged argument in Northeaston. And unfortunately that economic factor is also racially aligned. And I think that's a place -, a lot of Midwestern cities, or a lot of cities in [this region] are struggling with that same thing.

The economic conditions experienced in the neighborhood and in the city, which seem to disproportionately affect disenfranchised groups, like the mostly black residents in the Promise Neighborhood, was discussed as a reason why this neighborhood needs some kind of coordinated solution. Goals of PBSR Certain conditions listed above established the need to formulate an intervention, and participants, with varying levels of sophistication, articulated the goals of the initiative. First and foremost, this is an educational initiative with a goal to help children succeed academically, graduate from high school, and progress toward a job. Many people put it quite simply. A NPN staffer said, “It's really about educational achievement for the young people. So [when I explain NPN to others], I always start from it's an academic program.” Another NPN staff

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE member said that the implication was financial: “And [education is] 70% of our focus, and 70% of our budget turns out.” Participants from all participant groups, with the exception of residents, agreed about the educational goal associated with Promise. The reason for this is that academic is supposedly the passport to a better life, harkening back to the debate about whether or not education alone can take care of all problems (Levin & Kelley, 1994). Even when a service provider described the wrap-around services that the effort provides, she linked it back to education: It was saying that you know, you can invest in a school system, but if you aren't investing the 6 years when a child is home, or you're not investing in the nutrition that a child is impacted by when they're not in school, or you're looking at a child that doesn't have a health home, you know you really aren't controlling all those factors that are going in to whether you're learning in school or not. And eventual success. Indeed, meeting the supportive service needs of families is important, as she discussed, but these are ultimately all trying to help children be educationally successful. Thirteen people in the sample discussed the creation of a cradle-to-career pipeline as a primary goal of the Promise Neighborhood effort. In a similar vein, 15 discussed the inspiration of PN came from Harlem Children’s Zone, the trailblazer for the place-based school reform intervention. An NPS staff member almost jokingly exclaimed, “That's their motto, cradle to college, or whatever. They throw that in all the time, you just hear that.” A building staffer mentioned that “They’re trying to create a really good education for the kids before they get here.” Here in this case, since she worked at an elementary school, she was referring to reaching students before Kindergarten. NPN tried to enrich the pre-school experiences of children in the neighborhood through the Early Childhood Education Center (ECEC). A service provider

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE mentioned that this cradle-to-college and/or career (not everyone agreed about this) approach actually helped families keep track of their child’s education: And to keep [children] in a system or a cradle-to-career approach allows the parents the freedom of understanding what their children are learning, how well they're doing it, and they get to follow too. This cradle-to-career pipeline was constructed by connecting service providers with families as soon as children are born, send them to a specific pre-school with special supportive services, and then on to elementary, middle, and high schools with additional services, and then on to college and/or a career. The purpose was not stated necessarily as getting students to come back to the neighborhood, but instead the goal is to get students to a point where they have successfully completed the educational process. Education and training (of children and parents) as the primary goal was confirmed by all field observations and documents, but especially the grant narrative and the NPN promotional brochure (artifact from field observation 6). The second goal stated goal for Promise was to stabilize families by providing additional supportive services to parents/caregivers and children. Everyone in the study acknowledged that people within the neighborhood face difficult and precarious lives. Some even admitted that it would be difficult for them to imagine living in the same environments. The reason for this is because families live amongst instability. Since NPN was deemed a primarily educational initiative, the PN intervention seeks to impact the people who are closest to the children: the families. A service provider said, “It's looking at our youngest children and saying, ‘Let's get their parents stable and see where we can go from there.’" A building staffer discussed the Parent Success Network: We have the Parent Success Network. They have an impact on our school where they're working with our Kindergarten, first grade - PreK and K parents and helping to stabilize themselves by providing education, financial workshops and 180

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE different things so they can take, build up their capacity to take them to another level, which will impact their students. This quote indicates (1) that the dual generation (Parent Success Network) program, which was a major $6 million component of NPN, is for parents of young children and (2) that family stability was an explicit goal of this PBSR effort. Succinctly, a former NPN employee and service provider, commented, “Basically we take the approach that students will be more successful in their school if they have a stable home.” She acknowledged that students in this neighborhood probably do not come from stable households (meaning, the parents may not be together, the household might be unsafe from environemtal hazards or because of crime), which adds to the precarity of their lives. Some spoke about stability through the lens of life struggles that parents experiences. A service provider, offered her perspective about one particular aspect of instability—not having a bank account. I think in the city as a whole, I think it's up to about 25 or 28 percent of the city are completely unbanked…And that is a big disadvantage for a lot of people. They pay a lot more money for the same kinda services that others would have. Sometimes it's the maybe they've stumbled and now they owe someone money, and now they're trying to figure that out. And beat the systems, or check systems. Or maybe they've just never had experience with a bank account. Even something, it seems small like opening a bank account, for somebody, or if you're a family, that is huge. And financial success and stability is a really big factor in being able to maintain and achieve what you're trying to do in your life. One resident noticed that NPN was trying to help the community by “try and get low-income people [to] take advantage of our kids goin' to college. Tryin' to solve something in the parents that make it better so we can help our children.” In field observation three, one NPN staff member reminded the crowd that “there are a lot of families who are not tied to technology.” In field observation eight, when talking about managing stress, a parent said out loud, “You know

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE that’s right! I had two break-downs.” An NPS staff member briefly mentioned there being a lot of “upheaval” in parents’ lives. It seemed that parents faced many issues, whether it was education/training, technology in the household, or housing. It was for that reason that NPN decided to connect families (and other residents, if applicable) to services in the community or around the neighborhood. Primarily, this service connection came through the schools, but it could also be through the Community Council or other neighborhood institution. A service provider mentioned that in their Early Childhood Education Center, they help “extended families…beyond just, like, child, mom, dad…who may need services.” Another service provider saw it as NPN’s role to “educat[e] that particular community about what is available, whether it's homeownership, whether it has to do with your child's education.” As a NPN administrator put it: In addition to focusing on children, it became pretty apparent to us that we needed to focus on parents and caregivers. We know a lot of the families living in our Promise Neighborhood, households are headed by single moms. That's an awful hard way to raise kids, to be a single mom, to (inaudible) your own life, career, etc. So we recognized part of the second things we do is to try and support those caregivers. Right. Because we know that'll lead to a better education for kids. Notice that he connected the family support to educational success (the first, and primary, goal), but the sentiment is the same. Families struggled, so NPN should help them. NPN staff could act as a broker to get people connected with services, as a NPN employee mentioned that she had an interaction with a resident about a housing situation where she needed a special addition because of a disability. While NPN does not offer as many services with housing, she explained: But it's a service that people need, and then you have to get on the phone because I know people in the community, and I can be able to call, make those contacts,

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE and connections. And work through that process. And get that information to the person. You know, this is who you need to call. One NPS administrator saw NPN’s objective as “diminish[ing] the barriers” that children and families have in the educational process by offering additional services through schools. A resident liked the approach, by saying, “This was a good place to try to infuse services in the schools.” She continued to discuss the Parent Success Network that I observed: So ANY-thing that brings families in, makes them part of a community, supports their needs, and is able to talk to parents about what you can offer or know, or help support them, and their children. Anything we do, I think, can't hurt. Providing services to parents, through schools or in the community, so that families can become stabilized was reported to be an important goal of NPN. Finally, the goal of this particular PBSR effort in practice is to improve neighborhood conditions. This goal came out of the realization that neighborhood environments act as a barrier for educational success. The sentiment was expressed that basic school reform (e.g. building-based comprehensive school reform) was not enough. In fact, a service provider hit the table for emphasis when she said, “To try to just fix the schools is never going to work.” The principal of NES expressed a similar sentiment: They know that you can't just give a kid academics, and expect that they will just - well, we can give them academics, but our data shows that it doesn't necessarily transfer to improved student achievement. One participant recalled a previous district-wide systemic / comprehensive school reform effort that failed because the changes were simply “structural” or only “tinkering” with the grammar of schooling (Tyack, 1995; Tyack & Tobin, 1994):

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE And so I watched at least 1- you know I was active in bringing a small school grant. Could we do it just with structure? That was one of the first things we brought in. You know, we identified 3 schools, 3 comprehensive HSs. We looked at could they be planned into smaller schools? It was conceivable. People got excited. But that was just structural. But that wasn't enough. It said, "This is yours. Let's just make your schools smaller." But then someone brought in College Board schools [another external consultant]. You know, "This is our model. We're convinced our model will work here. But in order to work with our model, you have to do this class size, there has to be this training for the teachers, there has to be this flexibility, and this is what we need to do." We brought in another one that was out of Atlanta. And you know, these are their demands. And only of you follow our model exactly will it work. With the exception of the external school reform consultant hired by NPN called Education Progress, she spoke about NPN positively because she perceived that NPN took a comprehensive approach to improving the neighborhood as opposed to the more familiar siloed approach. This was something that was important for her, as well as many people in the sample, noting that building-based school reform can only go so far. Participants from all groups spoke about NPN’s efforts to improve the community. One administrator from NPS thinks about NPN as “a broad-scale, deep effort to actually rejuvenate a community,” while one of the building staff members also said that NPN was trying to “rejuvenate a neighborhood.” A service provider mentioned that they: Work with the NPN Community Council, which they talk about revitalizing the neighborhood. And a lot of these houses, these abandoned houses in the neighborhood, they've been revitalizing. As a matter of fact, people have been asking about them. We used to get together and talk about building laundromats, and things that people here in the community that people don't have and need supermarket, things like that. So they work on revitalizing and upgrading the community. A NPN administrator claimed that “at its core, it's really about revitalization about a community, but also prosperity of that community.” Another service provider, thought “it’s trying to create community change.” Field observations one and three both showcased NPN’s desire to improve

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE the community through fighting blight, cleaning up Sales Avenue, environmental sustainability events in the neighborhood, and home improvement efforts. This rejuvenation suggested that the neighborhood was once better but now needed reinvestment. A building staffer said that many other neighborhoods in Northeaston had declined, and she saw NPN as a way to “maybe prevent that from happening” here. She actually used to live in the neighborhood and had this account: I lived here in the early about the mid-80s. And I could see how the neighborhood had progressed abandoned storefronts. Just, you know. The houses in general, not kept up as good because, you know, they're abandoned. So I think … that there's a preventative component… If you put in services that prevent and if you put in, build up the neighborhood so there's jobs and people want to move there, then you prevent the decline. One resident hinted at neighborhood change when she said that the neighborhood “has narrowed down a great deal [fewer children], and has changed a lot over the years because of that.” Another resident, mentioned that the neighborhood is now more racially isolated: “Cause it was mixed. Now it's not mixed. So it's all one [race] there.” Research is clear on the connection between the connection between large concentrations of blacks and/or Latinos and so-called disadvantage and/or underdevelopment (Sampson, 2012; Sharkey, 2013). One resident lived in the neighborhood for 28 years: “Well they said the neighborhood was better, even when I moved in 28 years ago.” Clearly, based on the evidence, an important goal of this PBSR is improving the neighborhood, which is in line with the “place-based” aspect of the concept. Now that the goals of this particular PBSR effort have been articulated, I will move on to explain the next conceptual aspect of PBSR according to the participants: the actual intervention—the Promise Neighborhood organization.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE The Intervention: The Promise Neighborhood Organization

While research question two will go into more detail about the design characteristics of the NPN organization, this section presents results showcasing that participants recognized that an intervention was required which is the creation of a new organization focused on a target geography. The NPN organization was set up to implement a comprehensive strategy within a target footprint so as to not overwhelm the organization but also as a recognition that many academic and non-academic barriers to success emanate from the neighborhood. Four of the five NPN staff members acknowledged that NPN was a new organization created specifically committed to improving a target foot print. One NPN staffer noted that what makes NPN unique is: …the ability for convening of partners, bringing people to the table. And to really act in that facilitator role. A lot the organizations. As a not for profit - former not for profit executive, it's very difficult to get away from the building and to reflect and to strategize. All the things that you need to be able to do. So being able to have an entity that can also help you to do it, to help you to think through the process, the steps, how do we collaborate? What does collaboration truly look like?...So we are conveners. We are facilitators. We are working to build capacity. While she mentioned many different roles that NPN assumes, first and foremost NPN is a “new entity” that helps groups come together and collaborate, and that takes the form of reflecting and strategizing. This new organization can focus on these higher level tasks in a way that perhaps individual organizations cannot. A NPN administrator put it simply, “We're a new institution that got created for this purpose [of improving this neighborhood through education].” When asked what NPN meant to one resident, she stated, “I think it is some organization or whatever trying to make the NPN better.” Another NPN staff member, indicated that NPN was created from the “ground up:” 186

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE When you're building something from the ground, you're not dealing with existing legacies and the way things have always been. People are already having power, and all that kind of fighting that happens. So it is, really, I think easier when you're going from the ground-up. Creation of a new organization offers an opportunity to start fresh to accomplish the stated goals of educational achievement, parent stability, and neighborhood improvement. A building staff member said, “Many people think that it is a community-based organization, which it is kind of.” Even though they work with other community-based organziations (CBOs), NPN is a CBO in itself created for an explicit purpose. Something else that is distinct about this “ground-up” CBO creation is the targeted geography. A NPN administrator put it this way: Simply, it's the neighborhood concept. The focus on a geography. It's like you're going to plot lines on a map. And rather than try to change a whole system from the get-go. Let's just work on a small population… But it's a lot easier to grasp the problem, of really urban education and urban poverty, if you can do it at a smaller group level, a smaller population. So that's what's nice about this neighborhood concept. Let's just select a geography and just work on our neighbors. This new organization has a focused mission of focusing on the improvement of a targeted geographical area—the “neighborhood concept” articulated by this NPN staffer. His sentiment was almost mirrored by a service provider: I mean, especially in a city like Northeaston, there are a lot of schools, and sometimes programs if they try to address the issue as a whole, and be like, "I'm going to make everything all better." Sometimes that approach is a little naive. But if you're like, "Ok, maybe I can't fix every school in the city of Northeaston, but maybe if I focus on these like 2 or 3," you can really make a difference. The targeted geography and the “comprehensive approach” mentioned by several other participants offered NPN a chance to actually be successful, since they are doing their part to solve the perplexing problem of inner-city school underperformance and neighborhood-based

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE problems that impact educational performance. Notably, participants did not discuss this PBSR effort as part of a larger strategy to completely transform the neighborhood. The Lead Organization’s Corporate Status. In this PBSR effort, the lead organization is a private organization that offers technical capacity to convene and lead the effort. Lead organizational capacity, technical skills, and a fresh perspective were also discussed as important aspects of the new organization that was created. For us, we have support of professionals that other neighborhoods don't…The fact that the initiative was started by a professionals that worked for [a local for-profit institution]. These problems have been so cyclical, of urban poverty and urban education. I think it helps to get a fresh set of eyes on it. And it's not just a fresh set of eyes. I mean, we all had to acknowledge that different professions have different skill sets. And from that standpoint, you can add... You're bringing in people that are very analytical minded tied into the community, can exercise a significant amount of leverage in pulling together stakeholders. Because we financially support so many nonprofits. A building staffer felt that for-profit people “may look at [school reform] from a different lens,” meaning that they’re not prone to “make excuses” for peer educational performance since they’re all about “the bottom line…scores.” One of the NPN staff members also felt that the private sector’s unique value-add was all about perspective and not making excuses: One of the things I admire about the LFPI’s business is that it can be very, very complicated business. But, the people who have risen to the top always just sort of get to - "Let's forget all that stuff, what's the issue here? What's the problem? What's causing the problem?" Right - and you break it down in simple terms, then we try to address the problem. As opposed to trying to put all this stuff around it. An NPS administrator felt that having a private partner was critical, but because of resources: “You have a private partner that is willing to invest what is necessary to support children and families.” A NPN relationship manager mentioned that when people hear the LFPI’s name, “it [means] excellence.” A service provider hoped that the private sector’s

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE perspective would be valuable in terms of actually solving the school reform “problem” in the inner-city: Hopefully, what I hope is that Promise can bring to these conversations, and I've actually suggested this, that kind of corporate model of looking at the challenges in a safe, kind of a problem-solving kind of way. I don't think - Education's problem-solving is changing the principal or changing the curriculum. It never gets deeper than that. And I think the corporate model really could try to facilitate that conversation. In her view, urban school reform is “stuck” in a building-based mindset of changing school leadership or curriculum. However, the LFPI offers a chance to break away from the old thinking and offer a new way of looking at the problem that is “safe.” While three people in the sample were leery of private sector involvement, these participants still thought a private sector organization stepping in to offer solutions, while trying to respect the perspectives of people on the ground was a good thing. The private sector aspect of the partnership was absolutely critical for this NPN administrator. We have this unending supply of talent, meaning, the bank population that I can tap into for not only, "Hey I need your guys' help, marketing, facilities, HR," but also I can go to them any time, and I can go find another Milargo [pseudonym a NPN employee]. Or I can find 5 more Milargos if I need them. I have tis unlimited pool of talent that I can bring in to spend a couple, 2, 3years in NPN. They get a whole different exposure, and a whole difference sense of responsibility, accountability they can take back with them in the [business]. So it's helped us immensely. This corporate status was strongly communicated in the grant application project narrative, as well, and presumably helped the grant score in the national top five. Understandably, the corporate status of the lead organization may be a specific design feature of the Northeaston PBSR effort, but this sample of participants seemed to think the for-profit group’s involvement was almost a necessary ingredient for such a comprehensive effort because of their capacity,

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE technical expertise, resources, and reputation. In the next section, I will report on the various strategies, or the ways that NPN accomplishes its goals, that participants discussed. Strategy 1: Neighborhood-Level Interventions. For brevity, in this section, I will only briefly mention the programs and efforts that participants discussed, saving the details for research question two regarding the effort’s on-the-ground implementation. Bear in mind that the effort, from the perspective of the participants, is primarily an educational effort. The first, and most obvious, neighborhood-level intervention is school reform. School reform was a major component, in that NPN managed and controlled a pipeline of community schools, from an Early Childhood Education Center (ECEC) to two K-8 schools to a high school. The ECEC was built from scratch, in that a new building was constructed on Sales Ave. One of the K-8 schools was a charter school under NPN’s management, while the other was taken over through an educational management organization agreement. NPN also consulted with an external reform organization, Educational Progress (EP) to reform 5-6 grades at NES and the entire high school. NPN established a new reading curriculum at both schools. Additional professional development for teachers and supportive services for families and students were also included in the school-based intervention. Additional one-on-one classroom support for teachers came in the form of contracting with a non-profit service group called “Patriotic Services.” This group placed paraprofessionals in the school to help teachers, but they also operated extracurricular programs in- and after-school. Also, after-school programming supplemented the regular school day at all three grade schools. Service coordinators placed in the schools would attempt to retain additional service providers to meet the needs of children in that school. NPN also planned an annual student leadership conference where students learned about positive youth development, leadership skills, college and career resources, and about strategies 190

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE to avoid risky behavior. PN also included some nutrition and exercise programs in the K-8 schools to make school meals healthier (e.g. using food from a community garden and making meals from scratch). Finally, NPN added additional technology in the schools through a wireless internet upgrade and an iPad program. NPN also included a limited housing intervention through the rehabilitation of ten houses surrounding BCCS. The LFPI also donated some land they owned to Waverly Housing Improvement Services (WHIS) so they could be rehabilitated, as well. WHIS also helped to connect some residents to homeownership programs. In addition to housing, NPN launched a major crime and safety initiative because they secured a US Department of Justice Byrne Criminal Justice grant. The effort included partnerships with the police department where NPN analyzed data and identified crime hotspots for targeted police enforcement. The crime effort would also include increased police patrols, increased lighting in the neighborhood, rental code enforcement, youth development programming, communication between police and block clubs, and greater “community ownership.” PBSR at the neighborhood level also included a health component. The neighborhood health center was represented in planning documents as a partner who would provide health services for residents who needed it. There seemed to also be interventions to build collective efficacy of residents. Several “community improvement” efforts were launched, such as a house repainting one-time event, periodic City of Northeaston Resident Assistance Programs, a coordinated “fight blight” effort, and a business code of ethics effort. While block clubs existed before NPN, this new PBSR effort attempted to build a block club coalition while simultaneously building a new governance structure for residents through the Community Council. These new groups served as new organizations that would allow residents directly to 191

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE participate in governance and community problem-solving with other residents, thus creating a networks of trust between residents (Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997). To this end, NPN also launched a leadership development group among a core group of self-selected residents. The idea is that residents develop their abilities to take on leadership to deal with problems in their own neighborhood. This program will be discussed at length later in this chapter. These interventions formulate the core of the neighborhood-level interventions. Strategy 2: Home and Family Interventions. The main home and family interventions can be classified under the umbrella of “dual generation” programming. The Parent Success Network (PSN) was launched as a result of this program, supported by the Children’s Foundation funding. A PSN complementary program for fathers, called PSN-Male, attempted to better engage fathers in parenting skill development through a parent success coach. Notably, the interventions were targeted at parents with children who are in pre-school or Kindergarten, and in some cases first grade. Interventions include one-on-one counselors who met with parents about financial or housing goals, and there would be follow-up meetings where counselors would hold residents accountable for these goals. A partnership with a local community college gave residents access to a full-time counselor to connect parents with workforce development opportunities—from resume development to searching for workforce-related tuition assistance programs to a professional attire wardrobe assistance service. Finally, parents had a direct line to vocational training programs operated by a local non-profit organization. These special opportunities were presented at monthly Parent Success Network meetings where participants would get access to educational workshops about a topic of interest to them, as well as networking opportunities with other parents in the neighborhood—another effort to build

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE collective efficacy through social networks. A spin-off parenting group was also specifically created for fathers of young children in the neighborhood. Additional home and family interventions came under the umbrella of “Early Learning” programs. These interventions began with a staff member meeting with new parents in the hospital after they had their baby. Parents were then invited to new parent workshops that offered parents suggestions about how to create literacy-rich home environments as well as best practices for how to create strong parent-child connections. On-going parent workshops offered in the schools gave parents further opportunities to hone their parenting skills. Additional programming for homes and families included special occasional basic needs services offered to families. For example, around Thanksgiving, families and residents could register to receive a free turkey. A similar “holiday gift basket” program allowed families to enroll to receive food for the holidays. Through the schools, families were offered a chance to enroll in a “backpack program” which offered families food for the weekend. Now that the particular programs an interventions have been presented, I will discuss the next strategy that makes PBSR distinct—removing non-academic barriers to learning. Strategy 3: Removing Non-Academic Barriers to Learning. While this strategy is closely related to the school-based interventions described above, I chose to include this as a separate strategy because it got to the heart of current educational reform efforts—can teachers be expected to teach students who have many out-of-school challenges? One of the building staff members described NPN in terms of the African proverb “It takes a village to raise a child.” One group does not bear sole responsibility for teaching children. However, the overarching narrative of contemporary school reform places great, if not sole, responsibility on the backs of

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE schools (generally) and teachers (specifically). A NPN staff member was married to a teacher, and he heard about the frustration of teachers from his partner given that there are so many social issues beyond their control: I think part of the commentary is a commentary on how frustrated they are. Is they view themselves as being educators, not social workers. And, so, they get very frustrated when they have to cross that line and provide a lot of wrap around supports or make connections to other social services and things like that for students and families. And I don't think that's because they don't want to, I think it's again sort of the frustration of realizing how desperate the situation is, and 2, they're not prepared for that. He recognized that NPN was trying to address some of this frustration by providing additional supports for children and families so that teachers can be in a better position to reach children. A NPN administrator, realized the goal of NPN is to “to support the teacher so that those [socioeconomic crisis situations] can be somewhat eradicated and that we can get to the art of actually teaching.” NPN as an intervention is partly an effort that helps to address social issues that may stand in the way of academic performance. A building staff member acknowledged that NPN programs help to “make our jobs easier.” A former NPS central office staff member similarly pledged support of the NPN effort because “it validated what every teacher in the city of Northeaston saying, which is you can test us all you want, but we can’t do this alone.” Factors that emanate from the neighborhood create educational challenges for children in the classroom. One of the building staffers admitted that, because of NPN’s wrap-around supports, “now we're able to focus on student achievement more.” These supports took several forms: literacy coaches in the classroom, additional supportive service agencies brought into the school by service coordinators, and parent engagement programs such as the Parent Success Network. Strategy 4: Creating a Network of Feeder Schools. As discussed, Northeaston is an open enrollment/school choice city, as families can choose to send their children to any school in 194

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE the city. From the inception of this PBSR effort, the plan was to create a system of feeder schools that would serve the neighborhood. That means that NPN had to work closely with NPS to find ways to legally encourage neighborhood students to choose the NPN community schools. Quoting from the project narrative: To meet the student dispersion challenge cited above and integrate family and community supports directly into schools where they will be most effective, we are moving without delay, and with the full cooperation of the District, to make the policy changes and build the incentives to create a neighborhood feeder cluster that will enable and attract parents in the NPN to enroll their children in the NPN schools and keep them there. The process of creating such a feeder system will be explained in later sections, but interviews confirmed progress toward this goal. The pipeline would start with a high-quality ECEC, transition students into either NES or BCCS, and then finally to NHS. Principals from the schools come together and communicate regularly usually about data. Meetings between charter school principals, traditional public school principals, district staff members, and an external organization are not common. A senior NPN staff member described what these meetings were like when he started them: It's kinda interesting. It started with attendance, the first three months, Mr. Paul (staff member in charge of NES) and (BCCS principal) just kinda looked at me like I was nuts. Right. So you bring this data, what do you want us to do about it? It is what it is, and it's better than you think, or it's worse than you think. Second month I'd show up, and I'd have the data, and I'd say, "Hey guys this is what it's tellin' me.”…Now they're getting frustrated with me. By the third meeting, they started coming in and telling me what they're doing to focus on attendance. Then the attendance curve started going up. This quote above illustrates the feeder system in action. The only NPS administrator who attended those meetings, reflected on the value of that meeting.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE It's an awesome meeting…It makes for great conversations… Because there are strategies that get shared. And there are some really tough conversations that we have with each other, and I think that that's really the look that we need to have. This feeder system enables communication, planning, and coordination of strategies and approaches between the schools. Given that children would enter the pipeline as early as 1.5 years old and continue to be connected to NPN through high school, it makes a longitudinal perspective on student achievement possible. A service provider saw this as NPN’s biggest value-add. She explained that the traditional public school system has a fragmented perspective on student achievement: I think every year is this independent pocket in the school system. So [student] success can say, you know, they don't look at where the child came in at the beginning of the year measured against where they're leaving at the end of the year. So I think that year to year isolation has led to grade inflation, has led to this kind of inability to differentiate the needs of individual students A cluster feeder system makes possible this longitudinal orientation, and it was found to be a characteristic of PBSR based on participants’ perceptions. Now that I have covered the strategies embodied by this PBSR effort, I will move on to explain the mechanisms NPN used to administer these programs, which is an important aspect of PBSR that speaks to the organizational structures necessary to implement such an effort. The Mechanisms: Cross-Sector Partnerships, A Lead Convener, and Accountability

No matter how one looks at PBSR in this context, the cross-sector partnerships will be apparent. As a former NPN staffer and service provider explained it, cross-sector partnerships were built into the organizational design of NPN: 196

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE NPN as an entity is, I think of it as more a center of a spoke, where we don't house all of the services ourselves. Instead, we choose to contract out to the organizations that already serve the community and already have in some places have established relationships. PN, as an effort nationally, is an example of collective impact where a lead “backbone” organization aligns partner goals and objectives to make an impact on a complex social issue (Kania & Kramer, 2011). This PBSR was found to be similar in several ways. PBSR relies on a variety of partners to accomplish its goals. For example an NPS administrator recalled partners collaborating at NHS school before NPN arrived. However, “when we began to work with NPN, it really was a more consolidated effort to bring partners to the table.” “Consolidated” could be interpreted as intentional and focused effort, based on a cogent needs assessment. “Consolidated” could also be interpreted as formal, and the agreements would now flow through an external partner who would monitor outcomes. Throughout the project narrative, other program documents, field observations, artifacts from field observations, and interviews, it seemed clear that the number of involved partners could be overwhelmingly large. Both principals from NES and BCCS could not recall all the partners that worked with the effort at their school without consulting with the service coordinator at the school. At the NPN public event where a documentary was screened about the difficulty in raising children in underdeveloped neighborhoods, over 100 people from a variety of sectors from across the city attended. The panel discussion featured the private sector, higher education, the county, parents, medicine (doctors and community health workers) and radio. Everyone discussed the importance of cross-sector collaboration to tackling as complex an issue as neighborhood development. An NES building staff member succinctly commented, “We work with many partners” as she referred to a white board in her office filled with names of different partners. 197

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE These partners are convened by one lead organization—in this case, a private organization (discussed earlier). NPN seemed to be very comfortable in the role of convener given their city-wide reputation. A NPN staffer explained it this way, almost humorously: “At a very simplistic level, if we call people and say this is a LFPI initiative, we'd like you to come to this meeting. Well, I think [they] gotta come.” In this sense, this lead organization is a “big dog” organization in the community, which increases its likelihood of being an effective change agent for this community (Okagaki, in Aspen Institute, 2011, p. 64). These cross-sector partnerships became real when they were formalized by partner contracts—a form of accountability. These contracts are animated by the data and performance monitoring done by the lead organization and its affiliated relationship managers. A NPN administrator boiled the process down: At the “beginning of the year, we set the baseline and the goals. Mid-year we meet, and then end of the year – the assessment.” While data systems were a main component of the project narrative grant application, the on-going, back-and-forth negotiations happening between partners and the lead organization was not emphasized. The agreements were described as “Very much a contract. Not an MOU” by a different NPN staff member. And there was no guarantee for funding to be renewed on an annual basis. This was confirmed when talking with service providers who may not have been used to such rigorous accountability measures. A service provider noted that the accountability structure with contracts “kinda showed [providers] that, ‘Oh, we really do mean business.’" Building staff and NPS administrators also talked about the importance of accountability during interviews, through either meetings or other formal agreements. Accountability is a key design feature of PBSR efforts, and it will be explained in depth later in the analysis.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE A Note About Multiple Perspectives. Now that the components of PBSR have been articulated, I want to briefly discuss the implications of having participants from five groups provide insights about the three research questions. Based on their experiences, they were expected to respond to questions and interpret reality differently. For example, when asking a service provider about the initiatives included in NPN, I did not expect to hear the depth that a NPN staff member would provide. Having multiple perspectives allowed me to understand the convergence and divergence of perspectives on certain issues, which is at the heart of qualitative research (Creswell, 2007). In relation to the first research question, the emphasis of place-based school reform effort was placed on different aspects with respect to group affiliation. NPN administration, for instance, thought that PBSR used education as a way to lift residents out of poverty. While NPN staffers have different areas of focus, they all discussed the management and control of schools as one important aspect of the project. Further, NPN staffers emphasized partnership management, accountability, and performance monitoring since this was part of their day-to-day realities. Building staff members and NPS administrators generally emphasized student performance, in that the NPN effort ultimately comes down to this metric to determine success. NPN provided additional resources, in their estimation, in an attempt to help teachers focus on their primary concern—student learning. Service providers generally described the NPN effort as a cradle-to-career effort that included education and supportive services. They perceived the effort as primarily an educational one, while also emphasizing accountability issues associated with being a service provider accountable to NPN. Finally, residents generally talked about NPN being a good program that taught them things they didn’t know. From their viewpoint, NPN was trying to improve the neighborhood through helping children. 199

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Again, it was expected that different groups would emphasize different aspects of PBSR. In some cases, the different groups could not speak with the same depth about certain questions as other groups simply because of their limited perspectives (e.g. service providers had little to say about the MOU with the district). In these cases, their perspectives were not weighted as heavily in the determination of themes and main ideas. However, I made a conscious attempt to use all perspectives when presenting evidence, so as to not discount certain groups. Theory versus Reality: Place-Based School Reform on the Ground versus the Literature

In chapter two, I laid out an extensive conceptualization of place-based school reform based on a synthesis of the literature related to joint school reform and supportive service interventions. I defined place-based school reform as an attempt to rebuild an educational infrastructure in a neighborhood, while creating interactive linkages and connections between neighborhood-based institutions with the goal of bolstering the educational outcomes for all children. PBSR also allows for a discussion to occur where factors from both internal and external to the neighborhood are confronted. In essence, PBSR is a multi-dimensional intervention, as it intervenes at the individual level and at the system level (e.g. institutions, policies) in an attempt to develop the neighborhood’s infrastructure. How did the NPN effort align with or depart from the conceptual model? NPN does attempt to intervene at the individual and neighborhood level, and it does acknowledge the neighborhood logic. One of its core assumptions is that neighborhood factors are preventing the educational success of children. Therefore, there are some neighborhoodbased interventions (e.g. creating the community council, housing rehabilitation, crime/safety

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE interventions), institutional interventions (e.g. school reform), and individual interventions (e.g. services to students, dual generation programming). That being said, participants describe NPN as a primarily educational intervention. As mentioned by a top administrator at NPN, 75% of the budget goes toward educational interventions which reflects educational interventions as being the primary solution for educational success. This seems to run counter to how people define NPN. Its purpose, according to most participants, was to improve (rejuvenate) a community, since many of the barriers to learning emanate from the neighborhood. A disconnect existed between how people defined NPN and what it actually is. The level of intervention was mostly at the individual level. This especially became clear when learning about the dual generation strategy—a $6 million effort aimed only at parents of children in Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten. Service providers set up one-on-one meetings with families to work on personal goals. When asked about the underlying causes of problems in the neighborhood, a NPN staff response revealed an emphasis on the individual: So when I think about NPN residents, it's just human nature. They're looking at "Hey LFPI, hey NPN, fix this for us." No, I can't fix this for you. Because you contribute to the problem, right? You know that deli on the corner across the street from the ECEC is sellin' drugs, and you go by it every day, more than I do, and you turn your head. You gotta stop turning your head, and you gotta confront it. Don't think I'm going to do it. You gotta do it. That's what I mean by building their capacity and their willingness to deal with their own, what I'll call "problematic realities." They got problems. They need to go fix them. I can't fix it for them. Right. The above quote perhaps influences how NPN staff thinks about the efforts. While the intervention does attempt to reform the schools, it does so using traditional building-based methods (e.g. contracting with an external reform organization, additional professional development for teachers, a new reading curriculum). While PBSR does acknowledge the 201

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE importance of comprehensive school reform, the concept goes farther. How could the school be reconceptualized as a neighborhood anchor that drives the neighborhood development process? Certainly this would go farther than by just reforming curriculum. Interestingly, the high school originally affiliated with NPN is no longer affiliated at least in part because, as one NPN staff member put it, “after…implementing the programs for a solid year, we weren't making headways because there were too many, there was too much we couldn't control.” A different NPN staff member explained the new high school strategy: “Our goal now is to get those kids into the criteria schools, or, now get the kids to apply for the private schools. And we've raised funds.” He continued: “We don't think it's acceptable to keep [children] in neighborhood to keep them in a substandard school,” so the NPN response was to send them outside the neighborhood. In a way, this sentiment alluded to the “escape” mindset advanced by those who believe that education is a ticket out of poverty, out of the underdeveloped neighborhood from which you come—not committed to neighborhood transformation. In this sense, NPN departed from the PBSR commitment to rebuild a school by ending the relationship with NHS. It also departed from PBSR because it often took the stance of intervening at the neighborhood level. NPN seemed to be avoiding the systems-level intervention, in that the “external to the neighborhood” factors are ignored (see Chapter 2). Curriculum was not necessarily linked to neighborhood-based problem-solving. Instead, curriculum reform in NPN resembled a comprehensive school reform approach. Elements of service delivery attempted to tackle the “observable symptoms” of the underdeveloped neighborhood. However, there was no evidence of a comprehensive housing strategy. Several other efforts at systemic reform were abandoned. For instance, there is no team looking at health service provision and how to reform those systems, because, according to one NPN 202

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE administrator, “That's one of the ones that went away. That was one that didn't get a lot of ‘Yay, we want to continue to focus on that.’ So we said, ‘OK.’” This, and other differences, will be explored in later sections, but the evidence does suggest that the interventions are not systemic in nature. In a way, these departures are in line with interpretive approaches to policy implementation where actors within systems attempt to learn or make sense of the complex environment where policies unfold (Honig, 2009b; Davis & Sumara, 2001). This means that the departure from their original path should not be interpreted as a failure of policy, but instead an adaptation to a complex political environment and limitations of capacity to lead the change effort. Up to this point, I have presented the results of research question one. This research question uncovered the perspectives of participants about what concepts and theories undergirded Promise Neighborhood. Also, participants revealed what exactly Promise Neighborhood was trying to do as an intervention. In the next chapter, I present results for the second research question.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Chapter 7: Results for Research Question 2: What are the components of placebased school reform when implemented? Now, I will turn my attention to the implementation of the Northeaston Promise Neighborhood strategy, which is quite different from the previous chapter. In this chapter, I present findings from the data that discuss the components of PBSR when implemented, along with its challenges and changed strategies when this concept is contextualized in the world of practice. It is almost conventional wisdom that policy implementation never happens with full fidelity (Fixsen, Naoom, Blasé, Friedman, & Wallace, 2005), given the reality that many external and internal influences alter the trajectory of the policy change effort (Desimone, 2002; Fullan, 2007; Honig, 2009b). This research question was meant to investigate what PBSR looks like when implemented in the real world. Questions that guided my inquiry were: What are its central design features? What external forces impact implementation? What challenges arose when implementing? These questions helped me organize and make sense of the data. The structure of this section will be organized in this way: design features of PBSR when implemented, external pressures that impacted implementation, resulting challenges encountered by the PBSR effort, and examples of components that were not implemented as planned (see Figure 7.1).

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Figure 7.1: Research question 2 schematic

Design Feature #1: The Lead Organization Focusing on a Target Geography First and foremost, PBSR relies on having a lead organization that focuses its efforts on one target geography. This design feature is not a surprise based on the Federal Register’s (2011) call for applications, saying that:

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE These grants will aid eligible organizations that have developed a plan that demonstrates the need for the creation of a Promise Neighborhood in the geographic area they are targeting, a sound strategy for implementing a plan for creating a continuum of solutions, and the capacity to implement the plan. More specifically, grantees will use implementation grant funds to develop the administrative capacity necessary to successfully implement a continuum of solutions, such as managing partnerships, integrating multiple funding sources, and supporting the grantee’s longitudinal data system (emphasis added). In reality, requirements, duties, and characteristics of this particular lead organization go beyond the requirements in the Federal Register. In this case, the PBSR lead organization took on many roles—convener, facilitator, catalyst, planner, leader, learner, and a group that holds other groups accountable. As one NPN high-ranking official put it: [A friend of mine who teaches leadership theory is] convinced that great leaders be what they have to be so others can be what they need to be. And it dawned on me that it's what Northeaston Promise is. Sometimes we're a supporter, sometimes we're a convener, sometimes we're heavy-handed. Sometimes we're capacity builders. We try to be what we have to be to create a good environment for those kids.

Based on the data, I was convinced that the lead organization for Promise Neighborhood could not simply be any institution that can fulfill these functions. In the case of NPN, the organization was a private sector organization with a history of investing in and operating schools within Northeaston. As discussed in an earlier section, this organization grants out funding to local nonprofits and has a strong reputation in the region. One service provider referred to this group as a “stable pillar of that community,” indicating that their commitment to Bellevue Community Charter School signaled true investment in this particular geography. An NPS employee noted that NPN, as a lead organization, “is gaining not only credibility but it's also gaining notoriety as a partner. Along with legislators, council members, you know, reverends, parent organizations.” This private institution has responded to the call for greater corporate social responsibility and has invested its human resources, funding, political and social 206

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE capital in improving a neighborhood. Given that NPN specifically but PBSR generally is an intervention where different sectors are involved, my data suggested that a given lead organization must have a strong reputation as an organization that will be listened to in order to be considered a viable lead organization. When NPN originally formed from Bellevue Foundation (BF), they needed to secure the political support of NPS’s superintendent because he would only support one application for the Promise Neighborhood competition. Thomas Robinson, the NPS superintendent in 2010, perceived that BF had the capacity to serve as lead, which led to the district to draft an MOU with NPN. Since then, NPN has been “all in,” according to a NPN administrator. What did it mean to be “all in” to the participants? To many, it meant NPN’s financial investment indicated their support. One NPS staffer noted that “[LFPI is] continuing to dedicate their resources,” and this was echoed by a service provider when she said that they “have all these streams [of funding] to the point that they are just not worrying about their budget being cut next quarter.” In field observation one, NPN administrators reflected on the $6 million matching grant provided by the BF. Also, based on field observations, “all in” meant that LFPI was willing to put their systems and staff to work on behalf of NPN. In field observations three, four, five, and nine, I observed LFPI’s employees volunteering with these events. In field observation nine, a building staff member recalled a story where a “high up executive” was volunteering at the school and eventually donated clothing to Northeaston Community College’s program that loaned out professional attire to lower-income job-seekers. To one service provider, “all in” meant that everyone working on the effort has a “personal stake” which made the ECEC a “center of excellence.” One high-ranking official in LFPI discussed that personal stake in a speech he gave

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE to the community that was published in the local newspaper. LFPI is “serious” about “attempting to do our part to solve the problem [of failing inner-city schools]” instead of “sit[ting] back and pass[ing] judgement.” Lead Organization Functions. The lead organization performs at least three functions. First, it has established a structure for holding partners accountable that involved the creation of annual contracts. Field observation two offered a chance for me to observe the accountability structures working, as partners presented data, were asked questions by the relationship manager, and addressed concerns about performance. One service provider even commented that her staff member was made “uncomfortable” by the kinds of questions asked by the relationship manager. Participants from all groups except residents mentioned the accountability structure put in place by NPN, stressing that partners would be held accountable by NPN. In fact, some partner contracts were not renewed because the partners could not deliver on what they promised. NPN is also held accountable by their funders and are responsible for reporting their progress to its external partners, as well as to their board of directors. Next, the lead organization searched for new funding opportunities. During field observation one, the staff discussed the large number of grants already secured. The group also discussed some other potential funding sources, including funders affiliated with the Promise Neighborhood Institute. The CEO just returned from a “funder’s briefing” where national philanthropies were assembled to start to think about funding to sustain the federal effort, especially if the federal government could not sustain it with public dollars. Staff members started to plan a local funders’ briefing to discuss how their organizations could help to fund NPN. As a result of fundraising efforts, they created a crime/safety effort ($1 million), a dual generation strategy ($6 million), and secured a School Improvement Grant (over $500,000).

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Finally, NPN is in charge of dealing with the bureaucracies involved in the PBSR effort, namely the public school system. This also includes what I call “silo-busting” work where NPN attempts to break down walls between sectors that prevent residents from getting services or children getting a good education. For example, when establishing the high school reform strategy, NPN brokered discussions between the teachers’ union, the building principal, the external school reform consultant, the central office, and non-profit partners in order to officially launch their reform strategy. For example, one NPN administrator, and several other participants, discussed the attendance issue at NHS where there was an inaccurate attendance system that they fought hard to change. The system is a positive attendance system, which defaults to: Unless you are checked as absent off that class list, it assumes that you're there. So 9 times throughout the day, if one teacher does not take attendance, and fails to check a kid off the list, they are now assumed to be there. So at the school level, they're looking at period-by-period data. [That’s] highly inaccurate! So they were getting, this was the discrepancy we were seeing at the high school, but they were like high 80s, 90% attendance, and we're going, "No! We're looking at homeroom attendance. Which is, either a kid is there in the morning, or they are not."…That homeroom attendance number was like 70% a day. That's how many kids were truly in school. We're like, "Your numbers are way inflated because of that positive attendance system."

It took them nearly half of an academic year to solve this reporting problem, and it seemed to create some frustration among the NPN staff. As another example, they provided a crime needs assessment which identified crime “hot spots” in the neighborhood—something that the police department never did before. They worked to change the public bureaucracy to change the way they looked at crime in this one instance. NPN also regularly was in discussions with NPS to get them to uphold their end of the MOU. Bureaucratic wrangling seemed to be a regular function performed by this lead organization.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Lead Organization Governance. The lead organization, NPN, was governed by a board of directors including one minister, 2 corporation employees, the leader of the BF, a few NPN staff, and a former school superintendent. Lay residents were not involved in a significant way within the governance. The Community Council, which served as a resident involvement mechanism, was comprised of resident leaders, but this group was not formally represented in the governance structure and did not hold any decision-making authority in the operations of the lead organization. When NPN was taking shape, a steering committee was created which offered residents input opportunities about issues of most concern to residents, but it seemed that the needs assessment, done by an outside entity located in Northeaston, drove the justification for programming. I infer this because (1) the document analysis reported on the results of the needs assessment, which mostly came from assessment of secondary data sources. Additionally, (2) no interview participants discussed the role of residents in the formal governance of NPN. This is not to say that residents were powerless in the operations of NPN. For example, residents participating in the Parent Success Network (PSN) chose the theme of each meeting and, in some cases, the specific speaker. Formally, NPN is accountable to their board of directors, funders (mainly the Department of Education, the Department of Justice, and the Children’s Foundation), and the CEO of the LFPI. All NPN staff members mentioned that they were accountable to the children and residents being served by NPN. However, as one NPN administrator put it: I could tell you all the right things someone should say. "Oh I'm accountable to the community, I'm accountable to..." But I'm not. I'm accountable to the board. I'm accountable to Jack (LFPI CEO) and Francisco (LFPI president). I'm accountable to the kids. NPN is accountable to the kids. That's how I think about it.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Two additional NPN staffers also emphasized that they feel personally accountable, but this is separate from formal governance structures. Participants did not indicate how often formal governance meetings are held, but the director of NPN discussed his weekly conference call with the LFPI CEO. Capacity. As with any lead organization in charge of a cross-sector partnership or comprehensive community initiative, NPN has limitations in its capacity. NPN cannot be everything to everyone. NPN brought perceived assets to the table—the private sector mentality, a strong reputation, an ability to hold partners accountability, financial resources, just to name a few. However, NPN was limited in its capacity to perform necessary tasks to make the effort cogent and functional. One high-ranking NPN official explained it this way: And I would say that to a large degree…a third of it I think we have figured out. We know what we're doing. But a third of it is we sort of know, but know we have to get better with certain elements of what we do. And a third of it is we're trying a bunch of shit, and we're hoping that some of it does. (laughs). And if it does, good. And if it doesn't, we gotta move beyond it. So a little bit of this is trial-and-error. One building staff member at BCCS thought NPN did “a good job in owning what is going well and what continues to need growth,” recognizing that some issues needed attention. For example, communication with building staff was a challenge because nearly every building staff member disclosed that they were not always aware of the official NPN efforts. As one of the other building staff discussed the situation, the primary focus is on the education of students, which did not always afford him the time to communicate NPN events and happenings to the staff: “I think that's why we're sort of left on an island…we're comfortable with that…I think that education part is just a little bit different than social change.” NPN did not always have the capacity to communicate at the building level.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE NPN is also limited in its capacity to provide services. While NPN is not necessarily in the business of providing services, they have been put in the position of having to provide some services in-house. For example, one former NPN staff members oversaw paraprofessional PatrioticServices (PS) members for NPN and discussed how she perceived NPN’s role as mainly a facilitator and convener: I think of [NPN] as more a center of a spoke, where we don't house all of the services ourselves. Instead, we choose to contract out to the organizations that already serve the community and already have in some places have established relationships. We didn't want to be the ones housing all of these services, and kinda like re-creating the wheel… The PS program was kind of interesting, because although we had a contract…to host PS members, they were one of the service providers who was technically considered "in house" because I managed them as a NPN staff member and had direct oversight over them in the schools… But for the most part, I really thought of us as more of facilitators and people that could hold others accountable for what they say they're going to do.

This quote showcases both the capacity and limitations of NPN. They have a strong reputation in pulling people together who already perform certain services and holding partners accountable. A different NPN staffer was open about their limitation in terms of service provision: “We're not a social service agency, and we're not really set up to do resource and referral. So it's different.” They openly struggled with certain functions, such as providing services or overseeing certain programs. Another example of their limitations in capacity was the experience with Northeaston High School (NHS), which will be discussed in more detail later in the paper. NPN decided to abort their high school strategy because they were not seeing results. They attempted to add two attendance teachers who would intervene with chronically absent students in partnership with the city. They also hired a new principal while launching a school reform effort, EducationProgress. It became clear that they was “too much [NPN] couldn’t control,” as framed by a NPN

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE administrator, so they redirected their resources. Even one NPS staffer “internally” heard that they were losing “control of the building.” A different NPN staffer exclaimed that a serious learning curve took place, as she “had no idea the challenges that we were facing.” A different NPS administrator reflected on the experience: “The work that it takes to transform a high school… became a task that was far greater than what anyone expected.” The ability to lead a school reform effort appeared to be a limitation to their capacity. When reflecting on challenges that NPN experienced during implementation, one of the building staff members even expressed that challenges would inevitable arise when undertaking such a massive effort as Promise, as evidenced by her matter-of-fact observation, “There are challenges, and we expected that.” This also crystallized the earlier “a-third-a-third-a-third” comment made by a NPN administrator. NPN will not be strong at everything, but they did excel in pulling together partners, creating accountability frameworks, data analysis, and offering a different perspective on school reform. Still, NPN could not be everything to everyone. In this next part, I will expand on the assets and liabilities associated with this particular lead organization. Lead Organization Assets and Liabilities. This particular lead organization brought three unique perceived assets to the PN partnership. First, they brought private sector culture that offered a different way to view the problem of inner-city education and emphasized accountability. In seven interviews (across three participant groups) and three field observations, people spoke about the private sector’s perspective as being unique in this partnership. Building principals saw the private sector’s perspective as unique because of the focus on accountability. One mentioned that “from a [private sector employee] standpoint, they want to look at how [the] data looks,” potentially contrasting with how educators view data. Another one even admitted

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE that building leaders “might make excuses…’the child, you know, the family – this.’” Instead, the perception of for-profit sector employees is that “they’re held accountability…accountability is high.” Similarly, a service provider thought that NPN, backed by a LFPI, could bring something unique to the table: “that kind of corporate model of looking at the challenges in a safe, kind of a problem-solving kind of way” which contrasts with education’s problem-solving approach of “changing the principal or changing the curriculum.” She thought that “corporate model really could try to facilitate that conversation.” Another service provider and former NPN administrator thought that being held accountable was “maybe some of the different non-profits or organizations in Northeaston hadn't been used to.” Not surprisingly, NPN administration said the most about the unique private sector culture they hoped could bring something unique to the problem of failing inner-city schools. One NPN top administrator said that measurement and accountability is “how we are at the [company], we measure ourselves every freakin' month and quarter.” In corporate culture, the ones who “get to the top” are the ones who are saying, “Let's forget all that stuff, what's the issue here?... break it down…then we try to address the problem. As opposed to trying to put all this stuff around it.” Another NPN administrator did emphasize the corporation’s emphasis on measurement and accountability, but he simply said that it “helps to get a fresh set of eyes” on the “cyclical” problems of urban poverty and education. He continued, “You're bringing in people that are very analytical minded tied into the community” that can bring people to the table. Another NPN official seemed skeptical that school officials wanted to “dig deeper:” There’s never anybody that I'm aware of that runs the district that has either the capacity or interest in digging deeper. They just don't have an analytical mindset, but that's vastly different from our organization. Being a private institution…which is analytical by nature. Everything's a comparison. 214

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Everything's a comparison to the market, to what exists. Everything's analytical. So, we're not just going to run a school without knowing who's doing what.

Taken together, these quotes demonstrated that the private sector culture was a unique aspect to this lead organization. These quotes also suggested that the traditional educator perspectives about how to address underperforming schools was inadequate and could not truly address the problems. The views expressed here were in line with a neoliberal approach to education reform in that the private sector was positioned as better prepared to address problems through private sector “values” of measurement, accountability, and analytical thinking—of which the public sector was positioned as being bereft (Klaf & Kwan, 2010). Second, the private sector brings with it an “unending supply of talent,” in the words of one of the NPN staff members. The for-profit sector’s staffing situation, from the perspective of NPN employees, was also unique because it brought many non-traditional education professionals into the equation of inner-city schooling improvement. One NPN staffer’s experience was with preparing the company to adapt to the credit and mortgage crisis of 2008, while another one’s experience was with product management. The CEO was with human resources for 15 years. Someone from the Children’s Foundation pointed out to him that he is fortunate to have access to the LFPI’s human capital. He has:

the [private sector] population, that I can tap into for not only, "Hey I need your guys' help, marketing, facilities, HR," but also I can go to them any time, and I can go find another Milargo [pseudonym for a NPN administrator]. Or I can find 5 more Milargos [NPN administrator] if I need them. I have this unlimited pool of talent that I can bring in to spend a couple, 2, 3years in NPN.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE These private sector backgrounds were positioned as an asset for their effort since they are bringing in fresh perspectives, something that presumably education is missing. These perspectives are very much in line with the growing interest in human capital and talent management perspectives in urban education reform (Allen & Odden, 2008). This perspective argues that student achievement can be improved through investing in the improvement of the capabilities of principals and teachers. Essentially, teachers and principals do not have ample training and skills in order to do the job of improving schools, which is why the field needs a renewed focus on these issues. LFPI was positioned as an entity that could help build capacity of education professionals while also providing the needed skills to perform tasks that the current pool of education professionals could not effectively complete. Finally, and perhaps most obviously, LFPI brings resources to the PBSR effort as a lead organization. While this has been documented earlier in the paper, I will briefly mention that 11 people from all groups (with the exception of residents) directly mentioned the uniqueness of NPN’s resources. A service provider appreciated that NPN was willing to “put the resources in to fix” the problems facing schools, despite the fact that her program could not expand due to a lack of funding. During field observation two, the Early Childhood group meeting, the building staff members asked for additional funding to expand a “backpack program” that offered basic needs items (including food) to families because of increased demand. NPN provided the additional funding to make this happen. These findings suggested that participants felt that money may have been an obstacle in implementing the reform. Some participants directly talked about the constraints of their work because of funding. For example, one of the building staff members mentioned that the NPN could not be as successful as Harlem Children’s Zone because

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE of limited funding. Still, they did acknowledge that a for-profit company was well-positioned to provide resources that other groups could not. Regarding liabilities, several participants voiced concerns about NPN’s ability to lead a successful change effort. First, there was a general suspicion among a minority of participants about the corporate status—pro-profit institution. Some participants shrugged off this problem, because they felt that NPN was always respectful in their interactions. Still, others reported a degree of suspicion. A service provider who had been previously involved with the district offered an account of the suspicion LFPI faced when formulating the partnership: There were some very ignorant school board members…who would rather see anything good destroyed, they would rather see everybody wallow in the same place. And so this feeling that [LFPI] was behind this. That Jack Mallard's name was in this. Then there's pressure from the teacher's union. The teacher's union spent a lot of time with some of the board members - both current and past, wining and dining them, and convincing them that you know Jack Mallard (LFPI CEO) was the devil, and trying to undermine the education system in Northeaston. So it was the most backward logic I could ever imagine, when someone was saying, "We want to work with you here." And this board said, “You can't work with us here - you're trying to control us!"

While she did not subscribe to this suspicion, the fact remained that certain groups in Northeaston were leery of LFPI’s involvement. In a similar vein, a current NPS administrator’s subjective perception about why LFPI was involved in NPN was because they “wanted to protect their investment in the neighborhood.” He recalled seeing Jack Mallard’s quote in a local newspaper article saying that LFPI wanted to protect their investment so they get a return on that investment, which him “very cynical about their intentions.” One of the service providers shared a similar sentiment: “I don't think all this money is being put into NPN because, out of the kindness of their heart” and speculated that they were looking for a payoff in some way. Things dealing with NPN were “very political” from her

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE perspective. Two participants also expressed concerns about gentrification, though such a concern was thought to be “so far off” since the neighborhood still has many challenges. Still, he mentioned that gentrification “would come…if you’re doing it right.” In other words, when the schools improve, families with resources would certainly be attracted to the neighborhood. To live, they would buy up several pieces of property and “tear down” other houses, according to this participant. It seemed that the participants did not directly think that NPN was trying to achieve gentrification, but at least five participants from three different groups seemed to be skeptical of NPN’s intentions behind this project. NPN had to overcome another hurdle from the perspective of the participants: LFPI was not located in the neighborhood. NPN staff meetings are held in downtown Northeaston in their headquarters, located about 6 miles from the neighborhood. An NES building staff member mentioned that moving the headquarters to NPN “would be very beneficial because that would help people become more familiar with the NPN.” Getting the word out to the neighborhood about NPN was noted as a challenge by nearly all participants. For example, a service provider said, “People don't just show up and come because, because you have this great thing. So I think maybe it takes [a] long time.” As a result of these kinds of neighborhood-based communications issues, NPN established a “grassroots communications” committee that tackled this issue as part of its charge. Nearly all staff members working with NPN do not live in the neighborhood, so that could mean that staff members have a more difficult time establishing rapport in the neighborhood. One NPS administrator again displayed his cynicism through raising a difficult question: “But really when [NPN staff members] all drive back to their [suburban homes]... [Especially] Jack Mallard…he doesn’t care about the Northeaston families, or an educated populace. He doesn't.”

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE A service provider discussed the process of trying to get parents in the after-school program comfortable with her because she “wasn’t from the area.” Parents “called her on it,” and for that she was appreciative. One of the residents mentioned that “we've all heard it before from people who sound like you,” meaning that they have been promised services and activities that did not happen. It was not clear if the resident was talking about NPN specifically, but it seemed to be a concern that outsiders were coming into the neighborhood promising things they could not deliver. Organizations not rooted in the neighborhood will likely always face these challenges, but it seemed to not stop NPN from establishing a new organization and at least attempting to add value. In the next section, I move to the next design feature of place-based school reform—new programs. Design Feature #2: New Programs Place-based school reform, in this case, included new programs directed at improving aspects of residents’ lives thought to decrease non-curricular barriers to learning. NPN’s theory of change, from what I gathered through the analysis, hinged on removing barriers that would prevent children from performing well academically. NPN launched new programs in five areas: (1) School transformation, (2) dual generation, (3) crime/safety, (4) early learning, and (5) community engagement and neighborhood improvement. The lead organization, NPN, oversaw the implementation of these efforts. Importantly, these programs reflect the efforts that currently comprise NPN in practice. Deviations from the planned interventions will be mentioned in this section, but it will be covered in later sections (“Challenges” and “Theory verses Reality”). This section of the results will present a comprehensive accounting of NPN programming. School Transformation: “Manage and Control”. As discussed earlier, NPN was conceptualized as “primarily an educational intervention” by a majority of participants. At least

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE eleven distinct efforts or programs comprised the school transformation strategy. Ten of the efforts were predicated on the first one: “management and control” of schools in the pipeline— an early childhood center, two Kindergarten through eighth grade schools, and a high school. First, they created an Early Childhood Education Center (ECEC) from scratch but managed by a partner in the city that controls the Head Start funding source, which will be discussed in the next section. Next, they already held the charter for BCCS. They then secured status as educational management organization (EMO) for NES, which entitled them to hire their own superintendent for the school. Finally, they devised an MOU with NPS that allowed them to hire a school leader and usher in a new program at NHS. While they were not an official EMO for the high school, they operated as a de facto EMO, reinforced by an MOU with the district. As was discussed in field observation one, this characteristic may be distinct to this Promise Neighborhood. At a national gathering, two NPN staff members presented to other PN colleagues who exclaimed, “You’re running two schools?? No one else is doing that!” In the ECEC, they were not directly in control of who managed the building, as it was hired by the managing partner—the Collective Justice Group (CJG). At BCCS, they hire and fire the principal at will. At NES, they hired the superintendent, but the principal was hired by the district. At NHS, they also conducted a national search for a new principal. All school transformation efforts were coordinated between the principals, and two NPN senior administrators through a management team. As a result of this management and control of schools, NPN school transformation staff altered the curriculum in these buildings to match their preferences. In the ECEC, they dictated which assessments would drive instruction, as confirmed by both service providers that I interviewed who work in the ECEC. At BCCS and NES, NPN employed a reading curriculum different than the district, but this change seemed not to be substantially different from the

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE district’s. As one NES building staff member recalled, “We don't deviate too much [from the district].” Still, she described the literacy program as “totally different where students read upon their own level where the district uses Journeys and the modules.” BCCS was already conducting this intervention since they are a charter school. To accompany this relatively minor curricular reform, they provided additional professional development to teachers. Fourteen participants across four groups (with the exception of residents) mentioned the support that they offered teachers. As with other interventions, these fourteen participants spoke about this support with varying levels of sophistication, but overall participants provided few meaningful details about the actual professional development offered. A BCCS building staff member simply said that NPN supporting teachers “will benefit our school,” but an NES building staffer mentioned that NPN has “continued professional development for teachers.” An NPS administrator simply said that NPN provides “strong professional development for the teachers,” while a NPN staffer, also described it generally: “Teachers are either receiving additional professional development, additional resources in the classroom.” A different NPN administrator went an additional step and described the effort “in terms of staff development, professional development, in terms of resources that they might need, in terms of the technology that they might need.” When the NES principal discussed professional development, they were also thin on details. One of the building staff members mentioned, “we do professional development on Saturdays…[last week] we had 30 teachers show up, which is great! But sometimes the teachers who need to show up, don't come.” Interestingly, the principal of BCCS did not mention professional development as a main part of the school transformation strategy. Teachers were supported by NPN through efforts that free them “to execute the education.” For a senior

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE building staff member, teachers’ roles in NPN were limited to simply teaching, which perhaps means they could focus on academics more now that some of the basic needs issues were being addressed. NPN’s lead administrator also mentioned the professional development (PD), but offered few details: At NES, teachers never had PD over the summer, we didn't know if they'd sign up and attend. It's when they're off. We'd get like 80% of the teachers attending. We're talking 30-35 teachers attending professional development that good old Mr. Paul [NES superintendent] ran for 3 weeks. It's intense right. In fact, the teachers that show up, I know that they're, I know it's working. They believe in what we're doing.

While the specific PD details were not shared, participants shared a consensus that teachers received support through NPN. Another component of the school transformation strategy was an early childhood literacy intervention. This specific intervention came with targeted PD for teachers working in ECEC classrooms, as well as Kindergarten and first grade classes in the elementary schools. A service provider who intervened with early childhood education efforts described that they placed a specialist in the classroom for a set time per week so teachers received support for this specific literacy intervention. They trained teachers on how to deliver curriculum and how to assess using certain validated assessment tools, as well as how to communicate with parents regarding the progress their children made as they learned to read. Her description included working with teachers on how to use data: …Basically the [specialists] are responsible for teacher and student support. When there are behavioral challenges that are interfering with academics, we can have some [time] they use our data for special education meetings. Often times they do. They use our data to talk with parents…We provide the teachers with parent graphs…but they're there to support the teacher…The outcome is to try and help the teacher build a relationship with the parent.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE During field observation two, she reported that surveys done with collaborating teachers showed their desire for even more collaboration with the specialists. She described this intervention as important because it links early childhood environments with public school early grade classrooms, thus addressing the “fade out” effect that has plagued the Head Start intervention (Puma et al., 2012). Her perspective on this reflected the importance of the pipeline approach: When you look linearly at student performance, and a child…in Kindergarten, and they're above benchmark on their Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) assessment at the end of the year. And by 3rd grade, that child has fallen down 30 points. That's not the child's fault. That's something in the system messing up. Um and that level of accountability is not possible without this pipeline linear look at things.

This literacy intervention, which included intensive teacher support and professional development represented a unique approach to eventually improving student performance. The next component of NPN’s school transformation strategy discussed by participants was an external school reform consultant hired, known as “Education Progress” (EP). This outof-state consultant was contracted to implement a school reform plan they developed that had been known to produce positive student achievement results in other school locations12. The original plan called for an intervention in fifth and sixth grade classes, as well as a high school intervention where they would do a different math, English, and college/career curriculum. The intervention also called for an early warning system, along with tiered supports for students in and out of the classroom. These interventions also required a restructuring of the day to include longer class periods, which clashed with NPS’s standardized schedule across buildings. Essentially, this component was described by a current service provider, NPN “[brought in] an

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I have purposefully chosen to keep the name of this group confidential. Citing research that documented the gains made by the Education Progress group (pseudonym) could jeopardize the confidentiality of the study and reveal the specific city where the study was conducted.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE outsider who has a reputation as a school turn-around leader.” EP no longer is affiliated with NPN (discussed in “Challenges” section), but the original school reform plan included an element of comprehensive school reform. One component of the tiered Education Progress intervention that remained was the contracting of paraprofessionals to work directly with teachers and students to provide additional one-on-one attention for students. PatrioticServices (PS) provided paraprofessionals to directly work with students who have difficulty in certain classes. Certain teachers used them as assistants, and some participants conceptualized this as an intervention that supported teachers so they could “focus on classroom teachers.” As a result of these assistants, the NES principal positioned these individuals as the reason for being able to “differentiate...small group instruction…based on data.” These individuals also operated a “check-in-check-out” program, an artifact of the positive behavior interventions and supports program in the school. PS members also assumed responsibilities for designing and implementing after-school programs in the school. These additional staff members allowed NPN schools to provide more individualized attention to students, thus increasing their ability to pick up on supportive service needs or operating staff-intensive programs like the early warning system. PS members also provided child care for Parent Success Network meetings (field observations). A final component of the tiered EP model still in place was the addition of supportive service coordinators (SSCs) in the school buildings. Original plans called for these professionals in the health center, as well, but participants only reported their presence in schools. These staffers were originally hired through an organization known as Students Can Succeed (SCS), a group expanded in part by the Northeaston’s Full Service Community School grant effort. Both schools’ SSCs were interviewed in this study and served as a link between NPN’s service

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE delivery efforts and students/teachers. As a building staff member mentioned, “I think that Promise knew that there was still a need in the school for someone to coordinate services, and work with partners.” Two service providers formerly worked with SCS in previous positions and emphasized the need for SSCs. During field observation seven, when staff members were talking about the need for coordination between providers, the meeting leader referred to the SSC service coordination organization—funded by NPN—was a perfect example of how NPN efforts added value to the school. These staffers could connect service providers in the building, communicate with teachers and other building staff about NPN, and link outside groups with student needs. Also, these staffers could help principals accomplish tasks that could get overlooked, such as coordinating the “backpack” program, being a point-of-contact for outside partners, or overseeing PBIS efforts (early warning program, check-in-check-out). In fact, one of those building staffers handed me off to the SSC in his school to answer more specific questions about services offered by NPN. Another school transformation strategy was the convening of data meetings between principals, NPS administration, NPN administration, and the city of Northeaston. These NPNled meetings happened once per month, and the agenda was dictated by the data presented, mainly about attendance. A high-ranking administrator, the two principals, and an NPS administrator discussed these meetings. One building staffer reflected on the value of these monthly “data meetings,” as they were called: You get to look at data. I try to listen to what people say. And so if I notice, even if I know we're doing it right. So our attendance was the highest, but it doesn't mean we know everything about attendance. So you listen to other people talk about "Here's what we're doing for attendance." So I think that's probably where the befit comes from.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Meetings between public school principals, external organizations, district leaders, and the city struck the participations as rare, but they reported finding value in these meetings. An NPS administrator said that partners use the meeting as a time to ask NPS about their structures and troubleshoot when necessary, like “how are we recording attendance? What are the rules about this? What are the policies about that? And then if I don't have an answer, I just get one.” While accountability seemed to be the purpose of the meetings, meetings took on a problem-solving character, as well as to build relationships between building leaders, the district, the city, and NPN. A building staff member reflected: “it's almost like a check-in. This is where you are. What are you doing? What are some things that we could help you with?” The dynamic can be slightly awkward, though, because of the history of poor academic performance in her school. She positioned these meetings as “humbling,” and explained it this way: Sometimes it's humbling, because it's almost like you have somebody else that you have to check with. And to be reminded that the scores are terrible…We know that. But it's beneficial in that I just keep that in mind. And if my kids can benefit, my kids being my students can benefit from it, I can do it - I'm OK with it… And I remember, they're [for-profit employees], and they're held accountable. And I mean accountability is high. I'm OK with being held accountable.

These meetings were one additional way to investigate the impact of the school transformation strategy. Out of these meetings grew a separate strategy of adding attendance teachers. In essence, these attendance teachers followed up with students who were not present in school, ran reports about attendance, and attempted to intervene with chronically-absent students. My final interview was with the former NHS attendance teacher, and described her responsibility as “allencompassing…anything to do with attendance.” NPN supported one attendance teacher at NHS, but Jack Mallard of LFPI demanded that the City of Northeaston also support an

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE attendance teacher. The City agreed, and two attendance teachers were added late into the first academic year. These attendance teachers were removed from NHS once the data showed no impact, but this was part of their strategy in the first phase of implementation. Finally, NPN started and/or expanded after-school programming at NHS, NES, and Bellevue. All programs were different, presumably because of funding sources. The NHS afterschool program (ASP) only operated briefly before they were no longer affiliated. As a result, no details were shared about this ASP. One service provider described the process at BCCS this way: “Our goal was to try and connect all [providers] together so that there was [a] lead agency that would ensure that what was going to be taking place [actually] was [happening].” The NES program was operated collaboratively between a building point of contact and the teachers at the school. Both programs used PS members, teachers, and contractors to provide enrichment activities, homework assistance, and academic support programming. These programs kept the buildings open until about 5:45 (NES) or 7:00 PM (BCCS). Taken together, these programs comprised NPN’s school transformation strategy in the “real world.” These will be compared to their planned strategy later in this section (“Theory vs. Reality” and “Challenges”), but this section outlined what actually happened as a part of their school reform strategy. In the next section, the implemented Early Learning strategy is discussed. Early Learning. The federal Promise Neighborhood effort offered a competitive priority for Early Learning (Federal Register, 2011), and this particular PBSR effort included an Early Learning strategy as part of their program. This section will report findings about what composed the Early Learning program as reported by participants. First, and most prominently, NPN constructed an Early Childhood Education Center (ECEC). 21 people in the sample from all groups reported on the construction of the ECEC on Sales Avenue, which is the main arterial

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE road servicing the neighborhood. Because of its prominent location in the neighborhood, the ECEC was a visible indication that “somethin’ else was goin’ on,” in the words of one NPN resident involved in the Parent Success Network. This acts as a “Head Start facility that NPN is trying to run,” according to an NPS administrator. The ECEC has “lots to offer” parents, from a parent council, parent supportive service referrals, a strong literacy intervention program (discussed in the “School Transformation” section), field trips, and state-of-the-art playground equipment (sponsored by LFPI). During field observation two, I learned that the building houses 80 Head Start slots and 40 Early Head Start slots. These slots were moved from another facility from outside the neighborhood, so no new slots became available in Northeaston city. Still, these slots would now be housed in NPN, and the staff worked to get children from the target geography enrolled. The Early Learning pipeline really starts at the hospital, through the work of Parent Services Collective (PSC). A PSC staff member operates within the hospital to visit parents to tell them about services available in NPN, from parent workshops to health centers to support services to the schools available in the neighborhood. A NPN staff member mentioned that the hospital workers “introduce [parents] to NPN, let them know about our programming, and pretty much sign them up for us.” PSC also held parent workshops at the hospital for new mothers. Hospital services and workshops were not always well-received by families, according to the service provider below: To go to classes for [parenting], it just is not high on their priority list…In fact we find…resistance heavily in the hospital where we have a room visit we do. But then we also have the newborn class. And if it's a young mom who's there, the grandmother is there, she will actually tell her daughter not go to the class because, "I will tell you what to do." So there's kind of this approach to keeping it in the family, all the decisions about how to raise the child is there.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE These parenting workshops could be difficult to deliver, but they were delivered as an attempt to build stronger parenting skills because that was what “NPN thought would improve the neighborhood.” 48 parenting workshops per year were also offered in the neighborhood, which she admitted saturated the market (discussed later). PSC sometimes would offer incentives for parents to come—toys, books, or free transportation—which seemed to not make much of a difference in participation. Eventually, PSC renegotiated their contract to decrease the number of parent workshops to about 10 per year—a more realistic number. Still, parenting workshops were a key aspect to their Early Learning strategy. Hypothetically, relationships between NPN and parents started at the hospital, continued with parenting workshops, and persisted as children enrolled in the ECEC. With this, the academic success pipeline would begin to produce outcomes that would result in children being ready to enter Kindergarten and first grade. To directly assist toward this readiness benchmark, Early Literacy Northeaston implemented the literacy intervention in the ECEC which paired literacy specialists with Head Start teachers to delivery targeted literacy interventions to teachers and students. A service provider mentioned that this intervention was partially motivated by the fact that a strong credentialing and training process did not exist for early learning (Head Start, Early Head Start) teachers. This classroom-based intervention would then be taken to elementary schools, thus creating a longitudinal perspective on student performance, as teachers from early learning and elementary schools worked together, used the same data, and participated in joint professional development sessions. Because this classroom-based intervention continued into elementary school, figure 7.1 shows the “Early learning” strategy overlapping with the school transformation strategy.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Finally, NPN started a partnership with a local radio station, WZZZ, in order to do a technology-based math intervention program at the ECEC. While this was not originally part of the early learning plan in NPN’s federal application, it was a grant-funded program that aligned with their early learning strategy. One of the NPN administrator’s external connections and relationships helped to facilitate this opportunity since she was on the board. The WZZZ partnership provided iPads to students that had a math support curriculum installed. These iPads were then shared with BCCS. In fact, during my interview with a service provider, we walked the iPads over to BCCS so they could use them for the math intervention, as well. These kinds of connections between the ECEC and the elementary schools were guided by the Early Learning management team, headed by a NPN relationship manager) that would meet on a monthly basis (field observation 4) to discuss common issues, previous and upcoming events, share relevant data, and address partner concerns. The Early Learning management team included representatives from the dual generation management team, which is the next component to be discussed. Dual Generation. The dual generation strategy, funded entirely by a private philanthropy called the Children’s Foundation, was not originally a component of NPN’s strategy. The idea behind the dual, or two-, generation strategies was to have a joint intervention between parents/caregivers and children that would increase the return on investment for educational interventions. The strongest predictor of a student’s socioeconomic mobility is the educational attainment of their parents, therefore strategies to improve children should also include their parents (Aspen Institute, 2012). The Children’s Foundation funded Northeaston for $6 million over five years, the same amount as the entire PN grant from the federal government. Four main programs comprised the dual generation strategy: Parent Success Network (general

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE group, and a special group for males), financial educators, career counselors, and a parent consultant. A NPN staff member summarized the strategy: “If you want to help children succeed, you can't just say this is a purely a classroom initiative. You have to look at the influencers for that child,” and parents were identified as one of these main “influencers.” Dual generation programs were animated by the dual generation management team who met weekly on a conference call, which included the national funder. Each week, service providers also held meetings without the relationship manager to discuss individual cases and discuss the mix of services that certain families received. First, the Parent Success Network (PSN) meetings started as monthly gatherings of families and would also include a guest speaker. PSN membership was comprised of parents/caregivers of ECEC children and NES / BCCS pre-Kindergarten, Kindergarten, or firstgrade parents. While there may have been some flexibility on who could join PSN, these were the target populations. The first meeting attracted six participants, but these grew to attract over 35 parents and about 20 children. Themed series of programs also grew out of this effort, such as financial education, that would be held on a weekly basis over a shorter period of time—four to six weeks. Held at the BCCS library, meetings started with offering dinner. Then, children were escorted out by PS members and teachers from the ECEC so they could be watched as parents moved into a separate room for a presentation on a specific topic, such as credit, community resources available for employment, or stress management. Once the presentation ended, parents shared their successes since the last meeting. For example, parents might share information about a new education/training program in which they have enrolled, or that they have gotten a job or some other personal success stories.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE The environment was upbeat, and each person who shared a success story got a cheerful response from other participants. New members of the PSN also introduced themselves during this time. Children were brought back into the library, along with the left-over food from dinner, signaling the end of the event. These events usually lasted about two hours. During these workshops, staff members appeared to try and balance humor and seriousness so that they would connect better with the residents. The PSN coordinator appeared to have a strong rapport with residents, as they started to jokingly call her “The Stalker” because she would find them and make sure they were coming to the PSN meetings. She would float around the meetings and have small conversations with residents, usually laughing with them but then working with them on a question that they had. Personalities and relationships seemed to play a strong role in these programs, making me realize how important it was to fit the right staff member with this kind of program. She used to work at the local health center and became known in the community. Through PSN, she continued to gain parents’ trust which helped make the meetings successful. To incentivize parent participation, parents were offered $20 gift certificates if they stayed for the entirety of the event. If they attended all sessions within a series, they were offered an additional bonus of $20. So, if a parent attended a financial education café series of four events, and assuming they stayed for the entirety of all of the events, a parent could make $100. Two parents (of four) reported that “it's not all about the incentives. Yeah, they are nice, but I go for more information.” Another parent simply said she does “not [come] for the perks.” However, another parent resident helped NPN with promotions and said that the incentives did help to catch residents’ attention: “Some people do [care]. You know, if they see something free. All we [residents] gotta do is see something ‘free’ on the flyer, and we’re going to read it.” These incentives were tied specifically to PSN-related efforts.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Through the dual generation strategy, staff members were hired to help coordinate individual appointments with parents about financial goals, workforce development, and parenting. One of the service providers explained the program briefly: [The organization] Waverly Housing Improvement Services is doing finances, homeownership, rentals, that kind of thing. Northeaston Community College is doing jobs and educational attainment, so people who are trying to go back to school. And through NPN directly, a man is doing parent[al] [consultation]. So he's doing stuff around the family as a whole.

While my opportunities to observe the dual generation strategy in action were limited, I did observe three PSN-related meetings which helped to make my understanding more complete. For financial education, they would hold workshops through the PSN, conduct sessions at other NPN schools in coordination with building staff, and manage one-on-one appointments with parents. One building staff member mentioned that some of her parents “may not have the best credit,” so Waverly will sit down and help the parent think through “How do you correct your credit?” Or some parents may be renters, but Waverly may help them think about how to “go from renters to…own [their places of residence].” She explained it as “general goal-setting with people…and action planning around these goals.” A resident who had been through the financial meetings and the workshops, simply said that NPN helps you “to learn how to know your finances better.” On the workforce / job development side, the dual generation team hired an employee who would operate out of Northeaston Community College (NCC). The employee would work with people to get them connected with anything that will help parents access jobs, including onthe-job-training, resume writing, scholarship searches, job searches, interview skills, workshops about various topics (e.g. emotional awareness and networking), and provide access to professional attire for interviews. The staff member hired to do this job gave a presentation to 233

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE the PSN group, and she advertised the various services, while also giving residents pieces of advice, such as being “realistic” about what jobs they could achieve or the importance of developing a personal elevator speech about “who you are, what you want to do, and what you have to offer,” as she explained. She would work with them, assuming they were interested and took the steps to establish an appointment with her, to identify a “high-demand job” that may provide financial assistance for training if they wanted to go back to school. During the field observation, there was a moment where she drove home the high-demand job. She asked someone in the audience, “Do you like to act?” The resident responded, “Yes.” She said, “Me too! But that’s not in high demand.” She asked someone else, “Do you like fashion?” Participant said, “Yes.” She said, “Me too! But it’s not in high demand.” This comment was followed with laughter, thus reinforcing the use of humor as a strategy for connecting with residents. Finally, the parent consultant made himself available at PSN meetings and encouraged parents to set up meetings with him to get access to parenting skills. One of the specific efforts he launched was a spin-off of the PSN just for men—fathers, grandfathers, uncles, or other male caregivers. During data collection, the parent consultant hired directly by NPN, held his first gathering which attracted three male participants. Everyone encouraged him, as all programs “start that way.” During other PSN-related field observations, I observed him standing up and offering his services to parents. At one gathering, he announced, “I have some leaflets that are about academic success” and asked that parents retrieve them before they left. He reported that he has met with several parents about getting them resources that they needed to support their children with academic success. The parent consultant was one additional support available to

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE parents through the dual-generation program, but it was not clear how many of them actually took advantage of this service. Overall, the dual generation programming seemed to build relationships between families, as well as providing parents services that would help them individually stabilize their lives. A NPN staff member mentioned that the dual generation work can “complement” the other community engagement and academic success work undertaken by NPN because they are directly working with families. Given the one-on-one nature of the dual generation piece, the financial education, and workforce development, the parent consultant seemed to take on “caseloads” of parents, following up with them based on the goals that the parents and consultant set together. It also appeared that the dual generation strategy was specifically for families with children in younger-grades, and these programs were focused on the individual as the unit of intervention. Next, I will explain the new programs centered on crime and safety. Crime and Safety. The original NPN plan included discussions about crime and safety programming, but efforts were implemented more completely when NPN received the US Department of Justice Byrne Criminal Justice grant, which offered just shy of $1 million over three years. Based on the various data sources I had access to, I received the least amount of information about the crime and safety programming. However, based on the interviews, field observations one and three, and the document analysis, it was possible to understand the efforts launched as a result of the crime and safety programming. First and foremost, NPN built stronger relationships with the Northeaston Police Department (NPD). After NPN’s initial crime needs assessment in which the NPN data analysis staff discovered the crime hotspots, these data were presented to the police so they could target enforcement. These “hot spots” became the targeted enforcement areas. After this initial

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE assessment of crime “hot spots,” the relationship with the police became strong. A NPN staffer expressed his surprise at the strength of the partnership and the new programs which resulted in different ways of operating: I never thought I would see an e-mail that the district or the precinct sent out to his patrol saying, "Hey, we got some data, with NPN that says we oughtta be rethinking our patrols around the NPN because it's pretty clear when crime is happening." Right so if you would have told me that we would have had that kind of an impact or that kind of a relationship, because we don't have that kind of impact with them, but they believe in what we're doing. They're a real strong partner, and they're looking to help us. And we're looking to help them. So that's an embedded thing we do. Cameras, you know we've invested in some cameras. We've invested in training our people, so they can be in the community and the neighborhood and be able to deal with some of the issues that are coming up.

As evidence of the strength of the partnership, the Northeaston Chief of Police attended the Community Council meeting (field observation three) for the entire time—about 2.5 hours. Another NPN administrator described in detail how the relationship with the police resulted in a new way of policing when interacting with youth and young adults: We’ve put together the program with the Inner-City Connected (ICC) group and the police department. So if the police identifies a young person that's on the corner, and they may or may not be doing anything illegal, but "What are you doing? Why are you here? OK, do you know about the ICC youth program? This is what the ICC youth program is all about.... OK, and what's your name and number?” and they give them some "John Smith" or they may tell them some other name. And then so the police then turn them into the pipeline and the Case Manager from the ICC calls up. They have the correct information, they can make the connection, they can talk about the services, and then they can work with other service providers to connect the person with services. If they don't have the correct information, then how do we do it again? It's about that system.

This served as an example of the crime and safety programs that attempt to integrate different sectors to address behaviors that may cause the neighborhood to be unsafe. The crime/safety management team oversees these efforts, and specifically includes NPD in these meetings so as to strengthen the relationship. 236

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE The Community Council, a group of concerned residents who work directly with NPN staff, has become a part of the crime/safety programming because of the resident’s concerns about safety. Because NPN’s data analysis documented that crime happened around corner stores and businesses located on Sales Ave., the Community Council decided to implement a business “code of conduct” in partnership with the Sales Avenue Business Group (SABG). This page-long document listed commitments that business owners would make to thwart crime in the neighborhood. During the time of data collection, residents, NPN staff, and school-based staff were seeking signatures of businesses to agree to take steps to reduce crime. One example was that a business owner would agree to call the police when they observed loitering. The Community Council meeting that I observed was composed of about 36 people—11 residents, 8 professional staff (e.g. university representatives, NPN administration, police), 3 children, 13 PS members, and 1 unknown person. Based on this observation, the majority of active members of the Community Council were paid staff. Another aspect of the crime and safety programming was a school-based effort called Seeking Peace Together (SPT). Based on a national model, this program sought to get students to commit to not join gangs and instead lead activities that were nonviolent in nature. The program originally was launched in NHS but eventually moved to BCCS when NHS ended its affiliation with NPN. Before my interview with her, one building staff member was recruiting a student to participate in the program. According to this staff member, this program has “four pillars - family, unity, self-esteem, and empowerment. And so what it is, is it's trying to change [is the] culture and climate within a school.” Students planned different activities in the school that could improve the climate, such as community service activities or clean-up events.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Other participants mentioned different efforts to improve crime/safety in the neighborhood. For example, during field observation one, the NPN leadership team mentioned that lighting around BCCS was improved to deter crime around the school. They have also tried to work with the city to improve lighting across the neighborhood. Increased police patrol around the hotspots, along with more cameras in the area, were additional safety measures implemented through the crime programming. Also, NPN spearheaded an annual youth leadership conference. As a NPN staff member mentioned, NPN has asked “how to move young people who are on the street, off the street into more positive outlets. How do we connect the young people?” The leadership conference, held on campus at the University of Northeaston, was one of the ways to get youth involved in positive programming and activities. These targeted efforts were attempts to make the neighborhood safer, but very few participants could offer many details about the crime and safety programming. In the final programming section, I will explain the community engagement and neighborhood improvement Community Engagement and Neighborhood Improvement. The final category of new programming offered through this PBSR effort was community engagement and neighborhood improvement. Within the interviews, people referred to these programs as community and neighborhood outreach, involvement, and improvement activities. For example, one NPN administrator, when discussing the neighborhood outreach efforts, recalled: Then there's the community engagement. Kenya runs that. She meets with the community. They, through a community council are the voice for the community. And they talk about the issues. What needs to be done? What they would like to see. Where they would like to go. And to make it efficient and effective

In this sense, through the building of the Community Council, community engagement efforts were attempts at building new organizations that built connections between residents so they

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE could improve “the future of their neighborhood,” as a NPN staffer put it. This group met monthly and announced upcoming events, worked on current issues (I observed them working on the business code of ethics). A service provider felt that community involvement was an important part of NPN: I think they're trying to engage community members and giving them a place from which to operate from. So people that maybe have commitment to their neighborhood can now participate in these committees, can now have a voice, can now feel like they're doing meaningful work. And I think that's valuable.

Interestingly, community involvement in NPN sometimes simply meant parent involvement. As another staff member mentioned, she thought NPN was trying to build “a cadre of parents who demand better for their neighborhood.” Because NPN was conceptualized as primarily an educational intervention, this kind of thinking made sense. Examples of community engagement programs were only mentioned briefly. These usually were one-time events, and included such efforts as: a day-long event where a non-profit group came in to paint houses; city-sponsored supportive service outreach days (which happened five or six times per year); an annual youth conference to engage young people in personal leadership development; a “Blight Fighting” campaign where local residents would identify blighted properties, while a local art group would decorate the property; neighborhood-wide clean-up days; or community forums where residents would voice concerns. Mostly NPN staff and residents reported these activities, with only a few exceptions (e.g. one service provider and two building staff members). Early in the planning stages, NPN held many community forums and listening sessions to hear about residents’ major concerns, hypothetically dictating where NPN’s work would be directed. These forums led to the development of a community steering committee, which

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE eventually became “commissions” related to specific issues. Now, part of the job of the community engagement work is to ensure that these groups are aligned and working toward tangible outcomes. One of the NPN staff members offered insight about the evolution of the process: So from these interviews, and the community meeting, everything sort of validated the 8 bucket areas that the community expressed were most in need, or the issues and concerns - whatever they wanted to begin to address and work on. So how do we do that? Then we formed these 8 commissions and continued to invite any and everybody who'd been a part of it - any and everything from Promise to come to the table. So started looking at - "Ok what's the result you wanted to achieve? What's the vision in this particular commission?" So they went through, and that was all valid. So now the what. Now what are you going to do? So now you have 8 commissions but recognizing that there's a lot of overlap. Crime and safety is a theme throughout all. Community engagement is a theme throughout all. What are some of the real priority areas so that we began to scale down, and these are our priority areas. And so now you have the 5 (Crime and safety, youth development, neighborhood revitalization, community engagement, and…economic development)…And, again if we're on that path of alignment, things that that group focuses on, things that the community council, commissions focusing on are in tandem with one another. Partnership. Integration. Work and effort. So our job is to help to build a framework. Help to try and provide the supports for what people need to do and have the people to do it.

Now, NPN manages these commissions and coordinates the efforts and individual events mentioned above. A group of residents—about ten to 20—are involved in a special leadership development program operated by an out-of-town consultant group connected with a theory of leadership called “adaptive leadership.” This group convenes about every other week and, in the words of a NPN staffer, “[builds] [residents’] capacities and their willingness to deal with their own, what I'll call ‘problematic realities.’ They got problems. They need to go fix them. I can't fix it for them.” He expanded on how this was operationalized on the ground:

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE You know that deli on the corner across the street from the ECEC is sellin' drugs, and you go by it every day, more than I do, and you turn your head. You gotta stop turning your head, and you gotta confront it. Don't think I'm going to do it. You gotta do it…So I think about, it's not about a single person that can effect leadership change, it's about galvanizing lots of people to help them see that they're part of the problem. And that they can fix the problem. Just admit they are part of the problem, and that'll shift the way they're thinking about it.

One of the NPN staff members had a more regular connection with the leadership group, and he explained it a bit differently: [The leadership group is about] what are the adaptive challenges in the community, and looking at how do we come up with alternative solutions, and not just the same status quo? So learning about your community, really understanding your community and that's how the code of conduct actually came about because. The thought being is that, we know that we have problem delis [crime hotspots]. So let's call the police. The police go away, and the problem comes back. Let's picket. You walk away, the problem is still there. So how do we partner with the delis in such a way that it's a win-win? We get what we want, and they get what they want. This way of thinking perhaps guided NPN’s approach to community involvement, which seemed to reinforce the individual nature of the intervention. The problem was located at the level of individual residents, therefore individual residents should be the ones to address the problem. Groups like NPN can catalyze the discussion, but they will not be the ones to fix it. Two NPN administrators spoke about this leadership development program in a very matter-of-fact way, which seemed to suggest that this was common sense. Again, external factors which may have created underdeveloped neighborhood conditions were again ignored. The neighborhood improvement strategies also seemed to reinforce the individualized, internal-factors-only approach to improving this target geography. One program sponsored by the county provided financial support for rehabilitating older homes, primarily located near the school. This targeted approached seemed to be in line with school-centered community

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE revitalization, which, “focuses on changing the fundamentals of instruction at a particular school while investing in the housing and infrastructure of the school’s immediate neighborhood (Khadduri, Schwartz, & Turnham, 2008, p. 5). Ten homes were renovated and identified by a NPN sign in the yard. One building staff member asked me if those houses were a part of NPN. Once I confirmed that these houses were part of NPN’s strategy, she replied, “I’m glad you cleared up the porch thing. That was kinda. Because I thought, ‘I wonder….’” Uncertainty could characterize how most people reported about the neighborhood improvement effort. Either they did not have anything to report, or they heard something about neighborhood efforts but could not speak specifically about them. Together, these new programs constitute the PBSR effort in action from the perspective of the participants. In the next section, I present findings from the third design feature of PBSR: cross-sector partnerships. Design Feature #3: Cross-Sector Partnerships. Up to this point, it has been clear that members of the private, public, and nonprofit sector have been involved in NPN. This particular trisector partnership has grown from a perceived “sector failure” that produced low-performing schools and underdeveloped neighborhoods (Bryson, Crosby, & Stone, 2006). Even a former NPS officer admitted, “We know what [the school system is] doing isn't working.” Such partnerships exist because the nature of social problems are increasingly complex and cannot be solved by one sector in isolation, which are sometimes referred to metaproblems (Turcotte & Pasquero, 2001) or wicked problems (Rittel & Webber, 1973). PBSR represents a cross-sector partnership, involving the private sector as the lead organization, government (Northeaston Public Schools, City of Northeaston, the county government), and non-profits (service providers). In order to make these partnerships work, research suggests that it is essential to plan for the formal and informal

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE processes that make the partnerships work, such as crafting agreements, managing conflict, building trust, and building legitimacy (Bryson et al., 2006). Some of these aspects of crafting cross-sector partnerships will be covered through design feature #4 – accountability. However, in this section, I will present results about how this cross-sector partnership was leveraged to create opportunities. Establishing the NPN partnership through credibility. First, in line with research on cross-sector partnerships, a cross-sector partnership encounters difficulty in its early stages of implementation if the convening organization does not have an established reputation (Bryson et al., 2006). NPN has been able to get established because of LFPI’s reputation within the community and previous successful involvement with school reform efforts. A NPN staff administrator mentioned, “We find that our funders are willing to listen and fund because they know if [LFPI] has a part of this, it's going to be successful.” This embededness of NPN in the education community was evidenced by Dr. Thomas Robinson, former NPS superintendent, choosing NPN as the only Promise Neighborhood application that he would support (reported by four participants). While this legitimacy was challenged by some members of the school board, and eventually the superintendent who replaced the two previous superintendents, the initial agreement I believe was made in part because of LFPI’s credibility in the community. Once the groundwork was laid, then NPN launched as a cross-sector partnership. Throughout the analysis, it became clear that the cross-sector partnership was being discussed in terms of how it was leveraged to produce a desirable result of some sort. This section moves through the specific sectors involved in the partnership and how they were leveraged to produce beneficial or helpful conditions that advanced NPN’s work.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE School district partnership. To begin, I will present the items that resulted from NPN’s partnership with the Northeaston Public School. NPN leveraged the school district partnership for several things. First, they entered into a formal data sharing agreement for NPN and its affiliated subcontractors. An NPS employee provided me the data sharing document, and it resulted in “secure access to [Northeaston Public Schools] Data Warehouse data.” Certain “Approved Service Providers” could be approved by the district which granted these providers access to data approved by the Chief Information Officer. A NPN staffer recognized that access to data was a critical part of the partnership with the district: We're advanced because we have so much access. We have information from the school district, as well as the partners. And, I think from a PN perspective, most of the other neighborhoods still have yet to find a way to get the school system to let them see the data. And because we had such a long-standing relationship, that was actually part of our, it was imperative to really our contract to get the grant money. The connection with the district also resulted in NPN’s ability to receive funding traditionally unavailable to groups that do not qualify as local education agencies (LEAs) or charter schools. Most of the funding for Northeaston Middle School’s school transformation strategy came from a School Improvement Grant (SIG). The district operated as a “pass through” agency, as reported by an NPS employee. The SIG grant was mainly negotiated through the state and federal governments. However, NPN would not have been able to access those dollars if not for the partnership with NPS. A service provider speculated that the district realized the mutual benefit of the partnership when she reflected on the cross-sector partnership: “NPS was recognizing the value of this federal initiative, was giving them money to [get] these type of outcomes, and that they probably shouldn't be a barrier to that.” NPN stood to gain from the partnership if it worked.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Similarly, NPN was able to leverage the relationship with the district and become the educational management organization of NES. This EPO status actually enabled NPN to apply for the SIG grant, since they were an organization deemed to be in charge of NES’s transformation plan. Finally, the NPS relationship was leveraged to produce changes in the school enrollment strategy. Since NPS is an open enrollment district, parents must choose a school for their children, regardless of location. While this system of open enrollment was criticized by four of the six NPN administrators, the fact remains that parents must choose a school for their children. NPN worked with NPS to slightly adjust their school enrollment strategy to encourage more neighborhood students to attend NPN schools. This arrangement will be discussed in detail when I answer research question three, but it is sufficient to say that NPN worked with the district to devise this plan within district constraints. Without the district, these components of the NPN strategy would not be possible. No matter how dysfunctional the district seemed to be (explained in the “challenges” section), as a NPN employee said, “You gotta build a relationship with the school district” to get certain things done. City partnership. Second, NPN leveraged the partnership with the City of Northeaston to create a few opportunities. While the city was not emphasized as a major partner, their partnership was particularly important for a few key efforts. A service provider recalled that the mayor’s role has been limited: I see the mayor as understanding that the city is looking at new ways of doing things…he's part of the conversations…I don't think he's a leader of the conversations. And he's not a convener of the conversations, but I think he wants to be there listening.

Most prominently, the crime and safety programming with Northeaston Police Department hinged on city support. One NPN administrator explained the relationship in terms of keeping

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE them in the loop, “picking up the phone and calling in – ‘This is what’s going on with the police doing different [patrols].” Beyond that, she explained that they’re been “able to get the city to the table for around our issues and our concerns.” One of the examples where this happened was the increased numbers of supportive service outreach days sponsored by the city. During these events, city officials and service providers “pick a street…and [visit] all the houses” (in the words of a resident) to ask residents what kinds of issues and concerns they’re having—from trash pick-up to medical problems. She leveraged her relationship with the city to have an increased number of these events on NPN streets. There was only one service provider (also a NPN staff member) to mention that the city also would “[follow] up with absentee landlords and [identify] properties that would be [a] potential for renovation.” This person did mention that the city was a part of their housing strategy, which was still in development. The city was involved in other small ways, when some information was needed or a specific service was requested. For example, during field observation three, when residents and staff strategized about the business code of ethics. A PS staff member asked if they could get the contact information of business owners, and a NPN staff member affirmed that the city “can get us the names on the business licenses.” With this information in hand, they could personalize the outreach strategy while also understanding the “right person” who could actually sign the code. She briefly mentioned a city-wide discussion about school attendance where the mayor invited NPN, along with other stakeholders from a variety of sectors and organizations from around Northeaston, to share their work on attendance. While this was not directly related to accomplishing something specific, NPN participated because of its connection with the city. A current service provider reflected on why the city is involved:

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE I think it's self-serving. I mean, how do we say…to a, you know, city private sector leader, to anybody who's thinking to come in town, "We are on the right place to come, because we are on the move, we're energetic." And yet 24% of our African-American males graduate from high school, and by the way, we're celebrating that it's 59% of all our kids who are graduating, as opposed to 58%. You can't (laughs), you know you can sell a lot of things about us. You can't sell that education in Northeaston is working. So I think the mayor understands it, the governor understands it. Nobody knows - nobody's doing anything about it, but that's why the mayor's at the table, because he understands that this is his black eye.

Again, the city may be at the table because it realized that it could benefit from the partnership. County partnerships. At the county governance level, NPN seemed to leverage this partnership to help with the home rehabilitation program. The county had a program that allowed NPN to fund the rehabilitation of ten properties in the neighborhood. A service provider was aware of a possible expansion of the partnership: “I'm told that they are in talks with the county to do another 10. But that has nowhere near been finalized yet. So I'm not sure if that's going to happen.” Based on the data, this specific program was the only formal partnership between the county and NPN. The project narrative explicitly mentioned that NPN hired someone who worked for the City of Northeaston so they could make better connections with the county. These connections could be leveraged for future projects. Non-profit partnerships. Next, NPN leveraged its partnerships with the non-profit service providers for several things. First and foremost, NPN’s work simply could not happen without service providers. Through non-profits, NPN had the capacity to establish relationships with residents so they could achieve certain individual outcomes while also explaining NPN in the community. As a service provider mentioned, it was impossible to do the work without connections with residents. Without that, “you’re just another person saying ‘You need to do this.’” During the field observations, service providers were answering questions about what

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE NPN was trying to do. Some programs required NPN staff to work directly with residents on personal goals or with building staff to change practices. NPN leveraged these relationships to secure the support and trust of residents and building staff. Further, NPN leveraged partnerships with non-profit service providers to offer additional opportunities to residents or building staff members. For example, while Waverly was contracted to directly work with residents on financial planning, they also were asked to do financial planning workshops in NES. These workshops helped a NES building staff member to provide additional services to families at NES who were not officially connected with Promise Neighborhood. Similarly, a different one of the service provider’s organizations already offered workforce training across the city, but through the relationship with NPN, they directly marketed these opportunities to NPN residents. When possible, NPN could provide additional services (that were not always purchased or contracted) to residents because of their connections with the nonprofit community. In the case of WZZZ, through their personal relationship with a NPN administrator, they applied for a grant for a math intervention at the ECEC. NPN’s connections with nonprofit agencies yielded additional opportunities for residents and building staff members. One specific non-profit partnership deserves special mention. Communities Investing in Education (CIE) is non-profit organization dedicated to city-wide revitalization through educational improvement (mostly through addressing non-curricular barriers to learning) and college access. NPN leveraged this partnership in a few ways documented in my study. First, they were jointly included in the data sharing agreement with the district because they were both providing data-driven interventions and wanted to track their impacts. Only three participants mentioned the CIE scholarship program, which guarantees that a student attending college in the

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE state (and a limited number of private colleges out-of-state) will have his/her tuition covered. This was a general benefit of being located within Northeaston, but not necessarily as a direct benefit only to NPN families. A service provider mentioned that there could be a connection between NPN and CIE through funding after-school programs, because CIE is attempting to “repurpose” dollars from Title 1 to use for after-school. However, this connection did not currently exist at the time of this study. One NPN lead administrator actually wanted CIE to take a more prominent stance against city-wide busing because of the high costs to the districts, thus advocating for a community or neighborhood schools approach to schools. This did not happen, though, at the time of writing. Still, it is possible that NPN could leverage the CIE partnership to a greater extent in the future. Philanthropic community partnerships. NPN leveraged private funders to provide additional opportunities and new partnerships. As discussed, the Children’s Foundation grant spurred the development of an entire strategy—dual generation. During field observation one, a NPN staff member discussed a national gathering attended by several major private philanthropies to essentially make an “ask” to support Promise Neighborhood efforts across the country. At this gathering, he connected with a national funder: “We promptly swapped business cards and said we’d be in touch.” It is through these kind of interactions that NPN is able to consider sustaining programming within the neighborhood. During this field observation, NPN had a lengthy list of private funders who have supported programs, which further confirmed the importance of philanthropic involvement. These funders seek effective practices to address problems of concern to their organization, which is their interest and their raison d’être. In the next section, I describe the next design feature that emerged from the data: accountability systems, communication structures, and continuous improvement cycles.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Design Feature #4: Accountability Systems, Communications Structures, and Continuous Improvement Cycles. PBSR efforts have been designed with data systems and accountability in mind. In the think tank publications and presentations13 about Promise Neighborhood, data and performance monitoring has been front and center (Comey…et al., 2013). In order to effectively report data to the federal government, the lead organizations are required to design accountability systems, communications structures, and continuous improvement cycles to ensure data-driven decision-making as well as documenting impact. NPN was no exception, and the data revealed that it was a key design feature of this effort. In this section, I report on what these structures looked like from the perspective of participants. Accountability systems. Because NPN is operated by a LFPI institution, it seemed to influence the composition of these accountability structures. One of the building staff recalled that her understanding of the nonprofit sector was such that nonprofits were not used to “being held to such a high standard.” One of their staff members felt that their process differed from the traditional nonprofit accountability structures fundamentally—even from the point when NPN received the grant: We actually made service contracts with each group. You know, you're going to be funded on a year to year basis. Here's the performance measures that you pledged that you're going to do. Here's how you're going to measure them. We're going to meet and report them…Basically, your continual funding, if you will, is on a year to year basis. So it's not even continual funding, like there is no discussion in the contract saying that because you hit these targets, you get funded for next year. You're on a (hitting the table) basically a year to year contract.

The accountability system started with a mutually-agreed-upon contract. These service contracts should not be confused with a memorandum of understanding. A different NPN administrative

13

http://www.seiservices.com/oii/pn/Materials/Plenaries/Overview%20of%20the%20First%20Two%20Years%20of% 20Promise%20Neighborhoods.pdf

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE participant, empathized that this was “very much a contract. Not an MOU.” Two other NPN staffers, though, described this document as an MOU. A different participant called it a “service agreement.”

Still, the function was the same—accountability.

These contracts, MOUs, or service agreements establish the performance measures by which service providers specifically will be held accountable. One of the NPN staff members, , described the annual cycle: [In the] beginning of the year, we set the baseline and the goals. Mid-year we meet, and then end of the year the assessment… And then if there are issues, we're called relationship managers, those of us who are in charge of the initiatives, the different initiatives. If there are issues, then we will be individuals with the partner. Try to determine what their issue is. Try to come up with a game plan. We still hold them to what the MOU says.

If the MOU or service contract was not honored, it provided NPN a clear way to hold the providers accountable. One staff member who jointly served as a provider and a NPN staff member, acknowledged that “certain providers were asked not to return in the future because they weren't holding up their end of the contract. Because of the clarity, a NPN administrator thought that this made accountability more straightforward and about data, instead of it being about personal feelings: “It didn't become about you and me. It just becomes about what we're trying to do, and the data. I don't dislike ya, I just…[need results].” Having clear annual service contracts empowered NPN to hold partners accountable. NPS administration, building staff, and partners also seemed very aware of the accountability structures. One NPS administrator observed, “They really had an outcome-based system at looking at what a, let's say, a social-emotional agency would provide for students.” Service providers seemed to have a more developed sense of the accountability systems. For example, a service provider, mentioned that being a service provider for NPN has “been

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE frustrating for us, but it's been great for us,” which was partially because of the accountability structures. She felt that she had some power in shaping what accountability structures looked like for her organization when she said, “I think we've helped NPN evolve appropriately [with accountability].” Some of the data reporting she was required to do were US Department of Education measures, which she “didn’t love.” Still, she continued to be pleased with the accountability process because she was able to challenge NPN to distinguish between process and outcome measures—both of which were important to her, but insufficient. She wanted to help them to “evolve,” for example, use a common assessment across three sites where she was measuring Kindergarten readiness. As a result, her organization “feel[s] very empowered by that.” NPN did “give an outlet for data accountability. I like very much working with their data person at NPN.” This process seemed clear to her. A different staffer was also clear that accountability fell on her back: “I have to stay on top of the teachers to make sure that all of the assessments and, like I said the different screenings, because they, all of that plays a role in the data that's collected [for NPN].” Even though building staff do not have official service contracts, they were still accountable to NPN through the grant agreements. For one building staff member, accountability is different, yet still clear: “Bottom line is at the end of the year, [NPN] want[s] to see the test scores. They want to see it go up. That's the huge accountability.” She’s “OK” with being held accountable because she’s “competitive” and wants to be able to look good compared to the other schools. NPN’s main role, though was to be a force to hold the schools accountable. Of course, the accountability did come with support, according to both NPN staffers. He said, “When you identify a need, you know that it's possible that you have somebody next to you who may be able to help you address that need.” So “accountability is a part of [NPN],” according to

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE the building staffer, but the accountability also includes some support. Still, “there's accountability on multiple levels,” but the mainly come down to test scores. Communications systems and continuous improvement structures. These accountability systems were animated by a few structures NPN put in place that were discussed across participant groups. First, team meetings occurred regularly to encourage discussions across partners and to foster a sense of accountability for the previously-agreed-upon metrics. Field observations two, seven, and eight offered me an opportunity to watch these meetings unfold. Providers and stakeholders would go around and discuss various upcoming programs and events, problems they encountered since the last meeting, and share data when available. In at least one group, a program officer from an external funder joined these team meetings. A NPN staff member described her team meetings: We have a set agenda. We talk about activities…activities coming up next week, performance measures, program updates. So we try and get in as much as we can. We also have a separate meeting. It's a bi-weekly task list. So we've said to the Children’s Foundation [that] we're going to work on these 12 project streams from now until the end of June. So we basically lay that out into a task list. We, on a biweekly basis we have owners, and they have to provide updates. We also have the biweekly performance measures meeting. And then we have a Parent Success Network data meeting on a biweekly basis. These meetings definitely had an “accountability feel to them” according to a NPN staffer because they asked partners to report on their progress. Another service provider, explained that “All of us we get together monthly to discuss where we're going.” A NPS administrator, also discussed the meetings between the school system, principals, the city, and NPN as ones that hold everyone accountable mainly for test scores. Instead of NPN acting as some external partner holding certain groups accountable, a NPS administrator noticed, “We're holding each other accountable.” A current NPS administrator explained it similarly:

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE “We met once a month and just kind of problem-solved things that were occurring, but looking at direction of how the organization was headed.” In a similar way to other participants, these NPS administrators thought of these meetings as mechanisms to animate the accountability systems through communication and problem-solving together. She offered an example of a recent meeting where she problem-solved about the breakdown in communication between PS members and NES staff: “Well, with the PS members, what could we do at NES to help them? For example, one of the things I suggested is they have weekly meetings.” She saw it as her role, as principal, to help create stronger connections between the providers and building staff. In addition to meetings, at least one partner was responsible for written reports which also served to advance NPN’s purpose of holding them accountable. One of the service coordinators explained in detail the reports that her team was required to submit. She started with a deep breath: All the coaches submit weekly reports that all the other coaches see, so Elaine [NPN administrator] typically. Because you know, she's the representative that I mostly deal with. So I do submit weekly reports on mostly like - how many clients did I see? Did any of them make progress? Were there any issues? That kind of stuff. I also submit monthly reports, again, to NPN, and we get together on a monthly basis as a whole, just to talk about programmatic processes and progress. So that's my accountability directly to NPN.

Written reports helped to ensure that the relationship managers and funders could follow their work. If there were any issues that arose from the reports, it would be discussed in the team meeting in hopes that a solution could be identified. How partners perceive the communications systems and improvement structures was uneven. On one side of the spectrum, a service provider working within the school, thought differently about the meetings held between partners in the context of her building:

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE I don't think it’s accountability at all. I think it was an opportunity for people to come to the table, say where they were from, and talk about the program that they were offering. I did not see it go to the next step of sharing data. Which would be valuable information, or sharing their outcomes. I don't think it got to that - for me I don't think it got to that level.

These meetings were more about sharing information for a building staffer. Another service provider felt similarly when she explained the team meetings as “a good way for us to get together to examine where we've been, where we are, and where we're going. And to keep constant communication.” She did not describe these communications and problem-solving opportunities as directly linked to accountability. On the other side of the spectrum, one partner felt that the meetings lacked a sense of group accountability. For this partner, these meetings could be intimidating. This person described a team meeting as “a firing squad” because this partner perceived that one of the staff members was going to be “raked over the coals” about a particular program. This program contact worried that they had not been perceived as meeting the established benchmarks, so this partner feared being dismissed from the project. This person’s critique of the communications and continuous improvement structures was that it lacked a sense of “group” or “shared” accountability. By that, this partner felt that responsibility for outcomes was directed at an individual agency, yet the purpose of Promise was supposedly an effort to increase collective impact. So, if one group did not succeed, this partner expected that others to ask, “How can we help you succeed?” This challenge will be discussed in more detail later in the chapter, but this example highlights the uneven experience of partners with the communications and continuous improvement structures. Based on my field observations, though, it seemed that meetings and reports were characterized as mechanisms to advance accountability in some way.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Even within NPN, there was a stated need to facilitate communication and accountability among staff. Several pieces of evidence support this claim: the existence of the grassroots communication committee, the weekly relationship manager meetings, reported regular checkins with the LFPI CEO, and regular NPN “informational breakfast” events. These were ways that NPN attempted to facilitate accountability within the staff. An interview with one of the NPN administrators revealed that he felt a sense of personal accountability to the project: “My job is to help run this organization. That means my job performance, my livelihood, my income is tied to ‘Am I doing everything we set out to do?’” It was not clear that everyone felt the same sense of personal accountability, but it was clear that the NPN staff had several communication and continuous improvement mechanisms that advanced the idea of project accountability. First, NPN created a grassroots communication committee to ensure that different project team members could communicate with each other—whether or not they were working on the same day-to-day projects. Grassroots met weekly to ensure that people from the different program areas could communicate with each other. For instance, during the field observation where I observed the grassroots committee, they discussed an upcoming event at NES where report cards would be distributed. The “event integration” subcommittee strategized about how to best coordinate between the school transformation, early learning, and community engagement teams. They agreed to have tables set up that would showcase the Community Council, associated partners (e.g. financial education, crime prevention), and the schools (for the purposes of promoting the NPN pipeline schools). At the committee meeting, they agreed to put together a one-page handout that discussed the assets available at the schools. Additionally, at this grassroots committee meeting, they discussed the “informational breakfast” events held just

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE for NPN staff members. Their committee would put together common messaging for all staff members to use when external stakeholders or residents asked, “What is NPN?” Next, the NPN team met weekly, along with the building principals, to discuss pressing issues. For example, during my field observation, they reviewed a presentation that would be offered to funders, recalled a national funder meeting, and discussed upcoming efforts that would require collaboration. These meetings also seemed to create a camaraderie between relationship managers (RMs) that facilitated an open environment where people were free to share honest thoughts and perspectives. At one point, one staff member offered a viewpoint about how he felt that the public/private partnership was not highlighted enough in the presentation, and the rest of the staff engaged his idea. In reviewing the PowerPoint, some staff members have varying opinions about the particular pictures used, what words should be emphasized, and missing items. The environment seemed to be one that welcomed constructive debate and dialogue, and this is at least partially attributable to the close relationships between the RMs. Also, a NPN administrator discussed another communication tool used in the name of accountability—one that he took very seriously: Every week at least once I'm talking to Mallard [CEO of LFPI] about NPN. And Jack takes NPN every bit as serious as he takes running [LFPI]. And he didn't build his [business] by being a super-nice guy… He's tough to work for, and he holds me accountable.

This built-in, somewhat informal check-up served as one more aspect of the accountability system. In summary, accountability systems helped to define this PBSR as a way to advance the lead organization’s goals. Accountability usually was discussed in terms of data, such as test scores or quantitative metrics of success. In order to translate this accountability into reality,

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE NPN created communications systems and continuous improvement structures that reinforced the systems of accountability, which were experienced unevenly between providers. Still, accountability was a key design feature of this PBSR effort. Up to this point, I have presented the core design features of NPN—one particular PBSR effort. In the next section, I will explain the external pressures that constrained the PBSR effort, mainly because the context mattered to how participants understood the PBSR. These pressures eventually led to specific challenges experienced by this PBSR—to be explained later. External Pressures. In a similar way that Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) model of human development articulates the ways that larger social systems impact an individual’s development, the external environment impacts that way in which a policy implementation effort can be implemented. Interestingly, the most prominent literature review of policy implementation research (Fixsen et al., 2005) proposed a conceptual framework for policy implementation devoid of external contextual factors that could shape implementation. The framework only paid attention to whether or not the “community” (defined broadly) was ready for the program to be implemented. Along the research tradition of urban regime theory (Stone, 1993) and its application to urban school reform (Stone, Henig, Jones, & Pierannunzi, 2001; Shipps, 2008), I began to notice that an interpretation of these results needed to be viewed through a lens of external events that shaped the implementation of PBSR. Shipps (2008) observed that urban regime theory could help scholars and practitioners answer such questions as “What are the local circumstances that led to the particular governing arrangement? Whose agenda dominated and what was the nature of the opposition” (p. 103)? Participants often spoke through filters, in that their viewpoints and perspectives were shaped by external factors that constrained this effort’s implementation.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE At this point, the results section begins to take on a different character. Up to this point, I have presented results that represent a relatively descriptive viewpoint with limited interpretation. I presented how PBSR has been defined by the participants while also reporting what constituted PBSR in practice. Now, I turn my attention to factors that constrained this PBSR effort, reported challenges to implementation, and a critical interpretation of the results. This begins by discussing the reported external factors that constrained implementation: (1) underdeveloped neighborhood conditions created by a suppressive economy and the land tenure system, (2) the local political context, and (3) the state and federal policy context. Participants spoke about these contexts in different words, but I have taken the interpretive leap and assigned these words to larger concepts that I believe they were discussing. Underdeveloped neighborhood conditions. One of the reasons why Promise Neighborhoods exists is to improve underdeveloped neighborhoods. I refer to underdevelopment because neighborhoods that experience negative outcomes (e.g. poor health, low educational performance and attainment, unhealthy and dangerous housing, crime) have been stunted by larger policy decisions to not invest in these neighborhoods. In the US context, as I mentioned earlier in the conceptual framework, there is an inescapable connection between underdeveloped neighborhoods and race. Therefore, given the demographics of this neighborhood, over 70% black, it is no surprise that such a neighborhood was targeted for intervention. Sixteen participants across all groups in the sample referenced the challenging conditions found on the ground in the neighborhood. My first interview (a NPN administrator) was up front about these challenges: “This community is one of the…most impoverished, probably…in the country. And so with that comes other things. You know, like the issues that come from being in poverty.” Her comment was reflective of most participants’ perspectives about neighborhood conditions

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE that arose from residents being in poverty. This “poverty paradigm” actually hides larger external forces and reduces problems to one of income (Taylor, McGlynn, & Luter, 2013c), but it did reflect participants’ concern about neighborhood-based problems spawning a myriad of other problems that, in a way, constrain NPN’s work. One building staff member mentioned that the ZIP code was associated with high levels of crime and poverty, and she was hopeful that the “community [could] rise out of all the issues that are taking place here in a variety of ways.” However, she recognized that it would be a formidable challenge. A service provider knew that NPN was modeled after programs that took on the “worst neighborhoods” that face challenges like the “drug epidemic.” Another service provider said, “Let’s face it… you couldn't pick much of a tougher neighborhood to work with.” An NPS administrator, he felt that this footprint was a microcosm of larger social problems: Some of the challenges that I saw as a principal, but also being in the community very often, were certainly you know what you see in urban settings. But it may have been consolidated more in this area and that's why it was chosen. But, drug abuse, alcoholism, unemployment rates low SES levels, and single-parent families. So you know the things that really challenge a community are consolidated to a great extent in the ZIP code

These views were common, and many recognized the magnitude and complexity of the problems. Another service provider, further acknowledged that “when people are given opportunities based on race, or based on economics, that hurts everybody, and I think that we have finally to a certain extent learned that.” While these factors have already been cited as a rationale for the PBSR effort, they are pertinent here because I argue that they were an external factor in itself that stood to challenge the implementation of the effort. Further, I argue that participants perhaps underappreciated the extent to which these problems were impenetrable given that the PBSR effort did not set out to address the underlying factors that created these

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE conditions: the land tenure system and the suppressive economy. This underappreciation resulted in a constraint to this effort. For example, ten participants mentioned homeownership as an important factor that they felt could help to improve certain conditions in the neighborhood. In fact, a NPN administrator mentioned that she’s trying to work with the city and county to develop a housing strategy. She noted that residents were “paying as much money as [they] could be a homeowner and starting to build some type of equity.” An NES staffer described NPN as an initiative working with parents to establish homeownership as a goal: “We have a lot of parents who might be renters, but maybe instead of being renters, they'll go from renters from rent to own.” However, there was no reflection on the challenges that low-income families experience when they own a home in the current market. The combination of a low-income resident and home repair is an uneven battle. When faced with home repair or purchasing food, food will always win. Northeaston’s housing stock is also an aging one. In this specific neighborhood, the US Census reported that the median year houses were built was 1940 (Social Explorer, 2015, Table SE:T98). If families became homeowners, then additional problems would be spawned. This NPN staffer told a story: A young lady said to me - she's in a housing situation. I think one of her parents had recently had a leg removed – an amputee. Needed some type of special modifications made to their home, and she's going on and on and on. Well, that's not a service we provide.

The reality was that NPN did not have these kinds of services for homeowners built into their programming. That problem for her became one where she tried to connect this individual with a solution based on her connections around the city. Again, that effort would be an individual intervention whereby leaving the systematic issues which caused the problem unaddressed.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Residents, in their own words, recognized that the neighborhood conditions posed formidable challenges. A resident expressed her concern for adolescents overdosing on drugs “because of the ghetto!” She continued: Yeah, it happens more in the ghetto. It happens more in the black community. It happen - it's so many murders – nothing but black people - too many! Kids killing kids. When I was growing up, I - a funeral, I didn't know nothing about a funeral! Yeah, somebody died in the family, it was an old person. These kids are getting killed at 16! 15! 12! Out in the street, that is horrible.

A NPN and administrator and an NPS staff member got closer to articulating these major constraints—a flawed economic system that resulted in such wicked problems at the neighborhood and city level. One of them recognized that a primarily educational intervention was “insufficient:” [Parents and children have to] navigate what is often a very suppressive economy that doesn't give second chances…So, it's not enough when you have to navigate an economy alone, which is what many of these young people haven't chosen to grow up in. I don't care how educated you are, this is a system, navi- for young people to navigate the modern economy is a cruel trip that we're putting them on…. They have very limited options with regard to their career paths because the suppression of this economy makes it very difficult to have those choices…. Education is necessary, but it's, it's becoming alarmingly clear to me that it's insufficient. He also touched on the issue of housing: “Families in poverty get what they get when it comes to their living conditions. And they're stuck with whatever's in their area.” This viewpoint is in line with modern understanding of families who are “stuck in place,” that is, in underdeveloped neighborhoods (Patterson & Yoo, 2012; Sharkey, 2013). Even during field observation four, a service provider discussed the “hidden job market” and that networking is the only way for people to get jobs. What she did not discuss were the deep social forces that maintain these privileges for certain groups over others. When a building administrator discussed the

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE controversy over school choice versus neighborhood schools, he recognized it as one with economic and racial undertones: The problem is the need for neighborhood schools is an economically charged argument in Northeaston. And unfortunately that economic factor is also racially aligned. And I think that's a place -, a lot of cities [like ours], or a lot of cities in the Rust Belt are struggling with that same thing.

This quote recognized the deep interconnection between race and the economic position of people of color in the United States.

This next extended quote is offered because it

demonstrated his appreciation for the deep complexity of the forces that a neighborhood like the NPN experiences and that work against their effort: [When you’re poor], you can't see the world for what it is because your family is so worried about maintaining the status quo. So you don't see the value in education because what your life has taught you is, you just have to make sure you have enough money to pay the rent…And it's no fault of their own, but the effects of poverty cause you to look at the world a lot differently. And I think it's different from when you go from being extremely rich to being impoverished. Because you still have a sense of hope. And you still understand the opportunities that are out there. But when you start off poor, and all your family knows is poverty, it's hard to understand the American Dream when all the evidence says that the American Dream isn't there for you… You see all the other factors. The lack of health care. The fact that it's a food desert. The fact that the housing stock is dilapidated. There's all these other things that are prevalent in this neighborhood, and it's not to say that it's intentional because it's the Black neighborhood. It's just that this neighborhood is so distressed, and it just so happens that it's completely, it's almost 97% African-American, and that's just the reality of it. While his perspective is still muddled by the poverty paradigm that minimizes social problems to a simple income variable, it seemed that he was aware that some major external conditions thwarted NPN’s efforts. I was convinced that participants understood the extent to which the neighborhood conditions created challenges that, in some way, were beyond their control and may actually work against the effort. Participants may have labeled this problem as one of “poverty,” but there seemed to be at least some recognition that the problems were deeper than 263

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE simply increasing income. The next external constraint to be discussed is the local policy context of Northeaston. Local political context: Northeaston Public Schools instability, power politics, and school choice. Northeaston, as a city, has experienced major political transition on the school board over the last three years (and probably could be a case study of political spectacle in itself, Smith, Miller-Kahn, Heinecke, & Jarvis, 2004). First, the superintendent Dr. Robinson, an African-American man who had been superintendent for six years up until 2011, was forced to resign based on the low performance of the district. At that time, an interim superintendent was appointed while Communities Investing in Education (CIE), a large national city-wide school turn-around organization, established a local chapter. They also conducted an external evaluation of the district, which created a political climate where a national search was held to hire a new superintendent. Dr. Emma Herrera, an African-American female, came into the job, launched a strategic planning process, and began working with CIE on implementing districtwide reforms. However, some groups in the community did not approve of her style, which resulted in criticisms claiming that she was closed-off from the community. A prominent tea party activist, who had previously run for state governor on the Republican ticket, became enraged with her lack of leadership. He also criticized her for being too close and friendly with the five-member majority African-American females on the board. During the next school board election, this activist convinced two additional white affiliates to run so they could unseat the “sisterhood”14 of African-American females on the board—after making a plea to the state department of education to disassemble the school board15.

14

http://buffalopundit.com/2015/03/04/carl-paladino-threatens-sisterhood/, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/15/nyregion/paladino-returns-in-a-smaller-spotlight-bombast-andall.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 15 http://buffalorising.com/2013/12/paladino-will-attempt-to-disassemble-school-board/

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE After these two white members were elected, a new white majority was in place, thus creating the conditions for Dr. Herrera to resign. The original tea party activist solicited support from the business community to provide Dr. Herrera a $500,000 cash incentive for her to leave her position immediately. Within two years of starting, Dr. Herrera eventually left, though she declined to take the private-sector-supported financial incentive. In fact, LFPI President, Francisco Lawson, was one of the leaders named who would raise the funding16. When she eventually left, she was replaced by an internally-appointed interim superintendent, a white male. Then, the newly-elected white majority school board replaced him with another interim superintendent from the region, who was also a white male. As of this writing, this superintendent is about to step down earlier than expected—shy of his two-year proposed term. Now, the school board black minority is arguing for a national superintendent search, while the white majority wants to conduct a regional search. School politics in Northeaston can be characterized as overtly racialized and in a state of chaos, with no sense of consensus—besides the fact that the district is low-performing. This kind of an unstable environment created havoc for NPN implementation. The original superintendent who signed the MOU left the job just as NPN started to implement, which created major challenges (described in the next section of results). Overtly racialized politics created serious divisions in the community—and in the central office—about NPSrelated issues. It also created staff transition at the building level. A NPN administrator admitted, “I never anticipated the board of ed[ducation] being as divided racially and creating the kind of problems that it's created. I didn't anticipate 5 superintendents in like 4 years. I didn't anticipate 3 principals in 2 years at NHS.”

16

http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/education/community-leaders-offer-city-school-superintendentbuyout-deal-20131228

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE A service provider reported that the local union leader worked with certain board members to lobby against NPN when it was coming to be. She disclosed, “The board members got to the superintendent at the time, and said, ‘[NPN is] going for an elitist take-over of the schools.’” She disagreed with this assessment, but was resigned to the fact that, “There were some very ignorant school board members. There continue to be, who would rather see anything good destroyed, they would rather see everybody wallow in the same place.” An NPS administrator speculated that perhaps the mayor is staying away from school issues because “politics with the board, the charter school, there's just so much energy around other things.” A NPN employee simply said that there are “so many different factions…so many stakeholders,” indicating that the local politics are confusing and make the work more challenging. In a way, NPN cannot control these local political issues that have adversely affected implementation. However, as indicated above, and as a counter-example, LFPI has been a part of the urban regime that has attempted to influence the direction of the school board. Another piece of evidence supporting the assertion that NPN has attempted to get involved in local politics to drive it in a certain way was the first document that I analyzed—a newspaper article publishing a word-for-word copy of LFPI’s CEO speech to an invitation-only group of “who’s who” in Northeaston politics. Given the limited nature of my research questions, I was not able to discern the extent to which these efforts were successful or unsuccessful. Still, it is plausible to discern that NPN is involved in the urban regime and battled for hegemony of thought and potentially action. Interestingly, after one of my interviews with a service provider, it was mentioned that being involved in NPN was “so political,” according to my field notes. This one service provider discussed that being involved with NPN required one to be “careful” about their steps—filling

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE out reports, ensuring that funders were happy, and negotiating the terrain of this person’s supervisor’s demands versus NPN’s demands. This tension was in part mitigated by this person’s supervisor having regular communications with the NPN project team, but other service providers indicated challenges in developing this communication between organizations. Because this effort involved so many community leaders, it is possible that ground-level actors could have been constrained in their interview responses. The fact remained that some perceived this environment as particularly political, necessitating that some actors be careful in their implementation steps. The “political” nature of the work also extends to working between organizations. One service provider mentioned the importance of feeling “safe enough together to have those very candid conversations” related to ensuring that all partners are properly implementing interventions. While NPN was “political” on the level of many city-wide players competing for power and influence over school reform approaches within the district, it was also political on the level of maintaining positive relationships between partners. The local political context was also influenced by the school choice environment. Open enrollment created a context where families could choose “any” school in the city, with the exception of criterion schools where students were required to pass an entrance exam or meet certain subjective standards for entry. Further, a group of charter schools vied for enrollment of neighborhood students. NPN themselves were involved in the perpetuation of the school choice environment since they operated a charter school. Even NPN administrators agreed that the school system is not actually a system of choice. Instead, it was a system built on an illusion of choice that “doesn’t [give families an] equitable education.” Another NPN administrator hoped the district would take a “closer look at the criteria system” because the district has “designed a system to achieve the results it’s intended to get”—poor academic performance. This “warped

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE sense of choice,” as a building staff member put it, “where all schools are bad with the exception of two.” Because NPN operated a charter school, a small faction of participants feared that NPN was involved in NPN so they could advance the school choice agenda. Four participants across three groups (NPS employee, service provider, and building staff) mentioned that NPN may represent an “invisible hand” at work. Essentially, these participants worried that NPN became involved in this effort in order to convert the neighborhood schools into charter schools. An NPS employee nonchalantly mentioned that “they’ve been trying to go charter for way back” which meant that some of the leaders of NPN “could care less about anything reform-minded at that school [NHS].” Movement to a charter school would “buy you immediate flexibility, even if it’s not from a new teacher’s union contract.” A former NPS official reported that school board members were being lobbied by the Northeaston union leadership to create fear that NPN represented an “elitist take-over of the schools.” This staff member also confirmed that there was “always talk about making NES a charter.” The building staff member recalled the LFPI CEO’s comment that “at some point, you realize that if you want to enact change, you have to run the school yourself. Because if not, you keep going back to the asylum.” This comment revealed that the LFPI CEO explicitly publicly embraced the charter school movement, which has historically been associated with the demise of neighborhood schooling. This concern about charter school conversion intentions became inextricably linked to the “school choice vs. neighborhood schools” debate, through which racial issues and questions arise. Interestingly, NPN favored the neighborhood-based schooling approach to education, while still embracing the charter school paradigm—a seemingly conflicting, yet increasingly common, viewpoint (Edelberg & Kurland, 2009; Harlem Children’s Zone, 2003). This debate

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE arose in over half of the interviews. One NPS official passionately discussed this tension, and he reconciled it this way: NPN is not on the record saying that neighborhood schools are in and of themselves, generate anything. What they're saying is that we need to apply interventions and supports to a location in the city that in order to produce high yield. That's different than saying that if we create a forced ghetto of students without any awareness of, or any connection to a broader comprehensive scale of investments or supportive development, that's just creating a ghetto of a certain type of student that happens to live near a school. That accomplishes nothing. There's absolutely nothing that comes from that. Because the idea, when people talk neighborhood school, they're surmising that there's some type of benefit from a child being able to walk to school. I don't know what that is. Exercise?... There's no observable benefit to creating neighborhood schools unless it's a part of a comprehensive overall investment in a neighborhood.

On one hand, this official rejects the simple idea of creating neighborhood schools in its own right, yet this strategy could make sense in the context of a broader intervention such as PBSR. One of NPN’s lead administrators dismissed that this debate had nothing to do with concerns about desegregation, but this person linked it to a busing issue: …With the right data, you know we could see the busing from NES everyday out of my neighborhood to every other school in the district, with African American kids living in poverty, and the kids you're bringing in are African-American kids living in poverty. This isn't about desegregation or anything like that, right. It has nothing to do with Brown v. Board of Ed any longer, because the neighborhoods have changed. Right, Northeaston's become so much, the 3rd, 4th poorest city in the country right? So much kids and people living in poverty. So we spend a lot of money on transportation that makes it difficult for parents travel halfway across the city to be involved in a parent/teacher conference, so they just don't go.

The school choice environment certainly created a political challenge for NPN if no other reason than because the debate behind “school choice vs. neighborhood schools” was such a divisive one in Northeaston. Finally, I document how state and local policy created another set of external factors that constrained NPN’s actions.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE State and national politics and policy. The changing state and federal landscape also presented an external pressure on the PBSR. Most notably, seven participants from four groups mentioned the implementation of the Common Core Learning Standards (CCLS), which were adopted by the state because of its Race to the Top application. When NPN launched in 2010 (planning) and 2011(implementation), the CCLS were released. Schools in low standing with the state were required to implement the standards the year before everyone else, and this seemed to pose challenges for the people directly involved in the school transformation aspects of NPN. Participants did not report being opposed to the standards, per se, but they did voice concern that the implementation was “too much, too fast,” in the words of a NPN administrator: I'm a believer in the CCLS, I think it's a good thing. I think America has to be more competitive globally. We need to graduate more kids from inner-city schools. So I believe in the CCLS, I think it's the right thing to do. I fell into the camp that it was too much, too fast without enough preparation. You know you had high expectations, and teachers weren't being trained, and they didn't understand how to teach the CCLS, we still have teachers struggling, and we're trying to help them figure it out. So that was unexpected. I didn't know that the state would create this different set of standards, and all of a sudden, everybody take a 30% drop in standardized test scores. That negatively impacts the kids' psyche. It negatively impacts the parents’ psyche. It negatively impacts teachers' psyche…So that was unexpected, and that's hurt… We're still concerned because we're trying to figure out how to best manage and, not manage, but how do we best measure student performance.

Within this quote, it highlights a point that others suggested: on top of everything else they were trying to do—a new curriculum, more intensive supportive services, parent education and outreach, crime/safety programming, and neighborhood improvement efforts—the state’s emphasis on implementing the CCLS added one more thing to their plate. A service provider, felt that with “this Common Core stuff,” teachers have increased responsibilities for teaching children, while it was “taken out of the parents’ hands.” When discussing NPN implementation, a NPN staffer listed the many stakeholders involved in the city of Northeaston, adding “then 270

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE you’ve got Common Core on top of that.” With that statement, she opened her eyes widely and exhaled, signaling that it seemed overwhelming to her—yet most of her work was not directly with school personnel. One of the service providers who directly worked with teachers to implement a classroom-based intervention, was also supportive of the CCLS, yet she feared that these external pressures were weighing on teachers. She also added her concern about another new state effort launched as a result of the Race to the Top application: new teacher evaluations: And it's a shame because CCLS came out of a need, nationally, not just in this state and not just in Northeaston. But nationally, for teachers to kind of step back, regroup, and figure out from a linear perspective what needs (hitting table) to come before and what needs to come after. That's the purpose of CCLS, and boy did it, it you know, it's not fair. It's not right what they did. And then at the same time to put a new teacher evaluation system in the equation. Are you nuts?

From her perspective, there was just too much happening at the same time. A building staff member even picked up on how these many state efforts may have muddled NPN implementation at the building level: “In terms of staff, like with, I know the teachers have the new evaluation, Common Core. And I hate to say it, but I think like their mind is maybe more on that.” The CCLS and new teacher evaluation systems were the most recent iteration of the state/federal policy reforms, but these efforts follow the tradition of the standards and accountability paradigm of federal and state reforms over the last thirty years. Two building staff members were keenly aware that this standards and accountability paradigm was not going anywhere soon and that their ultimate success would be judged by how much their student scores would increase. One of them made an interesting observation about what the public demands and the implications that had for his work with NPN:

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE And really the public only cares how well they perform on a state test. We have to focus our attention there, and we have to allow you know the people who focus on the fixing or providing additional supports for reducing crime. We have to allow them to do that type of work. So it's just different work. So it's almost as if you're ignoring the white noise, but you're acknowledging that the white noise is there in cases.

He perceived that his work to be separate and apart from the work being done in the neighborhood. After all, he was solely accountable to test scores. NPN, in his mind, was an intervention that “acknowledge[d]” the “white noise” of problems created by underdeveloped neighborhoods. My interpretation here is that this principal’s perspective is a product of the standards and accountability movement, created and reified by the state and federal governments. The point of this section was to report the external pressures that created difficult conditions within which NPN had to operate: underdeveloped neighborhood conditions, local politics, and state/federal politics and policy. In the next section, I will discuss the six challenges NPN experienced that were articulated by participants. Challenges. Given that the external environment created a set of particularly complex social and political forces, challenges abound which create a challenging environment in which NPN must operate. This section uncovers the six challenges uncovered across participants. Readers are reminded that this is a single case study which is contextually dependent on a particular environment and that challenges in this PBSR effort do not necessarily predict challenges in other environments. Instead, these findings suggest some problems that may be experienced by PBSR efforts and others that seek the goal of social equity (Oakes & Lipton, 2002). The “dysfunctional” school system. Scholars in the field have long known that central office bureaucracies have been challenging environments to nurture innovation and school

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE reform, hence a line of scholarship that investigates how to make districts more learning-centered and responsive to building needs (Honig, 2013, 2008; Honig & Copland, 2008). In this case, what some participants called “dysfunctional,” the school system was positioned as a major barrier to implementation of the school reform components of PBSR. One component of district dysfunction has been discussed briefly already—superintendent churn. Again, this is not a new phenomenon (Buchanan, 2006), yet research is on why they leave is scarce (Grissom & Andersen, 2012, Natkin…et al., 2002). A leadership vacuum at the top can create discontinuity and an inconsistent policy agenda and may even cause staff morale and ultimately student achievement (Alsbury, 2008). In the case of NPN, the superintendent who originally strongly supported the project left within a year of the planning grant being awarded to LFPI. As a result of this support, the superintendent agreed to enter an MOU with NPN that agreed to data sharing, certain financial provisions, and a strategy of encouraging neighborhood students to attend NPN schools. When he left, an interim superintendent was appointed who also supported NPN through the point when NPN received the implementation grant. Then, when she left, “[NPS] had a superintendent who knew nothing about (laughs) this relationship [with NPN],” as one of the service providers explained. Once this change happened, staff at NPN experienced difficulty in getting the MOU enforced. As this staffer explained, “we kind of made the incorrect assumption coming from a corporate background that, Northeaston [Public Schools] knew about this [MOU]… They didn't. No one knew about it.” At this point, the district’s relationship with NPN became precarious. Ten people from four groups (excluding residents) specifically mentioned that working with the district could be a challenge, or could be difficult, which has caused problems for NPN’s implementation.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Discrepancies over the MOU caused a major scuffle between central office and NPN when distributing resources to NES. The original language of the MOU read that NPN was entitled to receive funds from the district just like any other school, despite the fact that they received the additional US DoEd Promise Neighborhood grant. To me, the language seemed straightforward from the MOU: Additionally, schools receive supplemental per pupil allocations specifically for students of poverty, low performance and English Language Learners should they meet the requirements set forth by the applicable guidelines (Title I, Title III, C4E). Schools may also receive competitive grants such as School Improvement Grants…. Federal, State and local funding for the school(s) under EPO management shall be allocated in accordance with applicable federal, state and local law. However, as a participant noted, ‘The rub came when Dr. Herrera came in, and there was some advisement to her that we should not be funding the buildings at the level that we were funding them.” Three senior NPS officials were of the opinion that NPN should receive funding just like any other school, but the superintendent was reluctant to adhere to the MOU because of the possibility of saving money. One senior NPS administrator offered his perspective on why this happened: [Large districts] operate like a wounded animal. It's very unpredictable. It's, completely selfish…because it wants to survive, and it thinks that the only way to survive is at the, isolation and not sharing any of its bounty…[Central office administrators] think the money is theirs and the power is theirs…They see it as…extremely proprietary, and that's what destroys any type of partnership.

In line with resource dependency theory, organizations tend to act differently out of a belief that external factors may threaten their resources. This official believed that the central office’s concern over resources drove them to treat NPN differently than the MOU dictated. As a result, the implementation of the after-school program was delayed for about an entire year.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE The push-back from the MOU not only included tensions about sharing resources, but also about sharing data. NPS agreed through a data sharing agreement that NPN would have access to all student data available through their student data warehouse. One NPS staff member discussed a meeting with the NPS legal department: “Even our own legal department was like, ‘Oh no we can't agree to that.’ It’s like, why? That's exactly what this [original] agreement says we will do. ‘No I can't allow that.’” This was despite a careful negotiation process that a senior NPS official recalled in the interview: “We sat with board members and attorneys and go through and wordsmith word after word after word.” Current NPS officials all agreed that NPS was not living up to its obligations as a partner. As a result, they feared that NPN would “walk away” from the partnership. Once tensions over the MOU started, other problems followed. NPN lacked a single point of contact within the district to whom they could turn when issues arose. The only consistent point of contact was the assistant superintendent who supervised the principal of NES. It seemed that NPS had a lack of staff members who could even speak about NPN in great detail, who had been involved, or who interact with NPN on a regular basis. In fact, during the sampling process, NPN could not provide five names of people I could interview for my study because of this disconnect. Only one person with whom I spoke regularly interacted with NPN, while the others were involved at some point over the last four years. Two district staff members declined to be interviewed because they “[did] not think [they would] have much to offer on most of these questions” and because they “[were] not involved on a daily basis” (personal communication, Anonymous, October 21 and October 27, 2014). Generally, the assistant superintendent was the main point of contact, as reported by the NPN administration. The

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE superintendent “has historically” been on their board, but “he probably doesn't otherwise know that as part of the MOU between the district and NPN he has a standing seat on our board.” One of the most substantial challenges with the school district was related to Northeaston High School. At the time of writing, NPN no longer includes a high school component of the pipeline, which was in part attributable to the school system. In a later section, I will explain other contributing factors, but the school system created the ultimate decision that resulted in a terminated relationship. A NPN official reported that, despite NPN having a relationship with NHS, and already contracted an external school reform consultant, the district made the decision to open the school up to being adopted by an education management organization. As this person described it: The district came out and said, "We're going to seek a new [request for proposals] with NHS. And feel free to reapply," even though we were already in the contract with them. So we were kind of like, "You're giving us the boot?”

At that point, the news media reported that NHS would no longer be a part of the NPN. Later that year, the district announced plans to close NHS, which NPN staff seemed surprised by— since earlier in the year they were seeking a new manager. This was another example of the district positioned as “dysfunctional.” It should be stated that NPN seemed open to continuing to work with the district throughout the process, even with all the blemishes in the relationship. A senior NPN official recalled a recent conversation with the recently-appointed interim superintendent Juan Osborne: The last discussion I had with Juan, why don't we get the right players in the room? Whoever on your side believes that we might be a little too demanding, our standards are a little bit too high, let's get the issues on the table. Let's talk about how we could get a level of support, not such that puts you guys over the top and feel like you're never going to be able to meet our expectations. I know there's a happy medium somewhere. So, Juan and I had that conversation a few weeks ago, and it's a matter of one of us getting the group together. 276

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This quote highlighted NPN’s perspective on the core of the issue that could be happening between NPN and NPS—NPN’s high standards and culture of accountability. Going back to the corporate culture being a unique attribute of this particular PBSR. Again, not all participants were equally informed about the situation surrounding NHS. One building staff member recalled seeing a news story that reported that NHS was no longer affiliated with NPN. A principal simply said, “[The district is] a big machine, and that it moves at its own pace and does what it wants to do.” A service provider asked me, “I know NHS is a part of NPN, right?” She simply was not aware of the break in relationship. Most of the substantive information about the break between NPN and NHS came from three NPN staff (not all six) and four NPS officials (not all five). Such a finding suggests that certain staff members are privy only to certain information, communication across organizations is challenging without dedicated communications structures, and the nature of this problem was incredibly sensitive. Relationships with school systems are essential for PN grantees, and this section highlights some challenges experienced between school systems and lead PN organizations. Communication. As discussed, NPN is a new organization with strategies for early learning, school transformation, crime/safety, dual generation, and community engagement/neighborhood improvement. Given that they oversee so many different strategies, communication became an issue on several fronts: between staff, with service providers, to the neighborhood, and to building staff. Each of these will be discussed in this section. The first communication issue that NPN experienced was between its own staff members. Communications structures were built into the design of PBSR, as I discussed earlier (design feature #4). However, this still remained a challenge. While this was not directly discussed through many interviews, I observed these challenges during at least four field observations. 277

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Indirectly, NPN staff could not speak equally as well about different initiatives launched by NPN. For example, while two NPN staff members discussed the leadership development group (where residents worked on taking responsibility for dealing with the problems they presumably created), no other NPN staff members indicated that this was part of the NPN program framework. Similarly, the community engagement efforts, such as the commissions, were only mentioned by name in one interview—the one staff member who oversaw them. During field observation seven, they discussed the challenge of using consistent language to describe the core tenets of Promise Neighborhood to outside groups. This committee planned a training that they would conduct during monthly staff breakfasts—a forum for getting together and sharing new information about NPN efforts. However, communication between staff was not discussed as a specific challenge by staff members, so it was possible that these kinds of miscommunications were expected and that it could be handled by putting systems in place, such as the grassroots communications committee, weekly staff meetings, and monthly breakfasts. Given that NPN has over 25 staff members, it was reasonable that this challenge would exist. NPN also experienced some difficulty communicating with service providers. The challenges with communication came in a few forms. First, sometimes service providers were unsure about the role of other service providers. This became apparent when a service provider mentioned the name of a different service provider that I had not yet heard mentioned in other interviews. When she mentioned their name, she honestly remarked, “But I'm not quite sure what they provide. Because we hadn't been getting together lately. But I know they're also a collaborator.” In other instances, service providers working in one area simply were not familiar with the other dimensions of NPN’s work. Sometimes service providers would ask me what I knew about, for instance, NPN’s relationship with NPS, NHS leaving the partnership, parent

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE engagement programming, or community engagement efforts. Providers would simply indicate that they may do not have as much “first-hand” knowledge because a program may be out of the area that they serve. Another service provider mentioned that the health committee stopped meeting (discussed in next section with more detail), and she did not know what happened with it. The NPN staff member in charge of this “commission” had not updated her about it, “unless they proceeded without me, and I can't imagine they would just proceed without me at a meeting.” This difficulty in communication also came because of varying perceptions of the relationship manager / team meetings as sufficient ways for staying informed. Since I only observed the early learning, dual generation, and general NPN staff meetings, my observations are limited. One service provider mentioned that it was difficult for her to stay on top of all of the efforts going on, and that sometimes staff meetings could be too overloaded with information. As a result, she kept apologizing to me since she couldn’t remember all services NPN provided. Another youth-based service provider expressed difficulty in staying updated about NPN because “it was usually my bosses that connected with folks from NPN.” Another service provider confessed that “There are just too many committees to be a part of, or meetings for me to possibly attend them all,” so she really relies on her relationship manager to tell her “what’s going on in the neighborhood.” Interestingly, no NPN staff members indicated that communication with service providers as a challenge or issue to be handled. Next, NPN seemed to be aware of communication challenges in the neighborhood. NPN staff members openly admitted that they need to do a better job of getting the word out to the neighborhood, as it is “not as well-known as we want it to be.” As one of the residents mentioned: “you know, some people they get a flyer, and they - don't nobody really pay attention

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE to it.” Another resident, the only resident in my study of a dominant group (white), told me the two ways she gets information, which “obviously [was] not very much.” She reads about things in the newspaper and pamphlets distributed in the neighborhood. However, since she did not have children, she perceived NPN as an intervention that was not meant for her. This sentiment represented an unexpected finding: that NPN was perceived to be an intervention that was only for parents. Four of five parents agreed that NPN was only meant for families with children in school. When I asked one woman directly if NPN was only for parents, she replied, “Usually [people who were involved] would be more people that connected with kids.” These parents did not mention the Community Council as part of NPN programming, so in their estimation, NPN was only meant to help parents be more successful. Communication with residents and the broader neighborhood seemed to happen in a few ways: through school staff, through service providers, on a neighborhood billboard, signs with the NPN logo placed in front of rehabilitated homes, pamphlets and flyers distributed to homes, and occasional news stories. Unexpectedly, I found that the construction of the new early childhood learning center served as one of the strongest tools of communication reported by the residents. Still, they did not know exactly what NPN did and who it was for. Their curiosity drove them to inquire during the grand opening ceremony. One of the principals mentioned that she wanted to see more marketing in the neighborhood “because there are people who still live over here, and you can go up to them and be like, ‘What's NPN?’ They may not know.” While residents may see changes in the neighborhood, they also may not attribute them to NPN. Such challenges was another impetus for NPN to starting the Grassroots Communication Committee. The final communication challenged experienced by NPN was communication with building staff. It was clear that NPN attempted to keep principals informed about NPN efforts

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE and events, but the principals admitted that the amount of meetings can be a challenge given their busy days. Both principals admitted that they could not attend all meetings, and they had to prioritize about the most important ones. He recalled “except for the Mondays when I attend the meeting, I don't hear of anything that's taking place for NPN.” Still, even when principals attended the meetings, sometimes communication could still be an issue at the building level. One of the building staff members at BCCS simply said, “I wish the communication was a little bit better,” presumably because she felt like she was missing something. She was not aware of meetings that she could attend where she could get more information. She developed an informal relationship with a colleague at NES that helped, but the formal communications challenges were not readily available. She understood, though, conceding that “it's not at the top of their radar of running the school.” Communication between principals seemed to be another aspect of this challenge. One of the building leaders reported that they “don't work that closely” together outside of those meetings. They do “share ideas in those meetings. But do we go to each other's schools and visit and look at initiatives? No.” Communication between building leaders proved to be a challenge. While teachers were not interviewed for this study, one of the staff members speculated, “I'm not sure they would say that they have a huge role in NPN.” A former NPS staff member— now a service provider—mentioned that she was not sure if they were having conversations with teachers: “I would engage those teachers as soon as possible.” In fact, one of the service providers who had no formal role in NPN started asking me questions about the effort: was NPN responsible for home renovations that she saw? What things are they doing in the buildings? Are the new people she sees helping to serve breakfast affiliated with NPN? This particular staff

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE member seemed excited to have NPN in the building, but she admitted that she “[hadn’t] kept up with it as good as I should.” Another emergent issue was the extent to which building staff members recognized what programming was specifically implemented because of NPN. One of the principals told me that the staff at her school know that there were many partners and new programs coming in doing good work. But she did not “[separate] what is NPN versus what's SIG, what's just NPS. We don't do that. I don't think I do a good job at sharing that with my teachers.” As a result, building staff may not know what exactly is happening because of NPN. She speculated that she was not sure if the staff was certain, for example, if the school reform was happening because NPN’s role as the EMO. The other principal said that NPN information came to him more than it came to anyone else, but this principal did not always have the time to explain it all to teachers. He was comfortable with the fact that his school was “sort of left on an island…because I think education is a little bit different than…social change.” He positioned his personal involvement with NPN as what was important, but he and his staff did not need to know all details because they needed to focus on the educational side of the intervention. Communication with building staff seemed to be a challenge reported by actual building staff members, but again it was not mentioned as a challenge by NPN staff—suggesting that this may be a “blind spot.” The next challenge experienced was related to non-profit partnership formation and maintenance. Non-profit relations. Given that NPN’s “parent” organization (so to speak), Bellevue Foundation, had previously operated a school, they had limited experiences working directly with nonprofits. However, LFPI’s philanthropic arm had given grants directly to nonprofits for individual projects—not connected to a larger strategy. From the dataset, it was not apparent that the same LFPI employees who had worked with the philanthropic arm were now working

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE with the NPN effort. Learning to work directly with the nonprofit community on a collective impact project proved to be difficult for some NPN staff members in the following ways: learning about the non-profit funding landscape and fostering group accountability and collaboration between partners. Three NPN staff discussed the difficulty of coming to learn about the challenges encountered by non-profits who are looking for funding in an increasingly complex funding landscape. This system was “rigged against” the partners, given that they had to “chase” dollars based on a funder’s priority areas. As a result, a high-ranking NPN official wondered whether or not, because of this struggle for dollars, the organizations “develop a sweet spot,” or if they constantly vie for dollars and slightly change their programs based on these funding requests. He continued: “I didn't totally understand how not for profits continuously reinvent themselves to be sure they can go after the next wave of funding.” Additionally, NPN distributed its funding on a year-to-year basis through a contractual relationship with each partner. A NPN administrator described it this way: “There is no discussion in the contract saying that because you hit these targets, you get funded for next year. You're on a (hitting the table) basically a year to year contract.” Given that the funding environment for non-profits is a precarious one, some nonprofits could have become more stable with a 5-year contract. A NPN administrator recalled that some non-profits found it “different” because maybe they had not been held to “such a high standard” for funding. At least one contract needed to be terminated because they “could not hold up their end of the contract” related to achieving the agreed-upon results. In this case, NPN administration agreed that it was a mutual parting of ways. “For the most part, those partners agree[d]” that the contract should be terminated.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Working with NPN was not a hands-off endeavor for some partners. One provider “bent over backwards” to meet their standards, suggesting that working with such an effort was timeintensive and required a lot of attention. Other providers mentioned the number of meetings they attended, reports they wrote, or special efforts they made in order to live up to NPN’s expectations. Four of five service providers felt that, while the reporting standards were stringent and time-consuming, they were a part of something good that had the potential to help large numbers of students. Most partners did not speak about working with Promise in negative terms. In fact, one partner felt “wonderfully supported” in her work. Still, at least four partners admitted that the work is “political” on some level because such “powerful people” in the community were involved in these efforts. This could have created some additional pressure and perhaps constrained other more critical responses. Another challenge experienced by Promise was fostering group accountability and communication between partners. As discussed, NPN relationship managers attempted to hold regular meetings with partners to ensure partners could be in regular communication with each other. However, this has been “challenging” because of the “different organizational cultures.” As an example, this one NPN staff member mentioned that some of her partners were “slow and methodical,” while others were “Bam! Let’s go.” This same relationship manager delegated meeting management authority to the “slow, methodical” organization in hopes that they would take more ownership over the processes they were developing together. Another relationship manager discussed his frustration working with the non-profit school reform group Education Progress (EP). He simply “did not have a good experience with them” when implementing their reform model. Another high-ranking official echoed the issues with EP, but his frustration with them was over staffing. He did not believe they could get the “right” person in the job to

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE actually implement the reform, which was a point of “consternation between us.” These were some examples found in the dataset relating the challenges NPN had working with non-profit partners. Notably, one partner mentioned the difficulty in holding the group accountable for collective impact efforts. While this perspective was an outlier, it spoke to the real-world challenges associated with non-profit partner relations. In this person’s case, the program seemed to struggle to get participants to attend. However, this person shared the perspective that “if [my program] is not successful, then the [entire strategy] isn’t successful, and we’re not viewing it that way.” This provider questioned whether or not all the partners involved in her group were doing all they could do to encourage participation in this particular program. During the field observation, I observed some difficult discussions occurring with one partner about whether or not they were getting the desired results. However, when discussion happened between NPN and certain partners, one of the meeting facilitators made everyone promise to say “one nice thing” about people, and then “one critical thing.” This was an attempt to keep the meeting less contentious without publicly shaming the partner in question. Fostering a sense of group accountability was not easy for NPN, and I suspect that this would be challenging for lead organizations in a similar position. In the next section, I will discuss challenges associated with control of schools. Control of schools. One distinct aspect of the lead organization was its experience in managing and controlling a successful conversion charter school. LFPI wanted to take the community schools approach used at Bellevue Community Charter School and expand it to a neighborhood footprint. The program narrative document indicated that their “perspective is informed first by lessons learned at [Bellevue Charter School].” As a result, they wanted to

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE “adopt” or manage two new schools and try to replicate past successes, recognizing that a tailored approach may be needed. The school transformation strategy relied heavily on an “evidence-based” intervention operated by a school reform organization called “Education Progress.” This group would work with the high school and with grades 4-8. This school transformation strategy proved to be incredibly challenging when implemented on the ground. The clearest manifestation of this challenge was the removal of the high school from the strategy altogether. This removal of Northeaston High School as part of the NPN pipeline happened because of several factors. First, the district’s request for proposal (RFP) call for a new school reform partner. A high-ranking NPS official reported that the superintendent “just issue[d] a RFP…looking for a new partner.” Then, “it just went south from there.” Second, NPN administrators reported that many dollars had been invested in NHS with “no results.” NPN added attendance teachers, provided additional service coordination, hired an external school reform group, and hired a new principal. None of these efforts worked and, in line with NPN’s approach to data-driven decision-making, they redirected resources to other higherimpact practices. A NPN official admitted, “We thought we had something we could figure out and then we realized that we don't know what we're doing.” The story of NHS leaving the NPN partnership was much more complicated than this story, though, reflecting the challenges NPN faced when trying to reform the high school. One step taken by NPN was conducting a national search for a principal. Interestingly, no NPN officials told me about the national principal search, nor did they report the challenges experienced with this school leader. Three NPS officials, reported that “on the first day…he started coming down on teachers…disrespectful.” Another district official reported that there were so many grievances through the union that “I had to be over there almost every other day.”

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE The principal, an African-American male, made it a point to “side” so much with the students that he “came down” on the teachers. It started with the principal telling a teacher that he could not wear a baseball cap during staff meetings, which prompted a defiant response given that the district had no official dress code policy. Another NPS official reported that teachers were “not on the same page and [didn’t] feel supported by their principal.” In his words, the principal said, “Hey we're having PD every Saturday for the next 2 months,” to which the teachers replied, “Not going to do it.” Perhaps this school official was exaggerating, but the fact remained that the principal established a contentious relationship with teachers. At the same time, NPN implemented a comprehensive school reform (CSR) effort, EP, at the high school. Several factors contributed to the failure of this CSR effort at NHS. First, participants reported general issues with the organization and the fit with the school. A former principal reported that “at the end of the day, it didn't seem to be the right call for the school. And there was termination of the contract.” Also, it is possible that teachers were not sufficiently involved in the reform effort and did not respond well to the intervention. A current service provider and former NPS official put it, “[NPN] walked in and said, 'We're going to fix education in these schools,' and that's it. As if the teachers were irrelevant, or fungible." These comments suggested that the process of implementing the reform effort was not in line with how school officials and teachers felt that the school needed to be reformed. She continued: You had EP trying to say, "Oh this is how we're going to change things. This is what we require. We require you to do this. We require you to do this." Well you've already got people with their backs against the wall, and their arms folded against their chest saying, "Mmm mm, no we don't," and you're trying to implement. You have this consultant who's trying to change things. So it just - I think bringing an outsider who has a reputation as a school turn-around leader was not the best idea.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Like many CSR efforts, fidelity of implementation was stressed as an important aspect of program success. The NES principal also mentioned that EP’s program required a restructuring of the day, which did not fit with the teacher contracts. Further, EP was contracted to work with two other schools in the district. EP requested to terminate all NPS contracts for reasons that were not exactly clear. All of these factors combined—poor fit, a lack of teacher involvement,, union contract issues, and district contract issues—contributed in some way to the program’s failure. One NPS official offered a cynical comment about the implementation of the NHS school transformation strategy: I find that very hilarious, that NPN did the search and brought the gentleman in, and then he was all of a sudden the fall guy - when things weren't working, “Oh, Kenneth Patrick [former NHS principal] has to go. He's not the change leader that we expected.”

Such perspectives uncover the deep complexities of (1) reforming high schools in general and (2) managing a school change process in a high-need school in an underdeveloped neighborhood specifically. Additional factors that contributed to the lack of success of the NHS school transformation strategy were discussed by NPN officials. For example, there was a long tradition of academic underperformance of the students. A NPN official “wouldn’t kid himself and think that I could go in, figure out how to get kids who are academically way behind…and within 4 years get them ready for college.” Another NPN staff member recalled the analysis they conducted tracing the roots of academic underperformance back to third grade: Even when EP left, we reinvested, we brought in a new principal at NHS. All that was to try to turn around the high school, thinking that we have to get these kids on track in 9th grade. The more we were analytical, and started looking at the data, we came to the conclusion that 9th grade was too late…So what you had was this clear line, where back to 3rd grade, they were never on grade level. They got passed on every single year, they did worse every single year. And when you 288

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE get to 9th grade, and this problem manifests at 9th grade, what is the carrot that you're dangling to a 14-15 year old about your career, or graduation, or college, and, going back to 3rd grade, they've never done so great at school.

A high-ranking official also pointed to other factors that may have contributed to the failure of EP, from a previous effort implemented at NPS pushed down onto teachers from the top to teachers being “entrenched in the status quo” to EP “settling for lesser-qualified talent” to operate the program. Uncovering the causation of the program’s failure and NHS’s ultimate disassociation from the NPN effort is beyond the scope of this paper. Still, it is sufficient to say that the school transformation strategy was a major challenge. The management and control of NHS proved to be an insurmountable challenge. Still, a school transformation strategy remained intact at NES. Originally, this strategy included in EP until the contract was terminated. Currently, they have hired a specific superintendent for the building who brought experience of being superintendent of a smaller suburban district with an enrollment of under 3000 students. This reform effort was still underway with the support of the US Department of Education’s School Improvement Grants. This effort seemed to be more successful because of several factors mentioned in interviews: increased teacher support, minimal curriculum change, an improved school culture, support for the principal, additional support services for students, paraprofessionals added to the school, an after-school program, programs for parents of younger children, and an extended day. Nine participants across four groups agreed that this effort still underway did provide teacher support. Other participants mentioned that the school culture had “transformed” over the last two years. Even with these positive impacts mentioned, others were unsure about whether or not the effort at NES was successful because of a few things. Four participants from the NPS administration and service provider groups questioned whether or not the effort demonstrated 289

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE any “true innovation.” One service provider was not convinced that the program worked because she had not seen the data. A NPS official also wanted to reserve judgement of success or failure until he “looked at outcomes.” One NPS official reflected on the program, saying that he wasn’t sure of specific efforts that were underway at the school. While this may be a question of communication, it also suggested that NPN needed to do more work to convince stakeholders that their management of the schools were successful. In summary, the management and control of a CSR strategy by NPN was a challenge, given the many obstacles experienced by the lead organization. In the next section, I outline the final challenge: individual interventions versus systems change. Individual interventions vs. systems change. NPN leadership, along with a majority of other participants, recognized that NPN was positioned as a primarily educational intervention. As part of the document analysis, I revealed that the NPN strategy was attempting to build a new educational system that attempted to move children from birth to college, given that the current educational system was not meeting that goal. Implicit in this viewpoint was that such a new system would necessitate a systems-level intervention where current practices were reimagined and reshaped. However, based on an analysis of the interview and field observation data, NPN was largely positioned as an individual intervention with the exception of the school transformation work—which largely focused on the work of one school after NHS dropped out. Four residents interviewed perceived that NPN was there to “offer help if you want help.” Another resident reported on the work that NPN conducted with them through one-on-one consultation and personal development activities. Field observations revealed that they have built a program that specifically existed to serve a narrow segment of residents—parents of the youngest children. Admittedly, a support group of parents existed to support individual parents

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE as they sought assistance. Still, the intervention was not targeted at all families in the NPN. Also, large-scale systemic interventions to specifically work with adults were absent from NPN’s program model. One service provider, in the context of her work with schools and education, noticed that what was needed was a “systemic conversation, and there's not yet. Because again I think that's the challenge in looking at things in 3-5 year cycles. This is like a 10 year cycle.” She seemed hopeful that NPN’s work could lead to a systemic discussion about how to best improve the early childhood education pipeline between the community-based providers and the district. However, the systemic discussion was not yet there. In other words, for this participant, NPN was intervening within a broken system—doing the best it could at the time—and providing a superior early childhood education for a small population within the neighborhood. NPN staff also discussed the desire to not replicate efforts of other non-profits, but not necessarily bringing them together to align efforts. One staff member commented that “we're not trying to replicate or duplicate what not for profits are doing. So it helps us keep focused and centered so we don't try to be a not-for-profit.” She mentioned that “you have these one-offs” that they’re trying to do, especially in relation to the neighborhood revitalization strategy. For example, “there's probably 3 other homes that we could acquire on that street. You turn that street around to a great street, and you get families to move in there.” But she also mentioned efforts that NPN does not do, such as universal design improvements to houses if a disabled or elderly. She was honest about what NPN did not do, and NPN’s strategy for a person in need of a specific thing: “We have to be able to connect people with those one-off types of calls.” I interpret this as a challenge because NPN cannot be all things to all people. These kinds of organizations have large-scale responsibilities for attacking problems and mediating challenges for residents. However, their own capacity is limited to attack issues as the systems level. The

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE implication is that a pressure seemed to exist between knowing what the goals of NPN are and sticking to them and reassessing the service delivery package to ensure it is in line with resident’s needs. The challenge seemed to come in because there is a realization that NPN could not attack things on a systems level, and no participants discussed it. During field observations, parents who attended the PSN meetings certainly alluded to struggles and challenges they faced every day, created by larger systemic forces. For example, one woman mentioned that the Department of Social Services may be a barrier for her qualifying for a scholarship. The NPN staff member replied with: DSS has their own requirements, especially if you’re getting unemployment…with DSS, it has to be an approved program – 15-30 hours of school per week. Some of the programs are great, like the arts and technology programming, but they don’t meet the DSS requirements

There might have been a structural issue that NPN could have identified in that moment, but the sentiment was, “This is the way it is, and we just have to deal with it.” The way that NPN would work on this issue would be through one-on-one consultation with residents to investigate their goals and see if there could be a way to help the parent deal with the situation. The policy environment seemed to not be the unit of intervention. In the case of service delivery, the unit of intervention was not the neighborhood. Instead, it was at the level of individual through the examples of the backpack program, financial workshops and goal-setting, food programs, and educational training programs. This challenge of “individual vs systemic” interventions was also linked back to the challenge of defining “What is NPN” for people who are not affiliated with schools (e.g. is NPN an intervention only for parents of school-aged children?). One NPN administrator discussed the challenge this way:

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE So it's about how do we continue to get the word out to the 12,000+ people in the neighborhood about Promise, and is there a connection? What's in it for me? How do I access - whatever the service is? But if you're not K- or Pre-K or infant through 8th grade, and a parent in the school, it's sort of difficult. If you're not involved with the council, it's sort of difficult. It is “sort of difficult” to ensure that the intervention is applied across the neighborhood, which is complex because NPN operates under the auspices of a neighborhood-as-unit-of-intervention strategy. Success stories were shared with me about individual parents attaining a training credential (which hypothetically would lead to a job), an individual building improvement, a small group of rehabilitated homes, or children who received an individual service. Most participants, however, were unsure about the impact of NPN across the neighborhood. My point is not to downplay the successes NPN experienced for parents (residents). Instead, my point is to suggest that crafting a systemic intervention was a challenge, and it is still a work-in-progress. Further, research on the Harlem Children’s Zone revealed that a “conveyer belt” of services offered to individuals are not likely to “sparked seamless integration of public social services” (The Aspen Institute, 2011, p. 146). In the next section, Theory Versus Reality, I will discuss specific areas where NPN’s implementation did not translate perfectly from paper to practice, such as service delivery. Theory versus Reality. This section is related to but distinct from challenges experienced by NPN. My purpose in the next section is to give a sense of specific areas that a PBSR had planned to go one way, yet it happened in another. All projects that seek to work with people and the community inevitably look different on paper than they do contextualized in the real world. This section highlights those areas where NPN experienced differences in implementation which resulted in a changed or unexpected strategy, born out of the external pressures and the challenges. I will explain seven areas where I observed a “theory versus 293

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE reality” situation: health, housing, college/career, access to services/supportive services, school system collaboration, school transformation, and “silos.” Health. An emphasis of the grant proposal was ensuring that all residents had a medical home. The grant proposal advanced this idea clearly: Part of our theory of action is that a strong partnership promoting child health between new parents and health center staff can transfer to a strong partnership promoting early learning between new parents, early learning sites, and our schools. This plan included comprehensive health screenings, a comprehensive school-based nutrition program, and the placement of a family advocate at the neighborhood-based health center. These plans were to be overseen by the “health commission” group launched after NPN implementation. However, during the interviews, seven participants across four groups mentioned healthbased partnerships that seemed quite different than discussed in the grant. Most of these participants mentioned the health center in passing, usually in the context of “making referrals.” Two participants actually understood the health partnership to be different than reality: that NPN “opened a health center down the street from NHS.” One of these participants, a building staff member, confessed that she “might have that wrong, I just thought that was part of what was mentioned.” One participant mentioned the health center in the context of Head Start health screenings that are part of the typical Head Start intervention. As she mentioned, “a lot of our families already have health insurance.” A building staff member at BCCS discussed a “nutritionist,” but she wasn’t sure if that was at the building because of NPN, or if it was already in place. She further mentioned that this nutritionist was no longer part of the school since she

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE was funded through a grant, and she recalled that “original grant was for her to help teach teachers nutrition to - but it ended up that she taught nutrition to the classes. And now we're like, ‘Now what?’” The nutrition program at BCCS resonated with other participants. Having a “chef, not a cook” in the building was “pretty special for the kids,” as two NPS officials recalled. Still, this effort was not necessarily associated with NPN implementation. One specific provider wondered what happened to the health programming, given that she was a part of the health commission that was meeting regularly. She “probably would still go” if the meetings were still happening, but she perceived that these meetings had been stopped. This was confirmed by a NPN staff member, “There's not one for health. That's one of the ones that went away. That was one that didn't get a lot of ‘Yay, we want to continue to focus on that.’” While the idea of these commissions was to engage the community, one service provider mentioned that they “ended up being more service providers” who participated on the health commission. So, in her estimation—the only service provider to mention the health commission—she “toured the building, we've referred people to them. But what they're doing for NPN I'm not sure.” Health programs were also not mentioned in any field observations, with the exception of the first NPN staff meeting where they wanted to showcase the nutrition program at BCCS in a PowerPoint presentation. In reality, the health strategy comprised referrals to the health center through other service providers, a nutrition program in BCCS (started before NPN launched), and classes provided by the health center (if asked by people or groups in the neighborhood). Additionally, the health center supposedly was a part of early childhood meetings, but the field observation did not confirm this strategy. On the agenda, the health center was not included as a group that provided monthly updates. Still, two participant did mention that health center representatives

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE were supposed to attend those meetings. This strategy was quite different from the original plan of attempting to build a coordinated system of ensuring that residents had a medical home. Interestingly, no participants reflected on the challenges associated with implementing the health strategy, leaving me with the perception that it was generally accepted that the health strategy had taken a back seat to the other strategies. Housing. As a part of the Supportive Services Network, NPN was attempting to implement a limited housing strategy. According to their plan, they wanted to rehabilitate and resell 10 homes, provide homeownership and financial education to new homebuyers, rehabilitate at least 35 owner-occupied houses, apply for additional funding, and conduct property management workshops for neighborhood investor-owners. All of this would be coordinated by an “affordable housing service network and improvement team.” The implementation plan relies on NPN staff to refer residents “based on individual circumstances” to a group of providers who regularly meet. When interviewing participants, including NPN staff, the only housing strategy referenced was WHIS recent rehabilitation of ten homes in the neighborhood. A NPN staff member did report on a “federal home loan to do maintenance and repair on owner-occupied housing,” but no one else in the sample was aware of that program. During field observation six, a NPN staff member approached me and mentioned that she was interested in talking to me and some of my colleagues about putting together a housing strategy. This comment suggested that the housing strategy had not yet been implemented.

In fact, some participants would either

seem uncertain or simply ask me if the home rehabilitation project was part of NPN. For example, a building staff member noted, “I saw houses being redone around the school. And then being resold or rented…again I'm speculating, but I think it's part of their partnership” with

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE the local housing improvement group. An NPS staffer “understood” they have done “some renovation” projects, but she was not exactly certain. A service provider briefly mentioned the housing partnership to “bring in housing and redevelop housing,” but she was not certain about the details. It was not clear if the housing strategy involved getting residents to move from being renters to being homeowners. A service provider specifically mentioned that they wanted to “increase homeowners in the area.” A NPN official thought it was NPN’s role to have discussions with residents about “economics,” by telling them, “you're paying as much money as you could be a homeowner and starting to build some type of equity.” An NES building staffer also observed that many parents are renters, but “maybe instead of being renters, they'll go from renters from rent to own.” During field observation five, one of the group presenters asked residents if they paid more than $600 for rent. She encouraged them to consider homeownership “because it could help your credit and to build equity.” This comment was framed as advice to residents—not part of a formal strategy. While these observations were an important part of how participants understood NPN’s housing strategy, it was not clear to me if NPN had an explicit homeownership strategy. The grant application documented the local housing partnership in terms of this goal: “purchase/rehab/resell homes and provide homeownership opportunities and housing assistance.” “Homeownership opportunities” were not the same as specifically counseling residents to move from renters to owners, but certainly some participants perceived NPN’s actions as a goal of NPN. Still, these strategies were not as formal as discussed in the grant proposal.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE College/career. The educational pipeline is a key concept related to place-based school reform, in that these new neighborhood-based systems seek to support children in their journeys from early childhood education through college or a career. Images of the “leaky pipeline” are meant to illustrate the different parts of or transitions within the educational experience where students drop out, or are at higher risk to succeed. NPN’s strategy was no different in that the NPN strategy had the explicit goal of getting students to enroll in college and/or a career. To this end, NPN outlined a robust strategy targeting high school students to support their transition from high school to college (or toward some kind of post-secondary credential). Like other strategies, though, the college/career strategy looked very different after experiencing a variety of challenges. Formally, NPN had several new initiatives they wanted to launch primarily through NHS: a college/career success center, internship/employability programs, career academy reform, a college/career passport program, intensive college/career mentoring, re-engagement programs for youth who have dropped out, and an entire support network of other college access providers across the city convened regularly dedicated to “coordinating, streamlining, and improving” college/career services. Some of the main partners were the University of Northeaston, InnerCity Connected, Prairie Academic Supports (PAS), and Education Progress (EP). Across the interviews, virtually no one discussed the college/career programming because of the previous challenges discussed: the dysfunctional school system, challenges implementing a comprehensive school reform effort, and ultimately NHS dropping out. As a result, many of these initiatives were discontinued. A NPN official discussed how NPN adapted to these conditions, given that the high school reform effort proved so challenging: Last year, at Bellevue, our 8th grade class was like 60, I think it was 60 kids, 45% of them went to privates and non-criteria’s, of which we funded, 10, we funded 298

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE scholarships to go to private schools because we felt like, we wanted our kids to go to college. If you live in this area, that's how kids go to college. We don't need to reinvent the wheel try to run our own high schools that compete with those, you got a perfect system there...let's see if we can do what we can to get them in… the neighborhood based approach always allowed for after 12th grade you would clearly send them out of the neighborhood because they're going to college. So if we don't have a competitive high school, what's the difference if we move that up four years? It's the same thing.

NPN adapted their approach to college and career by working to enroll their students in criterion and private high schools when possible. The strategies targeting drop-out youths ceased, along with other forms of career development in middle and high school. Further, the above quote suggests that the college/career strategy never was meant to bring students back to the neighborhood after students matriculated into college or entered a training program. The component that came closest to a college or career program was the Parent Support Network’s programming with Northeaston Community College and the local education and training center. However, these efforts targeted parents—not children. Service delivery system/access to services. NPN sought to establish a family and community services network, which encapsulated health/medical home outreach, violence/gang prevention in and out of schools, housing services, transportation, adult education, and broadband and computer training. Similar to other efforts, these groups would be linked together through a management team that would monitor the implementation of these services. Notably, most participants discussed that NPN’s role was to connect residents with additional services. The participants mostly perceived that NPN was bringing “new” programs and services to the table to either help transform the school or to provide families with additional support services. The grant proposal framed a vision for a new service delivery system: While individual programs and services are important, successfully meeting student and family needs requires that a continuum of solutions includes 1) a 299

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE framework for transforming programs into integrated, well-coordinated initiatives built on a sound theory of change; 2) a service delivery system that operates as closely and harmoniously to students and classrooms as possible, and 3) a set of management systems that organize a broad-based coalition into a highperformance operation. Above all, the overall “system” must deliver what students require most: steady, nurturing relationships throughout their academic journey.

This new kind of system would operate out of Student Success Centers at each school, but there would also be a location in the neighborhood. These would as a “home base” and “welcome space” for student/family advocates to connect with families. These advocates would develop a relationship with families, connect with teachers and school staff to align services, work across service teams to analyze data, and ensure on-site coordination of services. Family advocates would use a “service delivery system” that would be shared with leaders of other efforts to ensure they could monitor and evaluate a particular student’s/family’s service mix. In reality, though, the support service system looked markedly different based on the interviews and field observations. To begin, no one discussed the creation of “family support centers,” neither in the context of the schools nor in the context of community. Two site facilitators coordinated supportive services at the building level of BCCS and NES—both of whom were included in the study. These facilitators agreed that the position varied depending on the building, but they described their daily work as “liaising with families, community partners, and teachers” to ensure they’re “getting [helpful] information” while helping with the “implementation of services.” The NES principal described their work as being the “contact person for all the organization, which helps me out…because sometimes it’s hard” to communicate with so many partners. At NES, the facilitator assumed responsibility for operating the after-school program, bringing together all NES partners at periodic meetings to exchange information, overseeing special projects (e.g. the backpack food program), and 300

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE implementing certain aspects of the positive behavior interventions and supports (PBIS) program (discussed earlier). At BCCS, the facilitator operated a check-in-check-out behavior monitoring program, brought together partners for periodic meetings, and oversaw special projects (e.g. Seeking Peace Together [SPT] gang prevention program). Interestingly, neither the site facilitators nor the service providers discussed access to a common service delivery system to monitor and evaluate. Instead, the only mention of data systems was related to NPN’s data agreement with NPS. At times, site facilitators would have to access NPS data systems for PBIS-related interventions, but it was not clear that their jobs included monitoring service delivery to ensure alignment and impact. Building leaders also did not report that anyone in the building was in charge of tracking interventions to ensure alignment between programs. Indirectly, though, the impact of programs were monitored through attendance data. Still, the building level facilitators did not report discussing these data points with the building leaders. They very much saw their job as attending to the educational purposes of the NPN intervention—not the service delivery system. The gang violence prevention strategy (see earlier “Crime and safety” section), originally located in the high school, was moved to BCCS. The BCCS site facilitator did not explain much about the program other than the fact that it meets a “social and emotional need” through getting students involved in a “variety of positive programs in and out of school.” These could be community service or arts and crafts programs, but the point was to keep students engaged in positive youth development programming. Parent engagement programming, like Harlem Children’s Zone Parent University, developed into a strategy of its own (see earlier “Dual generation” section). Again, the parent engagement programming targeted younger parents (pre-school through first/second grade)—not

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE necessarily all parents. However, some basic needs programming could be used by all parents. For example, site facilitators worked with the Community Council to do a holiday food giveaway. They also coordinated financial education workshops that could be attended by any parent in the school. Broadband internet access efforts were also tailored toward parents involved in the PSN. During two field observations, I recorded that families completed surveys asking them about access to the internet. During the dual generation staff meeting observation, it was discussed that these surveys would be used in documenting the need for a broadband program through an external group (that remained unnamed). Interestingly, the first time parents took the survey, they reported that a majority of parents had access to the internet through their cell phones—not through laptop or desktop computers. Overall, the “service delivery system” could be described as an individual-referral-asable system with an aspect of search-for-new-service-providers-as-able. Many participants agreed that “NPN has a lot of partnerships with things…and organizations” through its “connections” and “resources.” While some of these services were explicitly described (e.g. backpack food program, holiday food program, professional attire program, 1:1 financial and educational workshops/goal-setting for parents of younger children, SPT, and an annual leadership development conference for youths), it seemed that most participants assumed that NPN provided additional wrap-around services in the school of which they were not aware. Seventeen participants commented that NPN’s role in school transformation was the provision of wrap-around services, yet they were vague about what exactly these services were. For example, an NPS staff member commented, “I'm making the assumption that there are more resources along those lines that are available for struggling students on the emotional end.” A former

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE building leader discussed supports that were no longer available, such as Prairie Academic Supports at NHS. A senior NPS official mentioned that she thought additional services were being offered, but she questioned, “How do we make sure that the kids get them? How do we make sure that they have access to the supports?” This comment suggested that she was unsure about the method of delivery. In other words, she was unsure if a wrap-around service system of delivery was in place. Another NPS official also assumed that new services were being offered, but he admitted that he could not name them. In the next section, I will explain the changed relationship with the school system in light of the challenges related to the “dysfunctional district.” School system collaboration. As discussed earlier, the local school district experienced major challenges, including superintendent churn and discrepancies with the MOU. These challenges resulted in a changed relationship between NPN and the district. Originally, the district’s role was articulated in the MOU: data sharing, supplementing funding for NPN schools, establishment of a cluster feeder system, and regular communication with district stakeholders. The superintendent also assumed a spot on the NPN board of directors to ensure alignment between the district and NPN. Originally, the superintendent in office when they submitted the planning grant strongly supported NPN’s strategy which was affirmed when signing an MOU agreeing to full sharing of NPS student data. The interim superintendent also strongly supported the strategy and upheld the MOU. However, the “permanent” replacement, Dr. Herrera, seemed skeptical of the relationship, at which point the relationship began to disintegrate. As a result of this strained relationship, combined with building-based problems, NHS was removed from the pipeline strategy. This fundamentally changed the relationship with the district. At the writing of the

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE study, the relationship with NPS consists of the following components: an intact data sharing agreement (in partnership with CIE), educational management organization status for NES, weekly data meetings with one representative from the district present, and changes in the school choice process to encourage neighborhood students. When identifying people in the district central office who could speak about the partnership, NPN staff members pointed me to only two staff members. One of these staff members was the official liaison, while the other person helped facilitate the open enrollment process. The additional NPS staff were acquired through snowball sampling based recommendations from the two district points of contact. Other participants included a person who helped to broker initial conversations but no longer has an official NPN-related responsibility, a staffer from the Title 1 office, and a senior central office administrator and formal principal. One service provider even observed that “there are a few [district] staff members that people go to as go-to people who are functional and consistent.” A NPN official described how people in the district perceived NPN: this staffer would get a call saying, “The NPN people are bothering us again.” Needless to say, this was a difference from when the relationship started. Over half of the participants knew that the relationship between NPN and the district was “difficult.” As a result of these challenges, the high school reform strategy was replaced with a strategy of getting children to enroll in private, criteria, or high-performing charter schools. Also, NES experienced a delayed-start after-school program. This came after a long battle with the district’s finance department. Still, the situation remained uncertain about releasing certain dollars to NPN. A high-level official “think[s] that the current superintendent is still being advised not to give the monies.” This came down to a conflict in legal departments: “Our legal team sees it one way. Their legal team sees it another way.” The conflict remained unresolved,

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE but the school was able to start an after-school program through a school improvement grant (SIG), where the district only acted as a financial pass-through organization. The current interim superintendent, who will leave office in less than two months from the writing of this document, was invited to join the board of directors. Simply stated, the health of the NPN-NPS partnership “worried” three of five district officials, because “trust has been broken.” One official claimed that “you have all-out disintegration” of the relationship. Unfortunately, the district collaboration is unsettled at this point. School transformation. In a similar way to the district’s relationship, the school transformation strategy encountered major barriers: the main school reform group’s contract termination and the high school’s removal from the project. NPN planned a comprehensive school transformation strategy: replicating BCCS reform efforts at NES (a reformed reading program, full service community schools approach, extended school day and year, and parent engagement), contracting with an external reform agency (Education Progress), overhauling Career Academies, hiring parent advocates and support services through Students Can Succeed, bringing in paraprofessional young adult service workers to work with teachers and after-school (contract with Patriotic Services), implementing after-school programs, establishing a feeder system, launching nutrition and arts/humanities programming. Some of the changes to the school transformation strategy have been discussed in previous places. However, I offer a recapitulation here, while also mentioning deviations from the plan that have not yet been discussed. In reality, the entire reform plan for the high school was eliminated when NPN decided to discontinue the partnership with the high school, which was caused jointly by the friction with NPS, the principal’s contentious relationship with teachers, and challenges with the school reform group, EP. BCCS operated a nutrition program

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE for at least two years, but the grant ran out. Two participants mentioned that a “school garden at Bellevue” has been implemented, as well. Now, BCCS still has a nutritionist and a chef that cooks healthy food, which seemed to be in place before NPN launched. Participants reported no parallel nutrition program at NES. NES reported a “slightly” changed literacy curriculum, but they also hired a superintendent to oversee the NES reforms which included increased professional development. Participants did not report the specific activities happening with PD sessions, but that may be because (1) my study did not aim to understand curricular reforms and (2) I did not interview teachers. Site facilitators—not parent advocates—were hired at NES, BCCS, and NHS. These staff’s responsibilities were explained in an earlier section. However, the plan “include[d] preventative services like mental health, basic social services, parent/family advocacy, and mentoring.” Then, other services would be added on an “as-needed” basis. Participants were vague in reporting the specific services that were offered, as discussed earlier. Certainly no one mentioned grief and loss counseling, additional social workers, or conflict resolution—the examples offered in the program description document. An after-school program was launched in both schools, but the start date was delayed because of conflicts with NPS. At NES, the program was funded by the SIG grant and coordinated by the site facilitator. At BCCS, the program was operated by a local non-profit partner but was slightly scaled down because of a lack of resources. Both programs relied on PS members to provide enrichment programs and activities based on their unique skill sets. One participant reported that a local arts and humanities non-profit was contracted to operate a program in one of the schools. Finally, there were two occasions when NPN staff mentioned physical improvements made at BCCS, but offered no details. In my assessment, the reality of

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE school transformation looked drastically different from the original plan because of the significant challenges experienced between the district and the external reform organization. I will conclude this section by discussing the final aspect that looked different than the original plan—silos. “Silos.” When reading the project plan, a common theme of the document was integration. The word “integrate” in some form was mentioned 35 times. Sometimes the word referred to their intention of integrating funding streams, but it usually referred to their intention to integrate services through creating “integrative systems.” This quote from the project plan articulated it best: While individual programs and services are important, successfully meeting student and family needs requires that a continuum of solutions includes 1) a framework for transforming programs into integrated, well-coordinated initiatives built on a sound theory of change; 2) a service delivery system that operates as closely and harmoniously to students and classrooms as possible, and 3) a set of management systems that organize a broad-based coalition into a highperformance operation. Above all, the overall “system” must deliver what students require most: steady, nurturing relationships throughout their academic journey.

I interpreted this quote, and similar quotes, in terms of breaking down silos between programs and systems that prevent families and children from getting needed services, or working to prevent service duplication, or even to create a system that can look at a student’s or a family’s full service delivery mix to understand what works to address their issues. One senior NPN official raised this issue of silos: “We have a high level of collaboration with our partners. And what that has done, that has reduced the silos.” NPN seemed to be interested in breaking down silos in theory. However, in reality, I realized that new silos had been created, even within the organization. Evidence for this assertion came from small comments from staff members along 307

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE the line of, for example, “I work with my specific program, so I don’t have as much to do with the neighborhood as a whole.” If I would ask a building staff member about the programs in the neighborhood, they would tell me that they were “unsure” about neighborhood work since their focus was the school. Or, when I asked someone who worked with dual generation programs about school-based work, they referred me to another staff member to answer my question because she “wouldn’t be the right person” to talk about school issues. On three occasions, when I asked about community engagement efforts, participants suggested that I speak to NPN’s Kendra who was “really the lead facilitator for making sure [we’re] aligning with the community.” Some of this referral made sense because it seemed logical to delegate tasks to a specific person to prevent miscommunication. The reason why this struck me was because NPN’s stated goal was integration of services and programs, thus fighting against silos. Some people were simply not knowledgeable about certain programs that NPN implemented because it was not “their area.” For example, the resident leadership development program was simply not mentioned at all by any participants except for two NPN staffers—even the residents interviewed seemed unaware. The school transformation strategy was not fully articulated by any participants. The most frequent comment about the transformation plan was additional teacher professional development and additional supports in the school. NPN staff members told me that I would have to talk to the relationship manager for school transformation, but he declined my interview request. Interestingly, one building staff member was “not sure…of the safety initiative and stuff like that,” indicating that her knowledge was limited. Further, she mentioned that she was not aware of any meetings with NPN where she could find out more information. One service provider

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE based in the schools was asked about how NPN worked with NPS, but she “didn’t know that,” and this was followed by a question posed to me asking if I knew. To their credit, NPN recognized that communication across areas was difficult, so they established a “grassroots communications” committee (mentioned earlier). Further, their work was organized in terms of broad strategy areas instead of by individual programs—in line with lessons learned from comprehensive community initiatives (Aspen Institute, 2011). Still, there seemed to be the sentiment that certain people were expected to be knowledgeable about only their areas of work as opposed to the overall neighborhood improvement effort. These examples made me wonder how possible it was to build an integrated strategy if people did not have basic knowledge of the variety of efforts undertaken by this effort. It is possible that some participants simply wanted to avoid, for instance, the politics of the school system—to which at least two participants alluded. Or it is possible that communication becomes muddled when too many people were involved. Regardless of the reasons, the NPN effort seemed to struggle with breaking down silos and re-creating them. This challenge seemed to be representative of the comprehensive community change efforts and also spoke to the previously-mentioned challenge of individual versus systemic change (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2013): The priorities for public sector system reform that would best support community change agenda, notably decategorizing funding streams and breaking down programmatic silos, must be done by leaders of those systems. Place-based work alone is not sufficient to stimulate systemic reforms that ensure that residents of low-income communities gain access to the opportunity structures that can change their life outcomes (Aspen Institute, 2011, p. 182).

While NPN was connected with city, county, and school system leaders, it was clear based on the interviews and field observations that silos between public agencies, as well as internal silos, persisted. NPN leaders did not report on their efforts to break down public sector silos, but

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE instead focused on their specific programs and trying to find ways to make programs work for their residents. While the “silo-busting” strategy was articulated in their plan, this strategy changed once implementation began in the real world. Now that the emergent implementation challenges for NPN have been discussed at length, I will turn my attention to the issue of school choice. The next chapter will explore how participants perceived how school choice complicated or complemented the PBSR strategy.

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CHAPTER 8: Results for Research Question 3: How does school choice complicate the development of place-based school reform strategies? Up to this point, I have focused on both how participants made sense of Promise Neighborhood and what the intervention looked like when it was being implemented. Now, my discussion will take a turn to look at a separate issue that could have impacted PN implementation: school choice. Implementing place-based school reform (PBSR) in an environment where families are free to choose schools located across the city seemed, on the surface, to create potential challenges. Based on the review of the literature, and observations and data collected by the author, a neighborhood-based intervention would encounter inevitable challenges when the target neighborhood-based population left their environment for six to eight hours per day to attend school. The literature fell silent on this tension. It was for these reasons that I used this study to investigate this phenomenon. In this final section of Chapter Four, I present results that suggested a divided consensus: participants reported that school choice was a non-issue or complemented NPN, while also acknowledging that school choice complicated NPN. The section concludes by exploring how NPN administration and stakeholders dealt with this conflict. The section begins by offering a brief overview of the school choice context in Northeaston.

School choice as a Non-Issue for or Complemented NPN. In theory, school choice has been discussed as a way for low-performing students to escape their low-performing neighborhood school. This filter likely colors participants’ responses. Fifteen participants across four groups (excluding residents) felt that school choice either was a non-issue for Promise

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Neighborhood or felt that NPN was complemented by school choice. Further, across all field observations, school choice was never discussed. In fact, a NPN staff member told me that he would let me know if any meetings arose where school choice or neighborhood schooling would be discussed. I never heard back from him, so I do not know whether or not these meeting occurred. Many participants, when asked about the impact of school choice on the NPN strategy, responded with an ambivalent response—“yes and no”—indicating that school choice could both complement and conflict with NPN’s strategy. This section will discuss the “no” responses, which fell into three categories: school choice offers families options, school choice offers an opportunity to help families from outside the footprint, and charter schools seemed to be more concerned with enrollment numbers—not necessarily neighborhood students. School choice offers opportunities for families. “I think that families should always have the choice to go where they believe is the best for their children,” affirmed a building staff member. This quote was indicative of other such responses. While NPN specifically designed an intervention to improve these schools, the fact remained that these schools were still lowerperforming schools. One of the principals observed, “I think our issue at least for school choice, is more of a performance issue than it is a like, than it is an open enrollment.” Until NPN could offer a superior educational experience for children, participants were sympathetic as to why school choice was not a complicating factor for NPN, since it provided families with an opportunity to get a better-quality education. This benefit was good for “the individual child” according to one service provider since they may get access to high-quality services or programs across the city. There was also a legal aspect to this viewpoint that school choice actually complemented NPN. Again, school choice’s history in the district was linked to desegregation efforts. As a

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE result, some people perceived my question as asking whether or not there was a legal conflict between NPN and school choice. An NPS administrator replied: I don't think so. I haven't seen any evidence of that. I think people may growl, that "Oh there's a certain number of non-zip code kids here benefitting." Or maybe not being able to fully plug into the continuum that we're trying to establish because they're not from the neighborhood… I don't see that as a liability or a foible or a defect. I kind of see it as an opportunity…If this works, we ought to be replicating this in other neighborhoods… I imagine that the only way that that [school choice] rule would get tested is if that schools were so filled up with a waiting list, that we made a decision to regulate the enrollment so that only kids from that ZIP code were going there, we're not anywhere near that point, because the schools are not filled. This NPS administrator actually positioned NPN as an “opportunity” to “replicate” a best practice that could improve neighborhood schools. In this sense, a neighborhood-based approach could be used as an attractor or incentive that the district could use to attract families to choose certain schools. Others agreed that school choice may be an issue if NPN’s schools were filled to capacity to where other children from outside the footprint. This administrator maintained that school choice was not “yet” an issue for NPN, offering this explanation: From what I understand, people still have school choice. So while there's a percentage of seats promised to NPN families, they don't have to go to the NPN schools. And we haven't had the threshold of reserved seats for me to get an understanding of the impact of - like what would be, we don't have a problem with enrollment, because the students in the neighborhood haven't filled all the seats. And if they don't want to go to those schools, they don't have to. So there's rub yet. There's no contradiction yet. Again, interpreting my question as one about a legal conflict, this administrator didn’t see a “rub yet.” From this perspective, NPN does not get in the way of school choice providing opportunities for families, which was something that was important especially to NPS administrators. Another administrator wanted to make it clear to me that he “stays out of the business of steering families” to choose certain schools, so NPN did not necessarily conflict with 313

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE school choice because “we don't close off the option of attending NES.” To summarize, school choice, to at least fifteen participants, did not complicate NPN’s implementation because (1) families across the city could choose a school that best fit their children’s needs, (2) families from outside the footprint get access to special NPN services and (3) NPN as an intervention did not conflict with the legal obligations of school choice that guaranteed families better school options. School choice offers an opportunity to help families from outside the footprint. While not as common a perspective, some participants thought that NPN provided an opportunity to help children outside of the footprint. The NPN administrator just quoted, who wanted to make it clear that he did not steer families toward schools, reflected this position. While this person may have considered school choice as a “factor” in NPN’s ability to effectively implement, he recognized that certain NPN schools may have superior “services” that could “help” that student “even if they’re not in the neighborhood.” He saw NPN as an asset for the district since its affiliated schools offered many additional services, such as grief counseling and mentoring. Similarly, given that NPN opened a brand new early childhood education center (ECEC), a service provider mentioned that some individual children can access it and then, based on their high-quality preparation, these children could “choose” criterion schools. The ECEC, from her perspective, was a new asset that was available to people from across the city. The service coordinators at the school have directly experienced the potential conflict posed by school choice. These providers recalled an experience when they had a holiday food drive when they ideally wanted to help “footprint” students. While they did “strive to serve more kids from the neighborhood,” they would not turn away a student who “would use [the food].” This may have been a bit “confusing,” but they saw NPN’s efforts as having the

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE potential to help students who lived outside the footprint. While they may live outside of the official footprint, a building staff member noted that many of these students may be from “just outside the line.” Over 70% of his children come from within a 1.5 mile radius of the school, so he’s “good” with that. Finally, a service provider simply explained “we are seeing some people who live outside of the neighborhood and send their kids [to NPN schools], which is wonderful.” NPN, given their close relationship with the schools, acted as a magnet for the neighborhood. These schools may end up attracting people to the neighborhood, which was positioned as a good thing for the neighborhood because it “may revitalize it…which is great.” Charter schools seemed to be more concerned with enrollment numbers. Finally, one of the building staff members working at a charter school presented an insight about how he perceived the place-based aspect of the school reform and seemed to speak to the dynamics of school choice and PBSR. We discussed whether or not NPN encouraged him to attract neighborhood residents to attend BCCS. He shed light on the reality: It'd be great if you get a kid across the street to come to this school. At the end of the day, I must have 550 kids…I don't care where they come from. I just need 550 kids. So when one leaves, I need someone to replace him. That's really how I look at the problem…The reality is 550 kids. This was one surprising and unanticipated finding. This suggests that the “market” pressures of school choice (in this case, charter schools) did not incentivize him to focus on neighborhood residents. Instead, this particular charter school leader was more concerned with building a healthy enrollment than building a community school. He reported that the Bellevue Foundation also did not encourage him to get more NPN-footprint children. Instead, he was concerned with the “reality” of 550 because that is the number needed in order to be stay afloat as a school. In a somewhat related finding, a high-ranking NPN official revealed that creating a neighborhood school was not as high on his priority list: 315

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE It used to be a big deal to me, and I used to stay awake at night trying to figure out how we're going to create more of a neighborhood school at Bellevue and NES. I'm still worried about it, but um it's not my top 20 priorities anymore.

This quote will be expanded a bit more in the later section of how NPN dealt with the challenges of school choice, but it spoke to the sentiment that school choice did not necessarily complicate the implementation of NPN. By this I mean that NPN’s implementation was unfazed by school choice. NPN could still continue its strategy of PBSR despite school choice. In this sense, school choice may have at one point been a challenge, but it was eventually considered a reality that must be managed—not one that was debilitating. In the next section, I turn my attention to the sentiment among participants that school choice did complicate NPN. School Choice as a Complicating Factor. Seventeen participants also felt that school choice complicated NPN’s implementation. As a reminder, many of these participants felt that school choice both complicated and complemented NPN’s implementation. This section will reveal the themes emerging out of the perspective that school choice would complicate NPN implementation. Three themes emerged: (1) difficulty measuring NPN’s impact if interventions are diffused across the city, (2) the challenge of parent engagement, and (3) philosophical conflicts with PBSR. Difficulty measuring NPN’s impact if interventions are diffused across the city. First, participants seemed to be concerned that the full impact of NPN would not be understood because the target population may not be the one receiving services. One of the NPS officials who worked with NHS during NPN’s planning stages agreed that school choice “complicates things…if you’re going to impact this ZIP code.” Since the high school had a small percentage of neighborhood residents, it would be “difficult to have that spill-over effect back in the community.” Such long-term impact became “problematic.” This seemed to be a problem 316

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE related to service delivery for some participants. A parent observed that, in the current system of school choice, an intervention at the level of one neighborhood was insufficient because services would not “follow” the students into their neighborhood of residence. Since service delivery was a primary lever for change in NPN’s model, challenges with this service delivery model equaled problems documenting impact. Such a service delivery problem raised concerns of several service providers. It was “important to us [service providers]” because they collectively will not be able to “prove some of their outcomes,” noted one of the service providers. A different service provider explained these challenges in more detail and how they impacted reporting: For the purposes of reporting, especially for NPN like on a federal level, they want to know the impact for you know the residents of the footprint. Not necessarily the families of children who attend. So sometimes it's like "Oh yeah, we helped this person do really good things, but they don't live in the footprint," so sometimes it just gets put on the secondary note. You know? Or a separate report? This tension did not mean that they would “turn people away or anything like that.” They continued to do these “good things,” but they ultimately did not help NPN “measure [our] impact.” For families not living in the NPN neighborhood, as a building staff member put it, “it's great that they come into [NPN] and experience our programs, but at the end of the day they're going back home to different neighborhoods throughout the city of Northeaston” which “ultimately hurts what we're trying to accomplish.” For other participants, this challenge was one related to stability. As discussed, school choice incentivizes families to attend any school across the city, with the exception of criterion schools that require special entry criteria. For a former NPS administrator and current NPN service provider, her experience was that schools are always playing “catch-up with kids coming in and out,” which “complicates” what NPN was trying to do. Another NPS administrator recalled that school choice was “catastrophic for any sort of stability of reform or school 317

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE improvement” effort like NPN. Families transferring in and out of NPN schools means that families may receive an intervention for a period of time, but then move the next year. Such an instable and mobile population could again thwart NPN’s ability to measure its impact. To add another layer of complication, this NPS staff member raised the issue of public school choice as part of the No Child Left Behind law, which allowed families to transfer out of failing schools to better, higher-performing schools. This logic failed when only a handful of schools meet the federal adequate yearly progress benchmarks. If a parent wanted to transfer to NES, currently a failing school, he mentioned that someone downtown may ask the family, “Are you sure you want to go there?” While NPS’s placement office tried to “stay out of the business of steering families” toward one school or another, an informal practice may emerge within the district to question families who chose low-performing schools. Parents may actually be disincentivized through federal law from even choosing NES as a school for their children given NES’s standing as a failing school. NPN families may structurally be steered away from choosing NPN schools because they are all currently labeled as failing. If that was the case, how will NPN even build a cohort to show that their intervention worked? Interviews with members of every participant group showed that school choice complicated NPN’s ability to measure its impact. The challenge of parent engagement. Parent engagement was an important part of NPN’s strategy of school improvement, as evidenced by the dual generation programs. However, parent engagement was one activity constrained by school choice. This was a clear consensus across two particular participant groups: building and NPN staff members. Speaking from direct experience, the building leader of NES mentioned that when the building holds a NPN event, “parents who live way far, they're not going to come in… I think if they don't live in

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE the zone, they see it as isolation.” A NPN staff member reflected on a conversation she shared with NPN’s building leader and remembered that proximity for parents from outside the footprint was just one more “barrier” because “they’re not connected to anything in the area except that their child goes to that school.” This especially was a problem in the winter because of the treacherous weather and shortened days. The building leader offered a story of a mother who pulled her child out of the after-school program “not because of the quality of the program” but because it was “dark by the time their kids get home.” Participants seemed to be concerned with parent engagement of parents who lived outside of the neighborhood, which seemed to be counter-intuitive. I expected that interviewees would be focused on engaging those parents who lived in the footprint. However, a high-ranking NPN official explained that he was concerned about the overall waste of resources spent by the district on transportation costs sending “African American kids living in poverty” out of one lowperforming neighborhood school to another neighborhood school that looked virtually identical. His thought was: So we spend a lot of money on transportation that makes it difficult for parents travel halfway across the city to be involved in a parent/teacher conference, so they just don't go. Shoot, if they could just walk across the street and go to Bellevue, NES, it would be great.

This transportation problem, caused by school choice, seemed to impact parent engagement in schools across the district—not just NPN. Implicitly, participants who bemoaned school choice’s impact on parent engagement highlighted the importance of parent engagement in student academic success. These comments were not as directly related to the difficulty school choice caused to NPN’s parent engagement efforts. Instead, these comments reflected a general sentiment that parent engagement efforts are disturbed by families living far away from their

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE neighborhood schools. The logical extension of this was that PBSR, by working more directly with neighborhood parents, had potential to improve parent engagement. A NPN staffer revealed this logic through this comment: “We thought you're going to get parents more engaged if they live in the neighborhood where their kids reside, where their kids spend all day learning, so it's a clear conflict.” Philosophical conflicts with PBSR. School choice, as the literature documented, intentionally seeks to divorce the relationship between students and their neighborhood school— especially if that neighborhood school is not meeting standards. Participants recognized this conflict by simple, uncomplicated statements like this one from a service provider, “If the slots are not held for NPN parents in those schools, then it absolutely makes it more difficult.” Another service provider knew that NES had “like 17 different busses coming into the school, so that causes challenges to that place-based kind of nature of things.” The logic of place-based reform was challenged when the school does not serve neighborhood children. Beyond this simple logical flaw, other participants explained the deep conflict between school choice and place-based school reform. As discussed earlier, NPN seeks to establish a cradle-to-college/career pipeline rooted in the neighborhood. This extended quote by a NPN staffer showcased the difficulty of establishing such a pipeline system in a district of open enrollment: I think it hurt us to not have that, the idea of cradle-to-career gets completely, a wrench throw into it when you don't have those kids as the ones that you started working with as babies coming in our schools. You lose that whole middle section of students which is such a big population of the people that we're trying to reach going out to other areas… It's kind of like the broken window theory where if the windows are getting fixed, and you see that change happening. You see that immediate beautification type stuff, you start to think your neighborhood's getting better. You have a much more positive feeling toward it. So, when you do pull kids out of the neighborhood, or send kids into the neighborhood, that aren't from our zone, it does make it more difficult because we 320

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE aren't able to provide what we set out to provide which is that cradle-to-career support. School choice was a “wrench” thrown in the cradle-to-career pipeline system because it removed children and families from their neighborhood environment. These students and families may even become alienated from their neighborhood environment because they were being “pulled out of their neighborhood.” Leaving the neighborhood also meant that you would not be supported through the school-based programming of the PBSR effort. It also seemed like these sentiments about school choice throwing a “wrench” into NPN were only intensified because it was described as a “primarily educational” initiative. All residents interviewed agreed that NPN was an intervention mainly for families. No intentional structures were designed specifically for neighborhood youth who attended school outside the footprint, which contributed to the feeling that school choice undermined the cradle-to-career pipeline. This same NPN staff member even commented, “I'm not sure when they originally wrote the grant that they understood that school choice component.” A building staff member also realized that “you do kind of lose a little bit of that sense of community” with school choice. Several participants simply realized that PBSR and school choice were fundamentally at odds. Now that I have reported the conflicts emanating from school choice, I will conclude this section by reporting how exactly how NPN effort dealt with school choice in practice. “Struggled:” Dealing with School Choice in PBSR. While there was a divided consensus among participants about school choice, most participants at least acknowledged that school choice did work against the larger PBSR ideal. It is important to start this section by reminding readers that a substantial minority of participants recognized that Northeaston’s school choice program was “warped” (or “a disaster”) because most schools in the city school

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE district were low-performing. In essence, the open enrollment system provided very limited opportunities for children leaving participants to ask, “Where do you really go?” and “Do you really have a choice?” Given this context, NPN still attempted to implement PBSR in the context of school choice. They dealt with it in four ways: (1) marketing NPN schools to parents, (2) a “handshake agreement” with NPS to establish a cluster feeder system, (3) creating “great” schools and (4) using private and criterion schools to NPN children’s advantage. As a result, increased numbers of younger-grade children are choosing NPN schools. “Market the hell” out of NPN schools to parents. Knowing that neighborhood-zoned schools did not exist in NPN, seventeen participants discussed the various ways that NPN markets the schools to participants. During field observation seven, the grassroots communications committee, staff discussed two of the marketing strategies. First, NPN purchased billboard advertising on the main commercial road in the neighborhood, Sales Avenue. This billboard read, “Three Schools: One Goal.” Located on top of the commercial buildings, the billboard shows caricatures of children wearing graduation robes and caps, holding diplomas, and moving toward a college degree. The committee wanted people in the neighborhood to know that Promise Neighborhood was affiliated with those three schools and begin to get residents thinking about placing their children in those schools. Only one building staff member mentioned knowing about the “big, giant billboards.” Next, committee members prepared for a “report card” night at NES where they were designing a “one-pager about each school” so they had “some information to give away” to parents about the schools. Many participants, including residents, also recalled a variety of recruitment efforts. For example, NPN circulated flyers and did “mailings” to parents in the neighborhood encouraging families to send children to the ECEC, NES, and Bellevue. One parent “received a letter about

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE sending my daughter there.” At the ECEC, at least one of the principals had an opportunity to meet with parents of children about to enter pre-Kindergarten. During these meetings, a NPN staff member reported that some parents welcomed the opportunity to enroll at a charter school “because of the reputation of NPS.” At the Parent Success Collaborative meetings, another NPN staff member “wants to be able to say to a parent, ‘Your child will…have an iPad, or basically talk about the science program, talk about the math program.” The charter school principal actually went around knocking on doors in the neighborhood at homes near the school, but this participant thought that may have been because “he needed more numbers” (see “Charter schools seemed to be more concerned with enrollment numbers” section above). The ECEC director also wanted her parents to know that once they’re at that school, “they won’t have to go looking for anywhere else. Services are already provided to them. They know where their kids are going next year.” This strategy of “marketing the hell” out of these schools “so parents want their kids to go to our schools” was explained in some detail by a service provider: I think what Bellevue and NES need to do is make themselves very attractive to the parents in those communities by their success, by their outreach, by their family engagement! By all of those things. Because if those things were happening, it wouldn't, choice wouldn't be as big of an issue because parents would choose their neighborhood schools that also have to be the better schools that are more inviting.

This quote captured what NPN was trying to do through their marketing efforts. In the competitive reality of school choice, NPN was relegated to marketing their schools to the parents, in some cases discussing the special services and programs available at those schools. In essence, they were using parent choice to work against school choice. Their efforts moved beyond the informal marketing to a formal process with the school system.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE “Handshake agreement” with NPS to establish a cluster feeder system. In earlier sections, I discussed that NPN developed an explicit strategy for creating a cluster feeder system of schools. In this section, I explain the details of the agreement. As mentioned, the district faced a legal barrier to making a school 100% neighborhood-zoned. Instead, “the only thing [the school district] changed about those schools was to try and make them more neighborhood.” This agreement was described as a “handshake” agreement between NPS and NPN. This was composed of a few components. First, they tried to get the district to change the old practice of filling extra seats for NPN schools with “random pool of kids from across the city.” The district agreed to fill these extra slots with children from the neighborhood after NPN “would provide them lists of the kids.” Also, if a child had no school preference, and they were from the NPN neighborhood, they would be assigned to the NPN school. Next, NPN provided training to the school placement office about the NPN effort so the staff would understand what NPN was attempting to do. Further, NES became one of only three schools that sought to fill at least a portion of its enrolled students with a cohort of neighborhood students. That meant that NPS “would exhaust neighborhood first before moving to city-wide applicants.” One NPN staff member reflected on the process of working with NPS, which, like other collaborations, take time to get right: The first year, it was a lot of explaining who we are. What we were doing. Why it was important. Trying to iron out the process. Trying to learn their process. Learning for example that [the process of assigning unfilled seats] was random. We thought there was some science behind how the kids were assigned, if that really was true. And then as we worked into setting up a process and establishing a relationship in the third year, what we say this year. This year was the first year we really saw results, going into the third year.

Aside from this new way of assigning unfilled seats and educating the placement staff about the “vision of NPN,” there is not much more to the agreement. At the time of writing, NPN and the 324

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE placement staff do not get together on a regular basis to discuss how they worked together. This relationship began only because of a NPN staffer’s relationship with the previous director of placement. Her individual relationship also was a causal factor in continuing the relationship. As one NPS official confessed: “I think my support for NPN comes in my respect for [this particular staff member]. So that's important to me to support her. Because she supported me as a colleague.” As another NPN staffer put it, “like everything else, [the school choice agreement] is about relationships.” Without her connection with central office administrators, NPN would not have been able to create these policy-level changes to encourage the establishment of a cluster feeder system. These changes, while important, were certainly limited in their reach. One high-level NPN official was resigned to the fact that state and federal policy changes to create a feeder system would be futile. The approach of putting “a ridiculous amount of pressure on the district” worked a bit—they “saw some results.” However, his “druthers” will be explained next: “create two such great schools that people in the neighborhood want to send their kids to our 2 schools.” Creating “great” schools. As the NPN administrator above mentioned, fourteen participants from four groups (excluding residents) agreed that one of the best ways to “deal with” school choice was by creating strong schools. A service provider saw that NPN’s role was to “build public confidence” in these schools given their status as low-performing schools that have not met AYP in several years. This logic seemed to follow the market analogy that is pervasive in education policy circles: create demand by creating good schools. As discussed in chapter two, school choice policies sought to create a superior “product” (school) as to attract more “customers” (students). Not only was this thinking common in the school choice literature and in policy circles, but it seemed to appeal to this sample of participants. “Building up a

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE community” to one building staff member meant having a “good school,” which would entice people to “live closer to the school.” A service provider offered her understanding: “I think the general idea is that, you know they make the schools desirable, and then more people will want to go there.” Conceding to the market logic seemed to be a natural stance. No group seemed to reflect on this with as much resignation as NPN staff and building staff members. To one NPN administrator, NPN “just has to improve what’s happening in the school, and then you won’t have a problem.” Parents do not want their children to attend a “troubled” school with “no discipline.” The market parallel became explicit when one of the building leaders claimed, “When you put out a product that is superior to others, [parents] will come.” The charter school did not experience “clamoring to get in because there’s not a better product.” An NPS staff member offered his belief “if a school is successful, the neighborhood over time, a short period of time, will gravitate toward that school, and their children will enroll there.” This kind of a solution appeared to be more appealing than any policy solution necessary. Based on NPN’s disappointing experiences with school reform as a building-only phenomenon, this school improvement seemed almost impossible given the current course of action. Recall that they abandoned the high school strategy altogether, surrendering to the “warped” school choice and criterion school system (to be discussed next). This sentiment did not surface, though. All participants who mentioned that “good schools” will attract parents seemed optimistic that “just” what needed to be done was improve the school. Using private and criterion schools to NPN children’s advantage. The final strategy that NPN used to “deal with” school choice was to attempt to make the private and criterion schools work for NPN’s children. Once NHS was removed from the strategy, NPN needed to find some way to ensure that their youth could get into college or into a career. Only four people

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE in the sample (NPN staff and NPS staff) knew that NPN shifted its high school strategy altogether to ensure their youth could access private and criterion schools. A NPN administrator matter-of-factly articulated their new high school strategy: NPN administrator: We know that the pathway to college is not in one of these 13 non-criterion schools…The path is the criterion school or the private school. So the approach has kind of shifted to let's try to get these kids in there, or in there. [The supportive service model] a good model. Better, I think it's a better model that we can have more immediate impact than trying to create a high performing high school. It'll take a lot longer to create a high-performing high school. This strategy was positioned as a short-term solution for a vexing problem. Another NPN staffer reported that they raised money to send ten children to private schools. This money “was from our executive management team at [LFPI], and this year, it was from [philanthropic] contributions from bank employees.” I want to stress that only four people out of a sample of 27 people knew about this strategy, suggesting that such a strategy was not well-publicized for whatever reason. I speculate that publicizing such a strategy may receive public scrutiny and could be perceived as an open admission that public school reform is too great a challenge even for this well-respected group with clout. Turning to private schools may suggest to some constituents that LFPI may not be interested in true public school reform. Rejoinder. Building a cluster feeder system was a challenge for NPN without question. Percentages of neighborhood enrollment for NES and BCCS vary from 17 to 62%. The numbers have increased in Pre-Kindergarten from 30 to 62% in NES. For Kindergarten numbers increased from 29 to 38% in NES and from 23 to 49% in BCCS. For other grade levels, some enrollment percentages have increased, while others have decreased. There seemed to be no pattern to these numbers. The early cohorts are likely increasing because of their strong recruitment efforts at the ECEC. It seems that school choice will continue to throw a kink into PBSR in Northeaston. Remarkably, participants were divided about whether or not school 327

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE choice complicated PBSR. This is likely attributable to the “warped” sense of school choice in Northeaston, with the majority of schools failing to meet AYP standards. Issues of race, class, neighborhood underdevelopment, and perceptions of segregation conspire to make the school choice problem seemingly impenetrable within the current market-based reform paradigm. Up to this point, I have answered the three research questions at hand. First, the conceptual and theoretical dimensions of PBSR have been visually presented (Figure 6.1). These differed from the proposed conceptual model explained in Chapter 2. Next, the PBSR project under investigation, led by a particular for-profit lead organization, included specific design guidelines. The lead organization was constrained by particular contextual forces, which resulted in challenges and adjustments to the strategy (Figure 7.1). Finally, participants were divided in their viewpoint that school choice complicated PBSR. Still, school choice undoubtedly seemed to stand in philosophical contrast to PBSR. Now, I will interpret my findings and then offer recommendations for policy, practice, and research.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE CHAPTER 9: Discussion, Limitations, and Implications

Now that results have been discussed, I will turn my attention to a discussion about the meaning of the findings. This section will include several components: an overview of the study, discussion related to each research question, limitations, and implications for policy, practice, and research.

Overview of the Study

The problem of poor-performing inner-city schools has perplexed policymakers, educational leaders, and community members for decades. The federal government worked with state and local governments to address this problem through legislation—from the Elementary and Secondary School Act (ESEA) to the A Nation at Risk report to the No Child Left Behind reauthorization of ESEA. Frustrations have mounted because the problems of inner-city education have been stubbornly persistent, and some have turned to building-based models (comprehensive school reform) and market-based models of school reform (school choice) in hopes of achieving dramatic improvement. These efforts have provided an occasional success story but have failed to dramatically alter results for large numbers of students. Other groups— including the federal government itself—turned to new, more comprehensive models of school reform which promised to jointly address school reform and the factors that ultimately cause educational underperformance rooted in neighborhood conditions. These so-called place-based comprehensive community initiatives (PBCCIs) sought to unite organizations with a target geography to improve service delivery, educational opportunities, economic development, and community development efforts. Recently, there has been a movement to connect these PBCCIs with school reform efforts which are best embodied by groups like the Harlem Children’s Zone.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE This study sought to understand more deeply this new joint neighborhood improvement and school reform approach known as place-based school reform (PBSR). To accomplish such a task, I chose to examine a Promise Neighborhood in its nascent stages in a Northeast city, called “Northeaston.” This particular case was of interest because of several factors: the lead organization is a for-profit organization that operates a charter school and implementation happened in the context of school choice. That is, this particular Northeaston Promise Neighborhood (NPN) implemented their effort in the context of open enrollment and competing charter schools. This single case study included 27 one-on-one interviews, nine field observations, and a document analysis to answer three research questions: -

Question 1: What are the theoretical and conceptual dimensions of place-base school reform?

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Question 2: What are the components of place-based school reform when implemented?

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Question 3: How does school choice complicate the development of place-based school reform strategies?

Results have been presented, and now I will turn my attention to a discussion regarding the meaning of these results. Discussion

The purpose of this section is to offer answers to each research question, while also discussing impressions and thoughts about the research problems at hand. This section will be organized into three sections based on the three research questions. While some insights and discussion were offered when presenting the results, this section probes deeper into the meaning behind the results.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Research Question 1: What are the theoretical and conceptual dimensions of placebase school reform? As defined by the participants, the theoretical and conceptual dimensions of PBSR were illustrated by the schematic (Figure 6.1) presented above. To simplify, PBSR is a multi-dimensional intervention focused on one geography led by a sole organization which intervened at the individual family level through new programs and neighborhood institutional level through tackling schools, housing, crime, health care, and collective efficacy. This intervention came into being because of poor neighborhood conditions, academic performance, parent education, and suppressive economic conditions. It seeks to (1) help children in this targeted geography to succeed academically (e.g. graduate from high school) and progress toward a career (e.g. college access or job training), (2) stabilize families, and (3) improve neighborhood conditions. These interventions operate through cross-sector partnerships maintained by accountability structures. Most participants stressed that Promise Neighborhood was primarily an educational intervention, given that most allocated resources went to educational interventions as the grant was funded by the US Department of Education (DoEd). Based on my synthesis of the literature, these observations differed from what I expected to hear participants discuss. I expected that the interventions would be more systems-level in nature, where both internal and external factors that negatively impacted child development and adult life chances were confronted. Interestingly, most participants referred to NPN as a cradleto-career system that attempted to attack neighborhood-rooted problems, but further discussions revealed that most interventions were not aimed at policies or systems that perpetuate inequality but instead occurred at the individual level—with the exception of the school-level interventions. Also, I expected that the curricular reforms would have looked different from an altered reading

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE curriculum. It seemed that the neighborhood logic could not permeate the boundaries of the school building. Theoretically, the deviations between how the intervention was designed versus how it actually unfolds on the ground can be explained by an adaptation to a complex policy environment (Honig, 2009b; Davis & Sumara, 2001). Essentially, the interaction between the people, places, and policies can change the ways in which policies occur on the ground. Closely related is the politics of policy implementation (Malen, 2006; Honig, 2009a). Individuals or groups involved in policy implementation, who come with their own goals and interests, have a tendency to influence the other actors’ goals or interests. It was possible that, while NPN meant to have a systemic intervention that permeated policies and institutions but were relegated to an educational intervention because of interactions with other groups, such as the central office or service providers. After all, NPN was an organization that attempted to mediate problems of neighborhood life for residents through cross-sector partnerships. These partnerships require negotiation and rely on trusting relationships between all parties. Given the reality of implementation, there were documented challenges (explained in research question 2) that may have required NPN to concede some of its larger goals of institutional and policy-level changes. Evidence of this could be found in the difficulty navigating school choice policy at the district level and challenges when working to attack the lack of access to health care in the neighborhood. Even at the school level, NPN experienced challenges when trying to reform Northeaston High School (NHS) and eventually conceded that high school reform was too much to tackle as part of their effort. Based on these observations, it is feasible to conclude that PBSR efforts, which attempt to disrupt systems that reproduce inequality will encounter significant challenges when

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE contextualized in practice (Renee, Welner, & Oakes, 2010). Any attempt at challenging privilege structures and larger social inequalities will experience “downward mutual adaptation.” In other words, groups confronting social injustice and privilege structures will usually have to give way to policies that result in less equity for exploited and marginalized groups because of the conflict that these policies create with elites (Oakes, Welner, Yonezawa, & Allen, 1998; Renee, Welner, & Oakes, 2010). Still, people working on the effort seemed to still articulate the ideal of NPN being a systems-level intervention that would attack neighborhood-based problems. PBSR, embodied by NPN, seemed to operate as a “guiding light” for people who actually wanted to address the root causes of educational underperformance. Most participants across all groups believed that such macro-level challenges associated with underdeveloped neighborhoods necessitated macro-level, systemic interventions. PBSR efforts likely will experience resistance, but these efforts seemed to unify participants to perhaps create a broader movement within the city to deal with structural injustices that create low-performing schools— even if the reality of implementation looks much different. Reflection on Question 1. After data collection and analysis of the first research question, it was clear that the research question should have been changed to more accurately reflect the data that were generated. My literature review revealed a theoretical and conceptual discussion of place-based school reform based on a critical reading of scholarship. Getting a theoretical and conceptual of Promise Neighborhood (the program) or of place-based school reform (the concept) from participants was difficult. Such difficulty was probably attributed to the fact that most participants were not involved in starting the program, nor were they actively thinking through the program’s logic model. Certainly, they did not analyze the academic literature to think through whether the program was in line with its conceptual roots.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE My main interest was in discovering how people made sense of place-based school reform in practice. While it may have been conceptualized in a certain way based on literature and practical experiences (e.g. Harlem Children’s Zone), my point in asking my original question was to discover how these ideas unfolded in practice. My interest derived from a growing popularity in Promise Neighborhood and other comprehensive place-based comprehensive community initiatives that resembled Promise Neighborhood. At the time of writing, the federal government funded 12 implementation and 46 planning projects, so this effort is a relatively small one. It was interesting to me that so many people across the country are implementing such efforts, yet the scholarly literature is not sure exactly what people think they are doing when putting the model into practice. How are they even defining what “the model” (of place-based school reform) is? It seemed that I asked one question, but I ended up answering a different question because of my interest in “on the ground” perspectives. In retrospect, research question one should have been stated as “What are the perceptions of staff and community members on place-based school reform: what it is, why it was implemented, and how it operates?” This question would have more accurately captured the kinds of responses I received, which uncovered how people were thinking about PN effort. Gathering these perceptions is important because it suggests the extent to which placebased school reform (PBSR) can be put into practice through the Promise Neighborhood model. When policy implementors (e.g. service providers) and actors (e.g. school system and lead organization administrators) reveal their perceptions about PN, it suggests what is possible to accomplish with this particular policy innovation. If they do not understand it as ushering in equity-minded school reform, or as an intervention that attempts to confront external pressures that contribute to socioeconomic injustice, then this suggests that the innovation needs to be

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE reshaped to address these larger goals. In short, it reveals the shortcomings of the intervention and can drive policymakers and advocates to change the intervention to better address these goals. It could also suggest to actors in different contexts how to shape the discussion or implementation of the intervention to better address social inequality. Research Question 2: What are the components of place-based school reform when implemented? Similar to research question one, the way the participants explained the components of PBSR when implemented are visualized in schematic form (Figure 7.1). To briefly summarize, PBSR is a particular intervention with four key design features: a lead organization, new programs (school transformation, early learning, dual generation, crime/safety, and community engagement and neighborhood improvement), cross-sector partnerships and communications with various groups, and accountability systems, communications structures, and continuous improvement cycles. These were the actual components of PBSR, but they could not be understood without an appreciation for factors that derailed implementation. The external pressures of underdeveloped neighborhood conditions, local political context, and state and national politics and policy ultimately constrained NPN’s ability to fully implement, which resulted in five challenges: a dysfunctional school system and therefore dysfunctional relationships with the system, communication, non-profit relations, control of school, and individual interventions vs systems change work. These challenges meant that NPN had to change their strategies in seven areas: health, housing, college/career, service delivery, school system collaboration, school transformation, and silo-busting. Based on these findings, I conclude that PBSR is a particularly challenging intervention to implement successfully. As discussed, NPN seemed to be a strong force to mobilize groups to act in collective ways in order to improve the schooling system of an entire neighborhood. Even 335

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE if the efforts were not implemented as planned, they seemed to move the discussion more toward equity-focused reforms that attack the problems that create academic underachievement. This one case study revealed that superintendent churn, local political challenges with the school board and the union, conflicting policies at the state and national level, and the deep-rooted nature of the problems manifest in underdeveloped neighborhoods can certainly constrain the work. Some participants felt that NPN’s approach was wise because it focused on a target geography and did not try to overextend itself by attempting to reform the entire system. As a result, I have concluded that NPN’s intention was not necessarily to shape the discussion of school reform throughout the city. It did not take specific steps to promote their work in the media. They did not report any efforts to convince city leaders that a neighborhood focus was a superior strategy. Perhaps this was the case because the intervention was in its infancy and did not (yet?) have the results to show for their efforts. Even if NPN did not attempt to influence the urban regime to build civic capacity for shifting the reform discussion toward place-based approaches (Shipps, 2008; Stone, Henig, Jones, & Pierannunzi, 2001), some participants in the school system reported their hopes that NPN would be successful so they could take the strategy to other parts of the city. This “limited” approach to one area of the city did not seem to protect NPN from experiencing serious political and technical challenges while implementing. Those PBSR efforts seeking to improve a target geography may be well-advised to anticipate political challenges. It is possible that this group experienced more substantial political barriers because of their forprofit status, as well as their role as a charter school operator. A participant suggested that LFPI’s involvement ignited criticism from the union and some school board members, with these

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE parties speculating that NPN was just an “elite takeover” of the schools. Some participants also worried that an “invisible hand” was also at work to convert the NPN schools to charter schools. NPN officials were silent on whether or not this was a real possibility. This discussion about whether or not a for-profit institution could be trusted to engage in long-term social justice-framed work harkened back to concerns raised in the anchor institution literature about whether or not a for-profit institution could act as an authentic community anchor institution truly invested in community improvement (Taylor & Luter, 2013). Because for-profit institutions can (and do) simply decide to uproot their operations and move to another city, some scholars and practitioners raised the question: can for-profit institutions be trusted to engage in long-term community improvement efforts? The answer to some scholars was “no” because “businesses operate within a creed informed by profits and markets…[and] if the profit margin falls below a certain threshold, they will either leave or close” (Taylor & Luter, 2013, p. 6). In this case, NPN leaders and other participants actually valued the “public/private partnership” aspects of NPN. Such partnerships, from the perspective of the participants, had the potential to cast a new light on school reform partnerships. Businesses were accustomed to being “measured” regularly, and their analytical perspective was positioned as a valuable asset in the discussion of inner-city school reform. Neoliberal critiques of public education reform aside (Hursh, 2007; Klaf & Kwan, 2010), participants generally suggested that the for-profit status of the lead organization was an asset. Perhaps this praise arose out of Promise Neighborhood’s (as a federal program) heavy emphasis on assessment, evaluation, and data monitoring. Still, PBSR efforts, in light of this study, may benefit from having the investment of a for-profit entity with a generally positive reputation in the community. In this case, the private sector’s resources (financial, staffing, analytic perspective) were used to drive community improvement efforts.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE On the other hand, my analysis led me to question: how did NPN’s status as a for-profit entity impact its perception as a community-rooted entity? It seemed that community-rooted governance was limited, with the exception of the Community Council. Still, the Community Council seemed to not have any official veto power or control of resources that could (re)direct NPN efforts to adjust to community needs. The only community member with an official governance responsibility was a local minister (not interviewed). Further, NPN’s official headquarters were located six miles away from the neighborhood in a downtown office building affiliated with LFPI. Also, one of the leadership development programs was focused on getting residents to confront their “problematic realities.” These sentiments perhaps were based on a naïve viewpoint that residents themselves could confront neighborhood problems which arose out of decades of structural racism (Sampson, 2013; Sharkey, 2013; Taylor, 2010). It is possible that NPN’s strategies and levels of understandings would become more sophisticated and nuanced if residents were more deeply involved and engaged in NPN’s planning and operations. Thiss led to another observation based on the results. A tension existed between services that NPN provided and services that other residents may have demanded. NPN did not function as a service provider, as was made clear by one of the NPN staffers. Instead, they had to rely on contracting with service providers to do specific tasks, which required resources, a thinking through of metrics/benchmarks, and a process of monitoring and evaluation. It seemed to be difficult for the organization to nimbly respond to the needs of some residents, for instance, who did not have children, or who needed special housing services. Their project activities seemed to be dictated by funding requirements of the federal government or other funding agencies and therefore became locked into completing certain programs and activities. In one of the informal discussions I had with a community-based organization located near the neighborhood, they

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE discussed how a proposed partnership between them and NPN did not go through because the project did not exactly align with federal priorities. PBSR efforts seemed to be caught between sticking to their plan and being nimble enough to respond to community needs. Based on my analysis, I also was led to question: what made school reform unique that would warrant it as place-conscious? On one hand, that the lead organization assumed responsibility for overseeing a comprehensive strategy which included school reform as one component among a portfolio of other place-based interventions was novel in itself. However, I did not notice any contrast between comprehensive school reform (CSR) efforts and NPN’s school transformation strategy. It seemed that the school reform strategy was decided by the leaders at LFPI during the planning grant stage—not necessarily by community members, building leaders, or teachers. NPN leaders and researchers, according to a building leader, ran the decision about the school reform contractor by this person. This leader described it this way: “I was part of the conversation of the philosophy and the organizational structure and what the roll-out would be. But the researchers found EP.” If the community and the building leaders are not shaping the direction of the project, who was? It seemed that NPN leadership alone was controlling the project in a classic top-down fashion. Not only does the literature suggest that educational management will be guided by more flexible approaches to leadership (Hargreaves & Shirley, 2009), but the Promise Neighborhoods project itself touts the importance of community-development-driven approaches to school reform. It seemed that there was little different between place-based school reform and other CSR models. It also seemed noteworthy that this lead organization was not necessarily competing with other organizations in the neighborhood to do this kind of work because no other organizations existed to accomplish the same goals in the neighborhood. Underdeveloped neighborhoods

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE generally struggle with a non-existent organizational infrastructure, in that few organizations exist within the neighborhood to unite residents and other organizations to improve the quality of life within its boundaries (Taylor, McGlynn, Luter, 2013b). Other organizations in the neighborhood have not been as active until NPN came along to attempt to revive them—such as the Sales Ave. Business Association and the Block Club Coalition. This is not to say that NPN single-handedly breathed life into these groups, but they were a part of re-engaging these organizations in discussions about the future of the neighborhood. Other neighborhood-rooted institutions, such as the health center or local churches, were only briefly discussed in the context of specific strategies, yet were largely absent from field observations and interviews. Reflection on Question 2. Similar to research question one, I realized that the results generated from the data that were collected probably answered a slightly different research question than originally proposed. In reality, I was able to again record perceptions of participants about the implementation process. Further, these data were limited to how select actors understood the project as it was being implemented. As discussed in research question one, I obtained perceptions of participants about how they made sense of the “Promise Neighborhood” (and therefore, place-based school reform) intervention. Similarly, I tapped into the components of PBSR that participants were aware of, based on their limited roles. I also was more interested in the issues encountered by participants, which ultimately acted to constrain the implementation of PBSR in this context. The reason for this was because I wanted to inform the scholarly and practitioner community about resulting issues and challenges associated with these complex interventions. My research question could have been more accurately stated in a twofold question: “What does it look like to implement place-based school reform in practice? How

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE do place-based school reform implementation actors define the issues, challenges, and tensions associated with the implementation of PBSR in practice?” Research Question 3: How does school choice complicate the development of placebased school reform strategies? As discussed in the literature review, I assumed that school choice would complicate PBSR given that it specifically worked against children attending school in their neighborhood and sought to eliminate all attendance zones for public schooling (Merrifield, 2008a). To an extent, participants agreed that school choice and open enrollment complicated school choice because (1) PBSR’s impact became more difficult to measure if children from the neighborhood then left to attend schools elsewhere, (2) parent engagement became more difficult, and (3) there was simply a philosophical conflict—school choice attempted to draw students away from their neighborhood schools. These complications created challenges for the lead organization, which they sought to remedy by marketing schools to parents, creating agreements with the district to creating a cluster feeder system, and creating great schools. Surprisingly, school choice did not complicate NPN in many participants’ minds. Because the case operated in the context of a low-performing district where school choice is sometimes affiliated with an opportunity for better schooling experiences, it was difficult to separate this association from the larger narrative of school choice’s relationship with PBSR. School choice in some peoples’ minds represented an opportunity to escape low-performing schools, which was considered a good thing. However, school choice shifts emphasis away from improving schools within the neighborhood and instead emphasized finding the good public schools in the city—of which there were only four or five, according to participants. School choice was also positioned as not a barrier to PBSR because there were no legal issues 341

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE implementing both school choice and PBSR simultaneously. These policies were not in harmony with each other by any means, but they both could be implemented without breaking any laws. Interestingly, school choice almost was positioned as one barrier that could be overcome by building “great schools” (broadly defined). Participants did not define a “good school” by any other measure than test scores, which suggested that increasing test scores drove NPN’s approach to school reform. Northeaston was also in the middle of an extremely politically sensitive debate across the city: school choice versus zoned schools. This discussion may be common across other northeastern cities who struggle with de facto segregation in public schools. School choice and open enrollment provided no remedy to this problem and instead just moved low-income black and Latino students whose neighborhood schools were low-performing to other low-performing schools also filled with low-income black and Latino students. LFPI took a public stance about this issue during my study. I will quote a member of LFPI staff, which appeared in the local newspaper: What purpose does sending children to failing schools on the other side of the city serve, other than to impede the efforts of parents who struggle with a lack of transportation and, therefore, are often unable to participate in school-based activities?

This quote reinforced the idea that parent engagement was stymied because of school choice. Another NPN employee mentioned that they were committed to a “community-based school model.” This model required “ownership and engagement” by parents and school leaders. Such an approach was politically sensitive, especially because a return to attendance zones and neighborhood schools was associated with de jure segregation. However, this stance revealed the nuances between a “community” or “place-based” approaches to school improvement and

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE neighborhood schools. NPN staff did not necessarily embrace a return to neighborhood schools. Instead, they embraced the “community-based” approach where neighborhood residents, school leaders, parents, and community-based groups could play an active role in the regeneration of the community through education. PBSR represented a strategic shift in the distinction between neighborhood schools and a place-based school reform approach. Now, I turn my attention to the limitations of this study. Limitations

As with any study, this single case study was limited in several important ways. First, my study occurred at one point in time—not longitudinally. Capturing an accurate picture of implementation process and all its associated challenges is more likely to occur over a period of time to uncover patterns and processes that truly impact this effort’s execution. Having such a data set would allow me to speak with more authority about the true factors that shaped NPN’s roll-out. Also, single case studies are limited in their generalizability to other contexts. This case is embedded within the context of Northeaston and therefore the results may be most applicable only to this particular city. As a compensation for the single-point-in-time and single case study limitations, I made a conscious effort to interview a variety of stakeholders, participate in a diversity of field experiences, and analyze a variety of documents which all help to crystallize the results (Richardson, 2000). Honig (2009b) even argued that a growing trend in educational research is the proliferation of scholarship about specific places so as to develop a contextually-driven research agenda that can be grounded in the problems of a specific place. Second, because of resource constraints, the unit of analysis has been restricted to a local Promise Neighborhood organization, which will be studied using a sample of key informants. Adding state and federal officials to the sample could provide additional insights into the 343

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE common challenges experienced by grantees across the nation, but it was beyond the scope of what I could accomplish given limited resources. Relatedly, this study does not focus on state policy, since my interest is one federal grant program. Next, it is almost certain that I did not observe all interactions, happenings, and occurrences within the NPN effort. For example, while I did not observe true resident engagement in decision-making, it is possible that there was an outlet in a setting where I did not observe. Or, while I did not observe that health care was a major component to the NPN strategy, there could have been additional activities about health care happening without my knowledge. I attempted to gain access to as many social situations as possible and engaged in snowball sampling as a way to attempt to address this limitation. I also attempted to get all perspectives, including teachers, but I was not successful. While I did approach some teachers, they all said they were too busy. I suspect that this national and state policy context were at least part of the reason why they were too busy.

In a related limitation, I assumed the role of

outsider in this case, given that I was not involved in the implementation of NPN. This could be a limitation from the perspective of some qualitative researchers, with the fear being that outsiders may not be access true perceptions of the participants (Glesne, 2010). Still, I had developed some working relationships with several of the participants. In fact, one of the participants from NPS said, “I thought you were a cool dude before. If I thought you were a jerk before, we wouldn't be talking.” This quote showed that I was able to overcome the potential barrier created by my not being involved in NPN programming before my study. Further, I was involved in a similar PBSR planning effort in another part of the city at the same time NPN received their implementation grant. This gave me additional credibility that I used to overcome my status as an outsider.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Also, because of the case study methodology, readers should exhibit caution when generalizing findings to other communities. While the intention of the study is not to generalize, readers should recognize that this study represents just one case. Indeed, this site was chosen intentionally because it highlighted a problem experienced by educational scholars and practitioners. Interviewees chosen by the administrators in charge of the particular effort under study represented key informants because they are positioned as most knowledgeable about the initiative under investigation. Still, this case study could suggest some common characteristics of other Promise Neighborhood efforts across the country. Finally, the lead organization served as my primary point of contact. In order for me to gain access to NPN staff and their service providers, it was essential for me to seek permission from NPN administration before launching my study. As a result, the lead organization restricted my access to research sites. For example, I was only allowed to attend one NPN staff meeting and was told “Other than [when we discuss school choice explicitly], I prefer not to invite visitors to my staff meeting.” There were other times when NPN staffers wanted to make sure that I had a good experience. During one of the field observations, one of the NPN administrators asked me “what I thought about the great work happening at NPN.” This may have limited what happened at the meetings. In order to attempt to counter this limitation, I stayed silent during field observations so as to try to “disappear.” During events where there was down time (e.g. during Parent Success Network meetings), I engaged in informal discussions with parents and other staff members in an attempt to make them more comfortable. I feel that I was able to overcome this limitation because I did observe some internal disagreements and confusion—normal for such efforts. In the final section, I present implications for policy, practice, and research.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Implications

Policy. One of the motivating factors for this study was whether or not a tension existed between standards and accountability and place-based efforts like Promise Neighborhood. On its face, there seemed to be a tension between the metrics associated with the standards and accountability movement (e.g. test scores, attendance) and those associated with the comprehensive place-based model of school reform (e.g. social/emotional learning, neighborhood-level indicators). The metric of most concern for NPN when talking with building leaders and NPN staff was attendance. One principal mentioned that focusing on attendance was a “luxury” based on his experience in other school districts. Usually districts did not have the “manpower” to focus on such an indicator like attendance “unless it emerged as a red flag.” NPN provided the extra “manpower” to focus on such an indicator because of the standards and accountability paradigm. In practice, based on the research, some of these contradictions did emerge between paradigms, but professionals just seemed to deal with these tensions. The participants most involved with the school transformation strategy adapted to the policy environment by simply focusing on setting high standards and just dealing with educating students, leaving the work of social, emotional, and neighborhood-based issues to other service providers. One of the former NPS administrators seemed resigned to the fact that the “bottom line” was the test scores when she said that “I like to look at the whole child, but I do realize that the bottom line, scores are what’s gonna count.” Other building leaders also talked about this “bottom line” of test scores being what the “public wanted.” Based on my study, I would recommend that the US Department of Education include social, emotional, and neighborhood-based outcomes in their evaluation of Promise Neighborhood. The US Department of Housing and Development’s 346

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Choice Neighborhood program does call for tracking neighborhood indicators, but neither seemed to value social/emotional learning. An NPN administrator offered his insights about how he handled the tension between standards/accountability and place-based efforts. Based on the experiences of Geoffrey Canada, who “created his own metrics,” he recommended that PN efforts seek ways to measure above and beyond the traditional academic metrics of test scores and GPAs. Similar PN efforts may consider creating social/emotional learning, social justice, civic engagement, or other psychological constructs in their evaluation of PN. While measuring these metrics will take additional resources, it may ultimately be worth the investment if they are able to document the quantitative impact on families, children, and neighborhoods. Another implication for policy is that the federal government and local communities would be well-served to acknowledge how school choice may complicate place-based school reform efforts. The government or Promise Neighborhoods Institute (PNI) could work to convene a task force of grantees struggling with school choice environments to suggest policylevel or administrative rule changes that accommodate for school choice. These groups may even suggest what provisions would fall within the bounds of the judicial system, since the issue of school choice is in part trying to respond to the racial isolation of schools. The government or PNI may also want to consider having grantees or other PBSR efforts laying out an explicit plan for how they will attract more residents from the local neighborhood. These groups may also consider requiring a strategy for how to attract neighborhood students and families to participate in some kind of neighborhood-based educational programming so they benefit from the interventions.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE From a broad policy aims perspective, I am convinced that districts and the federal government should question the aims of the current open enrollment policies found within districts across the nation. Are these strategies really creating racially diverse schools? Research has shown that charter schools tend of re-create the racially-isolated schools they intended to replace (Frankenberg, Siegel-Hawley, & Wang, 2010). As discussed in chapter two, school choice policies in general tended to advance racial isolation (Eckes & Rapp, 2005; Garcia, 2008; Green, 2001; Saporito, 2003). It seems possible that open enrollment, while operating under the guide of increasing access to high-quality schools, simply has been a failed policy experiment, especially in districts where so many schools are low-performing. When conducting my study, there seemed to be widespread agreement that PN was a “primarily educational” initiative. The neighborhood improvement programming existed, but it was not the main emphasis of the program. As a result, this particular project was perceived as being only for residents with children. The US Department of Education (DoEd), along with advocacy groups like PolicyLink, the Urban Institute, and PNI, may consider an introspective look at what PN is trying to do. Is this simply a comprehensive school reform effort under the guise of another effort? Policymakers may want to consider how to make the school reform component of PN more rooted in the community improvement process. In an attempt to consider how to build “policy from practice” (Honig, 2003), I wanted to offer some additional insights about what policies driving the development of PBSR should consider. First, it seemed that systemic interventions that attempted to reverse trends which perpetuated neighborhood underdevelopment may offer a different set of program activities. This particular PBSR effort seemed to be focused on short-term wins and individual successes without intentions of taking these interventions to the next level—policy change. For example,

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE how could the housing rehabilitation program been more comprehensive in its approach? What policies and rules constrained the transformation of housing in the NPN? Perhaps a policy solution could have been part of the plan, so that changes could be sustained. In a similar vein, lead organizations hungry to make lasting change may be well-served to set up systems and policies that attack external forces that drive underdeveloped neighborhoods. For example, if land tenure is a challenge because owners of rental properties refuse to provide low-income renters with high quality, affordable housing, the PN lead organizations should consider creating community land trusts that facilitate community land ownership and protect against gentrification. Such an intervention would require support from many different agencies and a deep commitment from the lead organization to create a more equitable society. Or, if some of the early childhood education work exposes local and state policy barriers that thwart Kindergarten readiness efforts, PBSR could be a forum to discuss necessarily policy changes to avoid such problems in the future. My study also holds implications for the nexus between federal and local policy. As discussed in the literature review under intergovernmental relations, little work has directly examined the interactions between the federal government and local policymakers. My study admittedly cannot directly speak to the interaction because my sample did not include how federal program officers interfaced with local PN staff. Still, my study does speak to how local actors implemented a federal policy innovation designed to transform schools and communities at the same time. The federal Promise Neighborhood provided a framework for local actors to create models that attempted to tackle the challenges of neighborhood underdevelopment through primarily educational interventions. My study could have been framed as a case study about how effective the federal government can be at implementing a social change program at

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE the local level. Looking through this lens, I would conclude that, as currently conceived, the federal government’s Promise Neighborhood program represented a failed attempt at challenging the current privilege structures that created and maintained this level of underdevelopment. To see this failure, two conceptual lenses are helpful: policy targets (Honig, 2009b) and complexity theory (Axelrod & Cohen, 1999). First, Honig (2009b) asserts that policy designs have three key aspects: goals, targets, and tools. Promise Neighborhood’s goal in theory was to “significantly improve the educational and developmental outcomes of children and youth in our most distressed communities” (Federal Register, 2011, p. 39615). Its targets included improving test scores, improving kindergarten readiness, high school graduation, attendance, healthy eating and living practices among youth, mobility rates, family reading habits, family habits of talking to children about college/career, and access to broadband internet (Comey…et al., 2013). Its tools included a lead organization with capacity to oversee the creation of a cradle-to-career pipeline. It is notable that the goal of the project was to improve educational achievement—not transform the neighborhood. Thus, it relied on the school-as-unit-of-intervention paradigm. None of the metrics included any level of community involvement. The planning of the initiative further did not require the lead organization to develop a resident engagement strategy, aside from the fact that the lead organization had to include residents on its advisory board (Federal Register, 2011, p. 39624). The lead organization, housed outside of the neighborhood, composed a strategy by planning with many within- and outside-neighborhood stakeholders, contracted with providers to provide services, and held them accountable for achieving individual-level goals. Even when it implemented specific strategies with the policy targets in mind, it was met with resistance from local actors. While these strategies may change the course of a few individual’s lives, it was not

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE designed to change the realities of many people within the boundary—especially given the fact that they focused most programming on people with children. Viewed through these lenses, it is not surprising that a federal policy was inadequate at forcing a local community to confront social inequality. Second, complexity theory (Axelrod & Cohen, 1999) helps to understand policy as a nonlinear process where many individual agents can act, respond, and plan to a changing policy environment. Populations of agents come together to adapt to changing situations when there is mutual interest, thus learning the best approaches which result in successes along the way (toward whatever outcome that is desirable). A system is “complex” because actions of certain agents are very much influenced by the actions of other agents. Therefore, the policy environment in this case would be characterized by a “complex adaptive system.” When viewed through this lens, the federal government’s interest in improving educational outcomes certainly influenced the way that the lead organization arranged its model to sharply focus on education as a primary strategy. The lead organization, when faced with a quandary with the high school reform strategy, responded by leaving the high school and trying to send children to private and criterion schools in the name of the goal of getting (some) students into college. Many actors set out to make sense of an incredibly complex environment and adapted by actually turning to a structure that reinforces privilege: private and criterion schools. While the federal government may have had social justice in mind with Promise Neighborhoods, it exposed the flaws within the Promise Neighborhood program. There is a commentary still to be told about the effectiveness of the federal government dictating how local school systems (in collaboration with other sectors) go about attempting to address underperforming schools. First, the very presence of the Promise Neighborhood

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE program did create the conditions where many actors came together to develop a strategy in line with the Promise Neighborhood grant program. In this sense, the federal government was effective at encouraging local actors to focus on improving schools with a combination of comprehensive school reform, early childhood, supportive service, and basic neighborhood improvement initiatives. The available funds from the federal government did spur this particular community to act. Second, there was some evidence to suggest that local communities in partnership with other groups were able to effectively advocate for their needs back to the federal government. NPN participated in advocacy efforts through PNI to share experiences with federal government officials, as well as private philanthropic groups. While NPN officials did not share much about these experiences, they did mention their advocacy with PNI back up to the federal government. When asked directly, though, about whether or not the federal government was “learning” from experiences on the ground, two participants did not seem optimistic about such an outcome. Still, these two participants cannot speak directly to the concept of how the federal government “learned” from the project, so these perspectives should be read with caution. Further, the federal Promise Neighborhood effort seemed not to truly impact the discussion about school reform at the local level. Instead, NPN seemed like a “blip on the radar” for NPS, in terms of the extent to which the PN intervention catalyzed a new discussion about school reform in the city of Northeaston. Based on the data generated, the federal program did not seem to spark changes in the way that the urban regime—including school boards, local philanthropic leaders, businesses, and public officials—approached school reform. However, this conclusion should be read with caution, as my study did not completely seek to uncover the

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE politics behind the urban regime’s perspectives of Promise Neighborhood. This could perhaps be an interesting next iteration of my study. In light of these findings, my results suggest that the US Department of Education (DoEd) should reconsider the PN intervention. First, the DoEd should decide whether or not it intended this program to challenge larger forces that create neighborhood underdevelopment. Assuming it seeks such an aim, the program’s future requests for proposals (RFPs) should require applicants to conduct a thoughtful analysis of the historical factors that created neighborhood underdevelopment. Then, applicants should work with local officials to design policy and practical interventions to jointly be implemented alongside the programming within the neighborhood. Further, it should consider requiring applicants to articulate a plan for working with school officials and local governments to show how this intervention could potentially be expanded to shape school policy in other areas of the locality. This would require building coalitions of local government, private sector, nonprofit, community, and resident leaders to examine how the intervention could be shaped for different target geographies. Citywide collaboratives like Communities Investing in Education (CIE) could be involved to shape these city-wide discussions. Finally, the DoEd should require applicants to show how resident engagement (not simply involvement) is part of the design, implementation, and monitoring of the PBSR intervention. Such a requirement would require lead organizations to build capacity of residents, while also ensuring that residents meaningfully contribute to the effort. This requirement could also help ensure that the intervention is responsive to the on-going, dynamic needs of residents as they struggle to rebuild their own neighborhood. Practice. For those readers looking to refine PN practice, this study has several implications for practitioners leading and participating in such PBSR efforts. Lead organizations 353

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE should continue to build capacity around three areas: communication, shared accountability, and an integrated service delivery system that helps to break down existing silos. Lead Organization Communication. First, NPN as a lead organization experienced difficulty in communicating between stakeholders, as well as to the broader neighborhood. Lead organizations must acknowledge the tendency of larger, bureaucratic organizations to re-create silos even when it explicitly attempted to “silo-busting.” Lead organizations may want to consider this being a metric that they try to measure so that PBSR staff members are constantly asking themselves, “Who knows about this program/effort? How could we more clearly communicate it? How could other groups be involved in the development and delivery of this effort?” They may also follow-up with all of their service providers with general communication update e-mails, newsletters, or meetings. In-house, NPN established monthly breakfasts where their staff would be updated about various efforts and discussing marketing/communications issues. Perhaps this should happen across teams to include service providers. NPN should also consider shifting from a “community input” perspective to a “participatory democracy” framework, so as to include residents in the decision-making processes that dictate programmatic and policy decisions. Communication within the neighborhood proved to be difficult for NPN, which seemed to be consistent with practical publications about the challenges of CCIs (Aspen Institute, 2011). This issue was complicated because of NPN’s perception as a primarily educational initiative that was mostly interested in developing relationships with households that included children. PBSR efforts should consider branding their efforts as comprehensive neighborhood improvement and not just educational initiatives. Positions on the governance committees could specifically be created for residents without children so that PBSR and PBCCI efforts can be 354

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE more relevant to these residents. NPN created a “grassroots” communications committee, which grew out of their acknowledgement of the importance of such communication across the neighborhood. However, these efforts also included “cross-boundary teams” of professionals within the organization. The main neighborhood communications strategies developed by NPN seemed to be a billboard on a commercial strip, literature drops, and connections with the Community Council. Such efforts suggested that the lead organization concerned itself with “informing” residents as opposed to including them in decision-making processes characteristic of participatory democracy frameworks (Benson et al., 2007). Social media was briefly addressed, but internal LFPI rules heavily regulated who could use these outlets and what could be said on them. Perhaps a grassroots organizing approach may be a different approach that could work (Warren, Mapp, & Community Organizing and School Reform Project, 2011). Lead organizations should also consider building an intentional communications strategy within the building. Teams of teachers, counselors, student support professionals, custodians, food management teams, and building leaders could be facilitated by PBSR staff to update them on initiatives happening in the neighborhood. These kinds of communications structures could also serve to increase buy-in and give these stakeholders a chance to voice concerns. Teacher professional development sessions may be another example of a way to encourage teachers to become at least more aware (if not more active) in the overall initiative. One building leader took steps to establish meeting with paraprofessional PS members (supervised directly by NPN staff) as to communicate with them about implementation issues. Such meetings may be a helpful way to increase communication within the building. Lead Organization Shared Accountability. One area that emerged as a challenge was fostering shared accountability between partners for the success of different initiatives.

Some

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE partners working with PBSR efforts may not feel like they are part of a coherent team as they implement their individual programs. Such a dynamic means that some groups may not have the capacity to get residents to participate in programming and thus may require a sense of shared accountability. Lead organizations may need to assume more responsibility for ensuring that service providers can be successful in their goals. It struck me that the lead organization was probably the group with the most on-the-ground credibility among residents (see discussion about Parent Success Network field observations) since they have been developing relationships with residents as they implement programming. How could service providers be expected to have “credibility” among residents in the neighborhood when service providers are not the ones who have developed the relationships with these residents? Such a question requires that lead organizations consider how to balance between a cut-throat accountability (where partners are strictly held accountable for meeting certain goals, regardless of circumstances) and compassionate accountability (where there is a recognition of the barriers that may exist for some providers to be successful given their limited credibility in the neighborhood). When groups (e.g. school transformation, early childhood) meet, the convener should consider putting items on the agenda where partners discuss how they could help other partners be successful. Lead Organization Integrated Service Delivery System. One of the most challenging aspects of PBSR, and the related school improvement strategy of community schools, is the creation of an integrated service delivery system. Lead organizations may consider convening all service providers, agreeing on a common reporting platform or service delivery interface system, and securing agreements from these groups to use this interface when working directly with neighborhood residents. Additionally, meetings between neighborhood-based and schoolbased service providers could be helpful to troubleshoot issues between service providers who

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE serve students and families in these different contexts. It could also help to prevent service duplication between school and neighborhood providers. NPN certainly intended to create an integrated system of service delivery, but this component seemed to not be well-implemented. Increased Community Voice and Presence. Literature on PBCCIs warned that efforts not driven and embraced by the community are not ultimately sustainable (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2013; Aspen Institute, 2011). NPN seemed to struggle to include residents in the effort’s decision-making practices, and therefore did not establish itself as an engine of participatory democracy. While community members were involved in some programs, and attended Community Council meetings, I was not convinced that residents had authentic voice in the operations and direction-setting of NPN. For example, during field observation three, Community Council members simply welcomed the group to the meeting and introduced themselves. NPN staff members led the meeting, wrote notes, and made decisions about how to roll out the business engagement initiative. Only two residents gave any feedback about the agenda items. Further, residents were not discussed as part of the advisory committee, with the one exception of a faith leader. Residents most likely to receive services were consulted at times, but they did not seem to be a major part of the decision-making procedures and program planning. If such community embeddedness does not occur, I fear that NPN will not ultimately be accepted as a legitimate community-based entity. Scholars have documented the difficulty in establishing trust in the neighborhood (Geller, Doykos, Crave, Bess, & Nation, 2014), but one approach to establishing this trust would be including residents in all high-level decision-making processes within the organization. This would include adding them to governance committees, grant-writing teams, team meetings, and all other program meetings. Not only would this help to build resident capacity, but it would also show the community that NPN was truly driven by

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE residents. Further, I recommend that NPN establish an office within the community so that they can be accessible to residents. Having an office five to six miles away made it seem that the lead organization was in but not of the community. Research. This study seemed to have many implications for the direction of future research on: (1) PBSR as a concept, (2) external organizations and the central office, (3) school leadership, (4) underdeveloped neighborhoods, and (5) policy implementation. Place-based school reform. This study provided insights about what PBSR was on the ground, how it operated, and who was involved in its operations and leadership. However, this was only a single case study in one city. Research could benefit from examining this approach in other cities and different contexts. Additional research would also be helpful to understand more about lead organizations. For example, is there a difference in PBSR when led by a for-profit versus a non-profit organization? What are emergent promising practices in facilitating accountability between lead organizations and service providers? How do lead organizations relate to already-existing community-based organizations within neighborhoods? How involved should the lead organization be in shaping the urban regime to steer the discussions about urban school reform in its community? What common challenges do lead organizations face when implementing PBSR? How can PBSR efforts develop joint internal and external strategies to improve the neighborhood? How can PBSR efforts balance providing individual interventions while also addressing larger, systemic problems that caused social problems? Further, scholars may consider conducting outcome evaluation studies of PBSR efforts. Are these efforts efficacious? Under what conditions are they effective? More longitudinal, as well as mixed method studies, could begin to reveal the answer to these complex questions. As the collaborative becomes the standard method of attacking social ills, it will become 358

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE increasingly important to understand how these efforts are either successful or unsuccessful. An important part of conducting investigations into how these collaboratives are organized and the extent to which they are successful, research should more deeply understand the differing perspectives between stakeholders involved in such efforts. Step one: are these efforts successful? Step two: To whom or for what problems are they most successful at tackling? As Lawson (2013) reminded the scholarly community, interventions should be fit for purpose, in this context, and at this time. More in-depth studies of PBSR over time can help to provide insights into these criterion. I would encourage the scholarly community to particularly investigate these efforts from the perspective from the residents. Perhaps participatory action research could offer a framework for how to best include residents in the planning and implementation processes, while also increasing their level of investment into the project. Resident perspectives could also be helpful in developing insights into the difficulty in developing individual verses systemic interventions that attack social problems both at the individual and policy levels. External organizations and the central office. Honig (2009a) offered a study about how large external groups like the Gates Foundation are involved in the implementation of school reform efforts. PBSR provides an interesting lens through which this line of inquiry could be extended. Lead organizations work alongside school leaders and central office officials to implement school reform models. How can we make these relationships between lead organizations and school districts stronger? This case study suggested that superintendent churn and political issues with the school board and union strained the relationship between the central office and NPN. Lessons could be learned about the politics of policy implementation (Malen, 2006). That is, how do lead organizations seek to influence the central office’s participation in

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE ways that align with their interests? How do central offices both formally and informally manage relationships with lead organizations? Such questions could be helpful in expanding practical and theoretical knowledge that could help improve central office / external organization partnerships. School leadership. School leaders in Promise Neighborhoods act on the “social frontier” (Miller, Wells, & Scanlan, 2013) in that they require principals to operate outside of their formal purviews of instructional leadership and building manager. The University Council of Educational Administration has taken steps to adjust its leadership preparation modules to include engaging families and communities17 as an important part of a social justice agenda for educational administration. When building leaders become involved in such efforts like PN, they must have a new skill set in hand, as they are being placed in the role of community leader and, in some cases, a community organizer. Educational leadership scholars should consider documenting the experiences of building leaders involved in these efforts to shed light on how exactly these principals are involved, their challenges, and emergent best practices. The University of California at Berkeley’s Center for Cities and Schools has developed leadership training programs that cross-train principals in school leadership and urban planning/community development. More coherent models of such programs could emerge from researching school principal experiences with Promise Neighborhood efforts. Underdeveloped neighborhoods. PBSR is an emergent model of trying to approach neighborhood improvement from an institutional perspective, in that it seeks to understand how to rebuild the institutional infrastructure (currently obliterated in underdeveloped neighborhoods). How well can PBSR attack the underlying causes of neighborhood

17

http://ucealee.squarespace.com/lsdl-preparation-modules-new/

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE underdevelopment? This line of inquiry would build on the knowledge of the community organizing and school reform literature (Shirley, 1997; Warren, 2005; Warren, Mapp, & Community Organizing and School Reform Project, 2011), but it would go further because it would examine how lead organizations can drive comprehensive neighborhood improvement strategies including education as only one aspect of the intervention. Also, an important part of the underdeveloped neighborhood issue is the one of resident engagement. While PN and Choice Neighborhoods require lead organizations to put the resident engagement strategies on paper, it seemed that this area was ripe for a disconnect between theory and practice. Even though residents were formally involved in the grant application, it seemed that they were not meaningfully involved in making decisions about on-going operations and program decisions of PN. If residents are not empowered to take a leadership role alongside a lead organization, then how will they (and the neighborhoods in which they live) become transformed? Policy implementation. This study was in part a policy implementation study, so inquiries into PBSR could reveal new knowledge about the implementation of increasingly complex interventions. PBSR is far from a new curricular program like Reading Recovery, or a school governance reform like creating small schools. Instead, PBSR represented one form of equity-minded school reform (Renee, Welner, & Oakes, 2010). Successful or unsuccessful implementation of PBSR could tell the scholarly and practitioner community about what it takes to implement policies that directly confront power and privilege in favor of underdeveloped or exploited populations. Indeed, such school reform efforts are likely to experience “downward mutual adaptation,” but it is possible that some PN efforts are succeeding in ushering in this new paradigm of school reform work. Further, Honig (2009b) discussed the politics of policy dilution. It seemed that this particular case experienced this policy dilution, in that many aspects

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE of the plan were not implemented according to the plan. How are these efforts confronting privilege in different school systems? How are they engaging stakeholder groups in these discussions, such as teachers, principals, student support staff, and central office staff? Do these efforts have any meaningful impact on the implementation of other, potentially conflicting policies?

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Wilson, J. Q. & Kelling, G. (1982). The police and neighborhood safety: broken windows. Atlantic Monthly, 127, 29-38. Wilson, W. J., & Taub, R. P. (2011). There goes the neighborhood: Racial, ethnic, and class tensions in four Chicago neighborhoods and their meaning for America. New York: Random House. Witte, J. F. (2000). The market approach to education: An analysis of America’s first voucher program. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Witte, J. F., Carlson, D., Cowen, J. M., Fleming, D. J., & Wolf, P. J. (2011). MPCP longitudinal educational growth study: Fourth year report. School Choice Demonstration Project, Report 23. Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas. Retrieved from http://www.uaedreform.org/SCDP/Milwaukee_Eval/Report_23.pdf Wodtke, G. T. (2013). Duration and timing of exposure to neighborhood poverty and the risk of adolescent parenthood. Demography, 50(5), 1765-1788. Wodtke, G. T., Harding, D. J., & Elwert, F. (2011). Neighborhood effects in temporal perspective: The impact of long-term exposure to concentrated disadvantage on high school graduation. American Sociological Review, 76(5), 713-736. Wohlstetter, P. (1995). Getting school-based management right: What works and doesn’t. Phi Delta Kappan, 77(1), 22-24, 26. Wolf, P. J. (2012). The comprehensive longitudinal evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program: Summary of final reports. Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas School Choice Demonstration Project. Retrieved from http://www.uaedreform.org/downloads/2013/10/report-36-the-comprehensivelongitudinal-evaluation-of-the-milwaukee-parental-choice-program.pdf

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Wolf, P., Gutmann, B., Puma, M., Kisida, B., Rizzo, L. & Eissa, N. O. (2009) Evaluation of the DC opportunity scholarship program: Impacts after three years. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Wong, K. K. & Shen, F. X. (2013). Mayoral governance and student achievement: How mayorled districts are improving school and student performance. Washington, DC: Center for American Progress. Worthy, W (1977). The rape of our neighborhoods: And how communities are resisting takeovers by colleges, hospitals, churches, businesses, and public agencies. New York: William Morrow. Yin, R. K. (2014). Case study research: Design and methods (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Yin, R. K. (2009). Case study research: Design and methods (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Yoshikawa, H., Aber, J. L., & Beardslee, W. R. (2012). The effects of poverty on the mental, emotional, and behavioral health of children and youth: Implications for prevention. American Psychologist, 67(4), 272. Zigler, E. F., Finn‐Stevenson, M., & Stem, B. M. (1997). Supporting children and families in the schools: The school of the 21st century. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 67(3), 396-407.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE APPENDIX A: Case Study Protocol and Interview Questions

A. Overview of case study 1. Goals of case study researcher: To understand how place-based school reform exists in practice. To understand how school choice complicates place-based school reform. 2. Case Study hypotheses and propositions: See Figure 4.1 3. Conceptual framework for case study: Place-based school reform (described in methods section) B. Data collection procedures 1. Field work contacts: Promise Neighborhoods CEO; Northeaston Public Schools Assistant Superintendent; NPN Parent Success Network coordinator; Northeaston Public Schools Data and Accountability office director. These are the essential personnel who will need to approve my study and can suggest names of interviewees. 2. Data collection plan - Evidence expected: Interview data from five groups: (1) NPS Administration, (2) NPS Administration (central office, central registration), (3) Service Providers, (4) Residents, (5) Building staff (principals, teachers). I will seek to interview at least five people from each group. Events to be observed: Collaboration meetings between the four groups, public meetings, leadership team meetings. Documents to be reviewed: NNPN Needs Assessment, NPN grant application to Department of Education, NPN website materials, NPN meeting minutes with stakeholders, Northeaston Board of Education minutes where NPN is discussed. - Expected preparation for fieldwork: a. Make contact with people in B(1) to secure buy-in for study. This will include a data request to Northeaston Public Schools and an IRB request. - June 2014 b. Identify a complete list of approved interviewees. Target NPS Central Registration. - July 2014 c. Compile list of meetings, events, and gatherings where NPN is discussed where I can get a sense of how it has been implemented. - July 2014 d. Provide interview protocols to institutional leaders. - July 2014 e. Data collection and on-going assessment and evaluation of interviewees, interview questions and field observations. For example, I may realize that city-level groups such as CIE to Education or other stakeholders such as the Northeaston Teachers Federation may be essential to understand what NPN looks like in practice and how it has changed over time. - August October 2014 C. Data collection questions This section refers to the “specific questions that the case study researcher must keep in mind when collecting data” (Yin, 2014, p. 90). These include questions or concepts of interest across groups.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Question 1: What are the theoretical and conceptual dimensions of place-base school reform? This question refers to what exactly comprises a place-based school reform effort from the perspective of those leaders who planned it. a. Principles guiding the development of the Promise Neighborhood b. Concepts embedded in the development of the local Promise Neighborhood effort. c. Components: What components were planned? d. Theory of change: What are the theories of change that drive the project? Question 2: What are the components of place-based school reform when implemented? This question refers to implementation: how the effort is similar or different in practice than the theoretical and conceptual dimensions explored in the first question.. a. Components: What components exist in practice? What outcomes drive the project? Use needs assessment and grant applications to list general components. b. Relationship between NPN,Northeaston Public Schools, Service Providers, Residents, and Building Staff c. Administrative structure of NPN d. Unexpected changes or challenges related to implementation e. Accountability: How is NPN accountable? Question 3: How does school choice complicate the development of place-based school reform strategies? a. What strategies have been developed to confront the school choice challenge among NPS and non-profit service providers? These could be policies and practices developed to overcome the challenge. b. How have NPN administrators encouraged enrollment in neighborhood schools: Explore the relationship between NPS and NPN that encouraged neighborhood children to enroll in NPN schools. c. When interacting with residents and building staff, how have school choice challenges been addressed? d. Messaging and outreach: Has school choice complicated the messaging and outreach efforts? This could also include any conference presentations and out-of-town talks NPN has engaged in. Have they advised other localities about navigating the challenges of school choice? e. Grant applications: Is the issue of school choice raised when applying for grants? Have funders expressed any discomfort about it?

Tentative Case Study Interview Questions Using Seidman’s three-part phenomenological interview framework, each of the questions below fall into three broad categories: (1) life history, (2) details of the phenomenon under investigation, and (3) meaning of the phenomenon under investigation. In addition, each interview protocol was designed to unpack the three research questions.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE NPNNPN Administration - How did you come to get involved in education in Northeaston? In the Promise Neighborhood (Life History – establishing rapport) - Could you tell me about the details Promise Neighborhood initiative? What is it trying to accomplish or do? (Details of Promise Neighborhood, Concepts and Theories undergirding Promise) - Probe: How would you describe Promise to someone who knew little about the model? - What programs and initiatives are embedded with it? (Details of Promise Neighborhood) - Probes: How have neighbors been involved? Tell me about the interaction between service providers and school officials. - What makes Promise Neighborhood a unique or novel approach to school reform? (Concepts and Theories undergirding Promise) - What have been some unexpected challenges experienced by Promise while going through implementation? (Details of Promise, Implementation issues) - Probes: To what groups or individuals is Promise accountable? Before Promise, and based on your knowledge and experience in Northeaston, how did neighborhood factors impact schooling, if at all? How did Northeaston address those challenges? Is it different with Promise? (reframing the question about how approaches to school reform create tensions, with a specific emphasis on how neighborhood-conditions impact schooling) - How is the Promise Neighborhood effort administratively and organizationally structured? (Details of Promise) - How do you think Promise Neighborhood is impacting the neighborhood? The school? (Meaning of Promise Neighborhood, Concepts and Theories undergirding Promise) - As I understand it, NPS is a district with an open enrollment policy. How does Promise Neighborhoods approach to school improvement align with that model? Would you talk about some of the ways it may align or may depart from them? (directly exploring the tensions between school choice and place-based school reform) - How has Promise worked with Northeaston Public Schools to address the issue of school choice and neighborhood schools? - Probes: What has been the relationship with Central Registration and the school choice process? Do you think the process could be improved in any way? What advice would you give to other cities experiencing challenges between school choice and neighborhood-based approaches to schooling like Promise? NPS Administration - How did you come to get involved in education in Northeaston? When did you join Northeaston Public Schools? (Life History – establishing rapport) - What is your relationship to Promise Neighborhood? (Life History – establishing rapport) - Could you tell me about the details Promise Neighborhood initiative? What is it trying to accomplish or do? (Details of Promise Neighborhood, Concepts and Theories undergirding Promise) - As you understand them, tell me about the experiences and efforts that have been launched as a result of Promise, both at the building level and at the city level. (what components does this interviewee see as components of Promise, Details of Promise Neighborhood) 428

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE - How does Promise match up with how Northeaston Public Schools approaches education reform? In what ways is it the same? In what ways is it different? (Concepts and Theories undergirding Promise) - What have been some unexpected challenges experienced by Promise while going through implementation? (Details of Promise, Implementation issues) - What makes Promise Neighborhood a unique or novel approach to school reform? (Concepts and Theories undergirding Promise) - How do you think Promise Neighborhood is impacting the neighborhood? The school? (Meaning of Promise Neighborhood, Concepts and Theories undergirding Promise) - As I understand it, NPS is a district with an open enrollment policy. How does Promise Neighborhoods approach to school improvement align with that model? Would you talk about some of the ways it may align or may depart from them? (directly exploring the tensions between school choice and place-based school reform) - How has Promise worked with Northeaston Public Schools to address the issue of school choice and neighborhood schools? - Probes: What has been the relationship with Central Registration and the school choice process? Do you think the process could be improved in any way? What advice would you give to other cities experiencing challenges between school choice and neighborhood-based approaches to schooling like Promise?

Community Residents - How long have you lived here? How have you seen things change? (Life History – establishing rapport) - What does Promise Neighborhood mean to you? (Details of Promise Neighborhood, Concepts and Theories undergirding Promise) - Do you have a relationship to Promise Neighborhood? (Life History – establishing rapport) - Could you tell me about the details Promise Neighborhood initiative? What is it trying to accomplish or do? (Details of Promise Neighborhood, Concepts and Theories undergirding Promise) - As you understand them, tell me about the experiences and efforts that have been launched as a result of Promise. (what components does this interviewee see as components of Promise, Details of Promise Neighborhood) - How do you think Promise Neighborhood is impacting the neighborhood? The schools? (Meaning of Promise Neighborhood, Concepts and Theories undergirding Promise) - What is the role of residents in the Northeaston Promise Neighborhood? (Details of Promise Neighborhood) - [If they have a child] In Northeaston, there are some choices about where to send your child to school. Do you choose to send your child to school here in the neighborhood. Could you tell me about your decision? - Probes: Do you think Promise Neighborhood makes the schools serve as “community schools”? Do you think the schools have anything to do with making the neighborhood a better place? What do you think the relationship is like between the schools in the Promise Neighborhood and residents?

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE - [If they don’t have a child] In Northeaston, parents get some options for where their children attend school. Do you think this makes what Promise Neighborhood is trying to do more difficult? - Probe: Do you think there should be any solutions? Service Providers - How did you come to get involved in your organization? In the Promise Neighborhood (Life History – establishing rapport) - Could you tell me about the details Promise Neighborhood initiative? What is it trying to accomplish or do? (Details of Promise Neighborhood, Concepts and Theories undergirding Promise) - Probe: How would you describe Promise to someone who knew little about the model? - As you understand them, tell me about the experiences and efforts that have been launched as a result of Promise, both at the building level and at the city level. (what components does this interviewee see as components of Promise, Details of Promise Neighborhood) - What is the role of service providers in the Northeaston Promise Neighborhood? (Details of Promise Neighborhood) - What have been some unexpected challenges experienced by Promise while going through implementation? (Details of Promise, Implementation issues) - What makes Promise Neighborhood a unique or novel approach to school reform? (Concepts and Theories undergirding Promise) - How do you think Promise Neighborhood is impacting the neighborhood? The school? (Meaning of Promise Neighborhood, Concepts and Theories undergirding Promise) - As I understand it, NPS is a district with an open enrollment policy. How does Promise Neighborhoods approach to school improvement align with that model? Would you talk about some of the ways it may align or may depart from them? (directly exploring the tensions between school choice and place-based school reform) - How has Promise worked with Northeaston Public Schools to address the issue of school choice and neighborhood schools? - Alternative: In Northeaston, parents get some options for where their children attend school. Do you think this makes what Promise Neighborhood is trying to do more difficult?

Building Staff - How did you come to get involved in your organization? In the Promise Neighborhood (Life History – establishing rapport) - Could you tell me about the details Promise Neighborhood initiative? What is it trying to accomplish or do? (Details of Promise Neighborhood, Concepts and Theories undergirding Promise) - Probe: How would you describe Promise to someone who knew little about the model? - As you understand them, tell me about the experiences and efforts that have been launched as a result of Promise, both at the building level and at the city level. (what components does this interviewee see as components of Promise, Details of Promise Neighborhood) 430

PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE - What is the role of teachers and building staff in the Northeaston Promise Neighborhood? (Details of Promise Neighborhood) - What have been some unexpected challenges experienced by Promise while going through implementation? (Details of Promise, Implementation issues) - Has your daily work changed since working with Promise Neighborhoods? - What makes Promise Neighborhood a unique or novel approach to school reform? (Concepts and Theories undergirding Promise) - How do you think Promise Neighborhood is impacting the neighborhood? The school? (Meaning of Promise Neighborhood, Concepts and Theories undergirding Promise) - As I understand it, NPS is a district with an open enrollment policy. How does Promise Neighborhoods approach to school improvement align with that model? Would you talk about some of the ways it may align or may depart from them? (directly exploring the tensions between school choice and place-based school reform) - How has Promise worked with Northeaston Public Schools to address the issue of school choice and neighborhood schools? - Alternative: In Northeaston, parents get some options for where their children attend school. Do you think this makes what Promise Neighborhood is trying to do more difficult?

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE APPENDIX B: Demographic Information Sheets to Interviewees NPNNPN Administration Years involved in NPNNPN: _________________________________________________________ Previous position before NPNNPN: ____________________________________________________ Age: _________________________________________________________________________ Levels of Education Achieved (check all that apply) ___ High School Diploma or GED ___ Some College _________ years ___ 2yr associates degree or technical program (Degree: _______________________) ___ 4yr Bachelor’s Degree (Degree: _______________________) ___ Graduate Degree (Degree: _______________________) What race do you consider yourself to be? Please select 1 or more of these categories. [ ] WHITE [ ] BLACK/AFRICAN AMERICAN [ ] INDIAN (AMERICAN) [ ] ALASKA NATIVE [ ] NATIVE HAWAIIAN [ ] GUAMANIAN [ ] SAMOAN [ ] OTHER PACIFIC ISLANDER (SPECIFY) [ ] ASIAN INDIAN

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE [ ] CHINESE [ ] FILIPINO [ ] JAPANESE [ ] KOREAN [ ] VIETNAMESE [ ] OTHER ASIAN (SPECIFY) [ ] SOME OTHER RACE (SPECIFY)___ [ ] REFUSED [ ] DON’T KNOW Sex: Male, Female, Other Resident of NPNNPN: ___ Yes ___ No

NPS Administration Years employed by NPS: _________________________________________________________ Previous position before Central Office:_____________________________________________ Age: _________________________________________________________________________ Levels of Education Achieved (check all that apply) ___ High School Diploma or GED ___ Some College _________ years ___ 2yr associates degree or technical program (Degree: _______________________) ___ 4yr Bachelor’s Degree (Degree: _______________________) ___ Graduate Degree (Degree: _______________________) What race do you consider yourself to be? Please select 1 or more of these categories.

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE [ ] WHITE [ ] BLACK/AFRICAN AMERICAN [ ] INDIAN (AMERICAN) [ ] ALASKA NATIVE [ ] NATIVE HAWAIIAN [ ] GUAMANIAN [ ] SAMOAN [ ] OTHER PACIFIC ISLANDER (SPECIFY) [ ] ASIAN INDIAN [ ] CHINESE [ ] FILIPINO [ ] JAPANESE [ ] KOREAN [ ] VIETNAMESE [ ] OTHER ASIAN (SPECIFY) [ ] SOME OTHER RACE (SPECIFY)___ [ ] REFUSED [ ] DON’T KNOW Sex: Male, Female, Other Resident of NPNNPN: ___ Yes ___ No

Building Staff Years at this school: _____________________________________________________________

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE Previous position before this school:________________________________________________ Age: _________________________________________________________________________ Levels of Education Achieved (check all that apply) ___ High School Diploma or GED ___ Some College _________ years ___ 2yr associates degree or technical program (Degree: _______________________) ___ 4yr Bachelor’s Degree (Degree: _______________________) ___ Graduate Degree (Degree: _______________________) What race do you consider yourself to be? Please select 1 or more of these categories. [ ] WHITE [ ] BLACK/AFRICAN AMERICAN [ ] INDIAN (AMERICAN) [ ] ALASKA NATIVE [ ] NATIVE HAWAIIAN [ ] GUAMANIAN [ ] SAMOAN [ ] OTHER PACIFIC ISLANDER (SPECIFY) [ ] ASIAN INDIAN [ ] CHINESE [ ] FILIPINO [ ] JAPANESE [ ] KOREAN [ ] VIETNAMESE

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE [ ] OTHER ASIAN (SPECIFY) [ ] SOME OTHER RACE (SPECIFY)___ [ ] REFUSED [ ] DON’T KNOW Sex: Male, Female, Other Resident of NPNNPN: ___ Yes ___ No

Service Providers Years working with NPNNPN:_________________________________________________________ Years working at your current agency: ______________________________________________ Previous position before this school:________________________________________________ Age: _________________________________________________________________________ Levels of Education Achieved (check all that apply) ___ High School Diploma or GED ___ Some College _________ years ___ 2yr associates degree or technical program (Degree: _______________________) ___ 4yr Bachelor’s Degree (Degree: _______________________) ___ Graduate Degree (Degree: _______________________) What race do you consider yourself to be? Please select 1 or more of these categories. [ ] WHITE [ ] BLACK/AFRICAN AMERICAN [ ] INDIAN (AMERICAN)

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE [ ] ALASKA NATIVE [ ] NATIVE HAWAIIAN [ ] GUAMANIAN [ ] SAMOAN [ ] OTHER PACIFIC ISLANDER (SPECIFY) [ ] ASIAN INDIAN [ ] CHINESE [ ] FILIPINO [ ] JAPANESE [ ] KOREAN [ ] VIETNAMESE [ ] OTHER ASIAN (SPECIFY) [ ] SOME OTHER RACE (SPECIFY)___ [ ] REFUSED [ ] DON’T KNOW Sex: Male, Female, Other Resident of NPNNPN: ___ Yes ___ No

Community Residents Years living in this neighborhood:_________________________________________________ Previous neighborhood:__________________________________________________________ Age: _________________________________________________________________________ Levels of Education Achieved (check all that apply)

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE ___ High School Diploma or GED ___ Some College _________ years ___ 2yr associates degree or technical program (Degree: _______________________) ___ 4yr Bachelor’s Degree (Degree: _______________________) ___ Graduate Degree (Degree: _______________________) What race do you consider yourself to be? Please select 1 or more of these categories. [ ] WHITE [ ] BLACK/AFRICAN AMERICAN [ ] INDIAN (AMERICAN) [ ] ALASKA NATIVE [ ] NATIVE HAWAIIAN [ ] GUAMANIAN [ ] SAMOAN [ ] OTHER PACIFIC ISLANDER (SPECIFY) [ ] ASIAN INDIAN [ ] CHINESE [ ] FILIPINO [ ] JAPANESE [ ] KOREAN [ ] VIETNAMESE [ ] OTHER ASIAN (SPECIFY) [ ] SOME OTHER RACE (SPECIFY)___ [ ] REFUSED

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PLACE-BASED SCHOOL REFORM AND SCHOOL CHOICE [ ] DON’T KNOW Sex: Male, Female, Other Resident of NPNNPN: ___ Yes ___ No

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