Competitive Communities are discovering effective strategies to connect brainpower, innovation and quality place. Nothing is off limits in questioning conventional wisdom about how we have always done things. Is the educational environment for our children contributing to building better communities? Do school policies coordinate or conflict with community goals and strategies? Can communities play a greater role in shaping and implementing academic missions? Can schools be designed to encourage community use and improve public services efficiency? How do we more specifically define the role of schools in building Competitive Communities? Answering these questions requires open inclusive dialogue and leadership committed to positioning community and region to participate in a better future.

New Schools Better Neighborhoods is an organization promoting change in the role of schools in communities. Schools As Centers Of Communities: KnowledgeWorks Foundation Concept Paper is an article in the Spring 2004 newsletter of NSBN. The following are excerpts from the article that encourage building consensus around a five point agenda. Implementing this recommendation moves communities toward our competitive model on the quality place scales.

"Point 1: The Role of Community in a New Era of Accountability. In this new era of accountability, community support is essential to improving and sustaining public education... that accountability goes both ways; just as communities have a responsibility to sustain and improve the education of their children, schools must also be open and accountable to the community... community-wide support for public education must be rooted in a deep and abiding commitment to equity.

Point 2: Building Community-School Partnerships. Communities can play a powerful role in supporting the academic mission of public education to prepare all of our children to lead productive lives in a democratic society...development of community/school partnerships that can provide an array of services and after-school opportunities to support the academic mission of the school. Community/school partnerships provide a framework for increased family involvement and link schools to a diverse network of organizations and cultural institutions (museums, the arts, community-based organizations, youth development groups etc.) that have a capacity to sustain and support public education. The creation of community-school partnerships is also an opportunity to reach out to new and important constituencies from mayors to senior citizens to support public education.

Point 3: Building a New Type of School Facility. In this era of life-long learning new schools should be built as "community learning centers," facilities that are open later and longer, for more people. Creating such schools, by definition, requires an entirely new way of doing business in the planning, design and funding of multi-purpose facilities that serve the entire community. Every effort should be made to pool resources and to create new joint governing structures and ways of managing that foster the development of community-wide partnerships.

The planning and design of new schools is also a unique opportunity to rethink the teaching and learning process and encourage development of smaller learning environments. Community values should shape teaching and learning, and small learning environments foster parent involvement and use community partnerships for learning. Research demonstrates clearly that children are safer, and have higher achievement and graduation rates in smaller learning environments.

Point 4: Smart Growth, Sustainability and Community Renewal. The planning and design of new school facilities is an important opportunity to anchor communities and to support community renewal. School boards need to be supported in the development of safe, healthy, and energy-efficient facilities and be encouraged to apply the principles of smart growth and sustainability in the planning and design of new facilities. Historic schools need to be seen as generational links to the past and modern examples of community-centered schooling.

Point 5: Building the Capacity to Develop Schools as Centers of Community. Public policy must fundamentally -- if not radically -- change to accommodate this new vision of public education and the role of the community. The core of the issue is that current practices, policies and governing structures that define public education's relationship to the broader community are inadequate to meet the demands of 21st Century education.

At a time when state and local government are facing severe budget constraints, they are also seeking solutions and new ways of operating. There is an urgent need to develop creative solutions and incentives that encourage increased collaboration between schools, local government agencies, civic and community based organizations. Just as teachers must learn new skills and schools need to be modernize, we need to develop new policies and governing structures that allow us to spend public tax dollars in a collaborative way."

Also check out an October 2002 report by Renata Simril written for NSBN, A New Strategy for Building Better Schools

Related entries in Competitive Communities include: Learning the Hard Way , Schooling Growth , Building Innovation Communities- Are you counting your Entrepreneurs? , Exploring Connections between Brainpower and Quality Place , and What it takes to build a Competitive Community