Education improvement and the community

community schools , schools of community , schools and community , community education , education of community
The last decade of the twentieth century was the decade of school improvement. Vast amounts of energy were expended in improving the outcomes of schooling – and they were generally successful. By a range of criteria schools were much better at schooling; literacy and numeracy scores rose and there was significant improvement against a range of criteria. This was largely achieved through the implementation of national strategies at institutional level. One effect of this was to make principals and headteachers the managers of externally imposed policy initiatives. What was referred to as leadership was in fact ‘super-management’ as the key areas of leadership activity were removed to the centre and implementation became the criterion for success. However this success criterion is that of a previous generation – the success of schools may not be appropriate for a world in which:
Entirely new points of departure will be required in order to significantly improve

the capacity of all segments of society, including enterprises and local communities,
to break with the rigid and hierarchical methods of the past and embrace solutions
based on greater personal accountability, internal motivation and uniqueness.
(Stevens et al., 2000: 22)


Most government policies fail to address the issues of ‘personal accountability, internal motivation and uniqueness’; rather they emphasise consistency, conformity and compliance. According to Mulgan (2000: 184):

Too much was imposed top-down rather than involving communities themselves;
too many initiatives were short-term; too many focused on one or two problems
rather than tackling the cluster of related problems in the round.


For Mulgan two of the key themes in the ‘emerging agenda’ for learning are:

  • Policies for knowledge go wider than formal education: diet, housing and poverty bear directly on cognitive development and educational performance. 
  • Education and learning will increasingly take place beyond educational institutions. (Mulgan, 2000: 151–2) 
If a fundamental distinction between school management and educational leadership is accepted, then a radical reconceptualisation of the nature and purpose of such leadership is required. In essence the shift is from institutional improvement to community transformation. It is very doubtful as to how much more capacity to improve there is in the school system. A football team does not improve its league position by setting its players to run faster or pass more balls. It has to score more goals; running and passing are necessary but not sufficient factors in winning matches. Improving schools is a necessary but not sufficient component of educating a society.

If educational success is a function of high social capital, then educational leadership has to make capital development a high priority. The change is from an emphasis on the school as an institution to the school as an agency:
Some forms of social capital are, by choice or necessity, inward looking and tend to reinforce
exclusive identities and homogeneous groups ... Other networks are outward
looking and encompass people across diverse social cleavages.
(Putnam, 2000: 22)

School improvement leads to bonding, introspection and detachment. While this creates institutional integrity it compromises engagement and networking – the basis of the creation of social capital. If academic standards are to be raised in a sustainable way and broader educational aspirations achieved, then educationists will have to see their role in terms of creating social capital rather than just improving classroom practice.
The Search Institute (1998: 8) talks about ‘asset building’ rather than social capital but the principles are the same:
The answer doesn’t lie primarily in creating new programs or in hiring in more
professionals. The primary answer lies in bringing into reality a fundamental shift
in thinking – from a problem focus to a positive vision.

The Institute goes on to identify the characteristics of asset-building communities which include:
  • All residents take personal responsibility for building assets in children and adolescents.
  • The community thinks and acts intergenerationally.
  • The community builds a consensus on values and beliefs, which it seeks to articulate and model.
  • Families are supported, educated, and equipped to elevate asset building to top priority.
  • The community-wide commitment to asset building is long term and sustained.
(Search Institute, 1998: 9)
These points (and others not quoted) reinforce the model of a rich network with high interdependence and, perhaps the crucial component, a shared vision within the community as a whole. Writing in 1915, Dewey argued:
The role of the community in making the schools vital is just as important as the
role of the school itself. For in a community where schools are looked upon as isolated
institutions, as a necessary convention, the school will remain largely so in
spite of the most skilful methods of teaching. But a community that demands something
visible from its schools, that recognises the part they play in the welfare of the
whole… Such a community will have social schools, and whatever its resources, it
will have schools that develop community spirit and interests.
(Skilbeck, 1970: 125)

‘Social schools’ is a very powerful image in this context, as is the notion of a school being ‘visible’; both reinforce the notion of schools being of their communities, not just in their communities.