Community Action for School Reform

Chapter 9

Chapter 9 Doing Something Volunteers get satisfaction from doing good. Organizations that deal with large or poorly defined problems—that want volunteers to study before acting—need people who are comfortable with research and reflection; otherwise , desires to do something will displace analysis and planning. Although the Southeast Community Plan recommended a “study-action group” on schools, parents and community members were interested more in action than in study. Anyone who took education seriously could at once feel overwhelmed by problems and impelled to do something—anything—to make things at least a little better. The next two chapters look at projects that the Task Force carried out because participants wanted to do something that satisfied their interests and fit available opportunities. We might describe them as pulled from a “garbage can.” Yet to say so does not imply that the projects were not reasonable, nor does it mean that they were not based on tested knowledge—participants took knowledge seriously, and some were professional researchers. Rather, the projects illustrate the logic of action, in that their creation and direction were shaped primarily by participants’ interests in finding something that they could do together. We examine three projects of increasing complexity: a small “tutoring-mentoring program,” a broad initiative to develop a full-service community school, and an interorganizational network to influence the Empowerment Zone. 121 A TUTORING-MENTORING PROGRAM In March 1996, School-Family-Community Relations Work Group members , meeting for just the fourth time, wanted to do something for the schools. Three weeks later, at the next meeting, someone proposed a resource fair. People quickly reserved space at a school and invited twenty-five organizations with programs for children to put up displays for teachers and principals. The group prepared resource directories and arranged food. Five weeks later, they held the event, with 100 attending, and had the satisfaction of doing something. However, when the new school year started in the fall, they faced the question of whether they could do something more far reaching. At the end of inconclusive talk in September, they decided that anyone with specific interests should bring a proposal the next month. Three ideas came in. One was a campaign to organize churches, businesses, community organizations, and service agencies to put education on their agendas. A second was an initiative to help schools find ways to involve parents. A third was a “tutoring-mentoring program” for schools. Steve Kain, who worked with an adult literacy program, introduced the tutoring-mentoring proposal. He had worked in a restaurant that, with other businesses, sponsored a program at a suburban elementary school where employees visited monthly and read stories and talked about their jobs. He proposed to do something similar in Southeast Baltimore. Adults would visit a class to talk about their jobs and familiarize students with the work world. This would stimulate children whose parents’ limited economic success provided few compelling models of work. The visitors would read the class something , perhaps related to their jobs. If they wanted to put in more time, they could tutor children.Those with more interest could become mentors. Schools might start longer-term partnerships with some of the workers’ firms. Work group members liked the proposal, but no one volunteered to implement it. Hence, they decided to see what response it got at the upcoming principals’ meeting. Meanwhile, Robin August, a fifth-grade teacher at Holabird Elementary School, became interested in the idea, and she persuaded her principal to try a pilot program, which she would coordinate. In January, Mae Kastor, another work group member, offered to help August. Kastor was a social worker who had moved to Southeast Baltimore a few years earlier and wanted to get involved in her new community. She and August would start modestly in the spring and might expand in the fall. Kastor recruited supermarket staff, an athletic coach, bakers, and journalists to talk with students. At the end of the spring semester, she reflected on the project with the Task Force. In the beginning, children had shyly asked a few questions, mostly focused on speakers’ personal lives, with little understanding of the work world. As time went on, students developed a sense of 122 Action people’s jobs and asked more sophisticated questions. Children and adults enjoyed the discussions. Kastor and August would expand in the fall. August would integrate presentations with academic work. Kastor would get business volunteers...