AGI Topics

AGI Community Supports Projects

Harvard Graduate School of Education's Dean of Faculty Bob Schwartz and project director Bill Symonds are collaborating with the AGI on a project entitled Pathways to Prosperity. This project responds to a need for better developed pathways from adolescence into the adult world of work. A report is under production documenting the scope and nature of the challenge that the project aims to address. The project is helping mobilize leaders in several metropolitan areas to improve the pathways in their regions. More information on this work will be forthcoming in the near future.

Video Presentations on Community Supports

Title	Presenter(s)	Date	Realplayer format	PowerPoint
A Conversation with Accenture CEO Bill Green: Business Roles in Preparing a Future Workforce	Bill Green, Robert Schwartz	April 2009	video
A New Approach to Old Challenges in Shaker Heights, Ohio: An Emerging Model of Comprehensive Community-Based School Reform	Mark and Me’lani Joseph	September 2009	video	powerpoint
Complementary Learning and Out-of-School Time: Promise, Problem and Challenges	Heather Weiss	June 2006	video
Generating Workforce Opportunity: How YEAR UP Enriches Businesses and Youth	Casey Recupero, Mary Finlay, Robert Schwartz	April 2009	video
Helping High School Dropouts Make Sense of their Lives and Transition into Productive Adulthood.	Robert Clark	June 2007	video
Race, Identity & Achievement: What Role for Elites?”	Ronald Ferguson, Cedric Jones, Joshua Garriga	March 2008	video
Strengthening Civic Constituencies for Excellence and Equity in Schooling Outcomes	Wendy D. Puriefoy	February 2007	video
The EdWorks Model for High School Improvement™	Randall G. Sampson	September 2009	video	powerpoint
What Should We Be Trying To Achieve?	Glenn Loury	June 2006	video
Workforce Development Policies’ Effects on Children and Adolescents in Poverty	Hirokazu Yoshikawa	June 2007	video	powerpoint

Papers on Community Supports

Title & Abstract	Author(s)	Date
Adaptation of Preventive Interventions for a Low-Income Culturally Diverse Community
Objective: To describe essential elements in the adaptation of a prevention approach with a high-risk urban sample, chosen to contrast sharply with the primarily middle-class sample in which it had been originally tested. Methods: Key elements of a preventive intervention for families with parental depression were adapted for use in the new context. Results: A sequence of alliance-building events was implemented, involving engagement at three levels – community, caregivers and family. The prevention approach was modified to include: an expanded approach to defining depression; greater flexibility on the part of the clinician; more intensive engagement between clinician and family, with a focus on immediate daily concerns; awareness of cultural issues and responsiveness to the subject\'s experience of violence. Conclusion: Core principles of helping family members to discuss the effects of depression and adversity on family life were affirmed. <br /> <br />	Donna L. Podorefsky, PhD, Marjorie McDonald-Dowdell, R.N., L.I.C.S.W., William R. Beardslee, M.D.	2001	paper
Can Expanded Housing and Neighborhood Choice Improve School Outcomes for Low-Income Children?: Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment
Educational failure is one of the most devastating problems associated with ghetto poverty in America, and educational improvement was among the most important effects reported by the Gautreaux housing desegregation. Gautreaux inspired Moving to Opportunity (MTO), a federal experiment in voluntary “assisted mobility.” Yet four to seven years in, the experimental group showed no measurable impacts on school outcomes, and modest differences in school quality, for children whose families had initially moved out of high-poverty public housing and into low-poverty neighborhoods. We use qualitative interviewing and ethnographic fieldwork to find out why. Moving on to poorer neighborhoods and choosing weak schools limited exposure to better ones. Where children did not attend assigned schools, parental choices were typically driven by poor information, an emphasis on safety and order but not academic excellence, and, in some cases, by the desire to make familiar schools an oasis of stability amidst the disruptions of relocation. We outline implications of these findings for policy and practice.	Xavier de Souza Briggs, Kadija S. Ferryman, Susan J. Popkin, María Rendón	June 2006	paper
Excellence with Equity
Individuals, families, communities and nations have lifestyles: routine ways of allocating time, effort, attention and resources to activities. In ways that the Union City and Council of Great City Schools examples begin to illustrate, progress in a national movement for excellence with equity will require lifestyle changes in the ways that the nation does schooling. Similarly, for most parents of any racial or social class background, it is not difficult to imagine lifestyle changes likely to raise their children’s achievement (for example, required daily leisure reading, discussions in which children explain their homework answers to parents and appropriate bedtimes, firmly enforced).	Ronald F. Ferguson	October 2005	paper
Pathway to Children Ready for School and Succeeding at Third Grade
The Pathway to Third Grade School Success assembles a wealth of findings from research, practice, theory, and policy about what it takes to improve the lives of children and families, particularly those living in tough neighborhoods. By laying out a comprehensive, coherent array of actions, the Pathway informs efforts to improve community conditions within supportive policy and funding contexts. The Pathways framework does not promote a single formula or program. Rather, our emphasis is on acting strategically across disciplines, systems, and jurisdictions to increase the number of children who are ready for school and succeeding at third grade. The Pathway provides a starting point to guide choices made by community coalitions, services providers, researchers, funders, and policymakers to achieve desired outcomes for children and their families.	Lisbeth B. Schorr, Vicky Marchand	August 15, 2007	paper
Pathway to Successful Young Adulthood
The Pathway to Successful Young Adulthood assembles a wealth of fi ndings from research, practice, theory, and policy about what it takes to improve the lives of children, youth and families, particularly those living in tough neighborhoods. By laying out a comprehensive, coherent array of actions, the Pathway informs efforts to improve community conditions within supportive policy and funding contexts. The Pathways framework does not promote a single formula or program. Rather, our emphasis is on acting strategically across disciplines, systems, and jurisdictions to increase the number of young people who make a successful transition to young adulthood. The Pathway provides a starting point to guide choices made by community coalitions, services providers, researchers, funders, and policymakers to achieve desired outcomes for young people and their families.	Lisbeth B. Schorr, Vicky Marchand	August 6, 2007	paper
Pathways to the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect
The Pathway to the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect assembles a wealth of findings from research, practice, theory, and policy about what it takes to improve the lives of children and families, particularly those living in tough neighborhoods. By laying out a comprehensive, coherent array of actions, the Pathway informs efforts to improve community conditions within supportive policy and funding contexts.The Pathways framework does not promote a single formula or “silver bullet.” Rather, the emphasis is on acting strategically across disciplines, systems, and jurisdictions to reduce the costs of abuse and neglect and to promote thriving children, families, and communities. The Pathway provides a starting point to guide choices made by community coalitions, services providers, researchers, funders, and policymakers to achieve desired outcomes for children and their families.	Lisbeth B. Schorr,Vicky Marchand	November 14, 2007	paper