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VUE Number 7, Spring 2005
| VUE Home | Archives | Order Print Copy |
EXCERPT:
Sharing the Banquet: Linking Schools and Cultural Institutions in Dallas
By Giselle Antoni
Giselle Antoni is Executive Director of Big Thought in Dallas, Texas. > Complete Biography
To increase learning opportunities for all young people in the city, an organization of cultural institutions in Dallas teamed up with the city and the school system to enhance arts education – and student achievement – in the city's schools.
The challenges facing urban schools to provide more than basic academic skills to all children are fueling the realization that education is a community endeavor. As communities, we must share the civic responsibility to educate our youngest citizens by bringing together government, nonprofits, businesses, and other partners in a unified effort. Forging these types of partnerships is an increasingly important strategy in cities across the country. School districts, mayorŐs offices, health providers, libraries, and museums are trying to develop a better understanding of how to organize to meet the challenges of coherent partnership.
Every urban area has an array of valuable resources and systems that includes parks, churches, youth services organizations, cultural institutions, and families. Members of each institution have enormous hopes for children. In most cities, these community resources are already involved in public education. But they tend to act in isolation, without much coordination. Few communities have forged formal systemic partnerships between large systems that address shared values and agendas. While these isolated groups may do good work, they arenŐt yet leveraging their individual strengths to build a fully integrated system of learning opportunities across a community that can serve whole student populations. And without a centralized infrastructure to pull the systems together and capitalize on their individual strengths, their impact is limited. They do not address the needs of all children, particularly those who are underserved by the education system.
In this respect, Dallas is like many other cities. It has a wealth of resources for children and youth, but those resources are not organized into a public network of opportunities. If a child is lucky enough to have a caregiver with knowledge of those resources, access to people who know the resources, and disposable time and money for transportation and fees, that child can enroll in after-school programs, vacation camps, library reading contests, a summer chess or soccer program at a city park, and more. But Dallas, like other cities, is home to many families who work several jobs, grandparents who are raising children, and very young parents who have grown up with few chances to experience the cityŐs resources.
Thus, the inequalities that exist in public education (within and across schools) are magnified by childrenŐs differential access to other learning opportunities. In many ways, the city is a banquet, but only some children have a knife and fork. However, some of that is changing, due to a concerted effort by large community organizations with a common agenda to integrate their services and help ensure that all young people in the city have access to resources they need to learn at high levels.
Archives
Community Partners
VUE Number 7, Spring 2005
| VUE Home | Archives | Order Print Copy |
EXCERPT:
Sharing the Banquet: Linking Schools and Cultural Institutions in Dallas
By Giselle Antoni
Giselle Antoni is Executive Director of Big Thought in Dallas, Texas. > Complete Biography
To increase learning opportunities for all young people in the city, an organization of cultural institutions in Dallas teamed up with the city and the school system to enhance arts education – and student achievement – in the city's schools.
The challenges facing urban schools to provide more than basic academic skills to all children are fueling the realization that education is a community endeavor. As communities, we must share the civic responsibility to educate our youngest citizens by bringing together government, nonprofits, businesses, and other partners in a unified effort. Forging these types of partnerships is an increasingly important strategy in cities across the country. School districts, mayorŐs offices, health providers, libraries, and museums are trying to develop a better understanding of how to organize to meet the challenges of coherent partnership.
Every urban area has an array of valuable resources and systems that includes parks, churches, youth services organizations, cultural institutions, and families. Members of each institution have enormous hopes for children. In most cities, these community resources are already involved in public education. But they tend to act in isolation, without much coordination. Few communities have forged formal systemic partnerships between large systems that address shared values and agendas. While these isolated groups may do good work, they arenŐt yet leveraging their individual strengths to build a fully integrated system of learning opportunities across a community that can serve whole student populations. And without a centralized infrastructure to pull the systems together and capitalize on their individual strengths, their impact is limited. They do not address the needs of all children, particularly those who are underserved by the education system.
In this respect, Dallas is like many other cities. It has a wealth of resources for children and youth, but those resources are not organized into a public network of opportunities. If a child is lucky enough to have a caregiver with knowledge of those resources, access to people who know the resources, and disposable time and money for transportation and fees, that child can enroll in after-school programs, vacation camps, library reading contests, a summer chess or soccer program at a city park, and more. But Dallas, like other cities, is home to many families who work several jobs, grandparents who are raising children, and very young parents who have grown up with few chances to experience the cityŐs resources.
Thus, the inequalities that exist in public education (within and across schools) are magnified by childrenŐs differential access to other learning opportunities. In many ways, the city is a banquet, but only some children have a knife and fork. However, some of that is changing, due to a concerted effort by large community organizations with a common agenda to integrate their services and help ensure that all young people in the city have access to resources they need to learn at high levels.
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