School Reform Commission
Strategy, Policy & Priority Meeting
Ira Harkavy
Netter Center for Community Partnerships
University of Pennsylvania
Monday, January 14, 2013
6:00 p.m.
I would like to thank the School Reform Commission for this invitation to
comment on the significance of the Action Plan for Higher Education and how the
partnership approach presented in the Action Plan when implemented will
positively impact our students.
Before discussing the importance of the Action Plan for Higher Education, I
want to make two general points: I am struck by and pleased with the Action
Plan’s emphasis that it is a work in progress that will change and develop as the
result of experience, of reflection on that experience, and through ongoing
learning. There is not a more significant, nor difficult, problem in our society,
than to provide an effective education for all students, particularly students in our
cities who live in communities faced with significant poverty. Philadelphia is the
poorest large city in America, with 28% of the overall population in poverty and
39% of children in poverty, 19% of whom are in extreme poverty. The problem of
educating all our children is not rocket science, it is much more difficult than
rocket science, requiring hard work, resources and sustained commitment, as well
as humility, flexibility and adaptability.
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Second the plan makes it clear that we can only solve this problem if we –
all segments of the community – work together as partners to achieve the
common goal of improved learning and development for all Philadelphia’s
children. That fact, made so clearly in the Action Plan, has been brought home to
me through experience. Since 1985, my colleagues and I at Penn’s Netter Center
for Community Partnerships and its predecessor organizations have worked with
partners to create and develop university-assisted community schools.
University-Assisted Community Schools educate, engage, empower, and serve all
members of the community in which the school is located. They involve students
(preK through higher education) in real world, community problem solving that is
integrated into the school curriculum, as well as through extended day programs.
Currently we work with over 4000 children and their families in 7 West
Philadelphia public schools in school-day, after-school and summer programs.
This work simply would not have been possible without a partnership that from
day one involved parents, teachers, principals, community members, elected
officials, faith based organizations, businesses, the Philadelphia Federation of
Teachers and the School District of Philadelphia.
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I would like to now connect the Plan’s concept of Anchor Goals with that of
Anchor Institutions. My argument, simply stated, is that anchor institutions are
essential to reaching the Action Plan’s anchor goal of Improving Academic
Outcomes for Students. Anchor institutions are major, rooted institutions in our
cities and communities that have been and are in those cities and communities
for the long haul. And of all the anchors, higher educational and medical
institutions (Eds and Meds) are by far the most important.
The Philadelphia region has the greatest concentration of jobs in the higher
educational and medical sector of any major metropolitan region in the United
States. Across the Philadelphia region, eds and meds comprise 4 of the 5 largest
and 15 of the 20 largest private employers. They are leaders in education,
employment, purchasing, cultural development, services, housing, real estate,
health, business and tech innovation. They are, in short, an extraordinary
resource.
The Action Plan calls for the creation of the Office of Strategic Partnerships
that can tap this extraordinary resource and engage higher eds and meds in
mutually beneficial, democratic partnerships with schools and communities
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throughout the city to provide, for example, health and human services along
with cultural and family educational programs, such as those provided at Sayre
Health Center. A partnership between Sayre High School, the surrounding
community, and Penn established a federally qualified community health center
that provides high quality care to all members of the community, including
students and their families, without regard to ability to pay, and also provides
health education and health careers programs for Sayre and Penn students.
Most centrally the Office of Strategic Partnerships can help create one
schooling system, preK through higher education, and tap the greatest resources
of higher education: the talents and abilities of its students, faculty and staff. The
Action Plan, for example, highlights the goal of improving student nutrition and
points to progress that has already been made. The Agatston Urban Nutrition
Initiative (AUNI), a core program of the Netter Center’s work to create and
develop university-assisted community schools, has contributed to this
improvement through its work with over 12,000 students in over 20 schools to
provide school day nutrition education that supports the core curriculum, school
gardens, after school fruit stands, fitness programs, and year-round high school
internships that incorporate career readiness and college access. This work is
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accomplished through numerous service-learning courses, academic interns,
community service work-study students, and volunteers from Penn.
The Action Plan also calls for working with higher education and business to
clarify the profile of college and career ready graduates. The potential is
enormous for developing school-to-college and school-to-career programs with
Philadelphia’s eds and meds.
Fortunately, there is a City-wide organization that can and should serve as a
powerful partner in this collaborative work—the Philadelphia Higher Education
Network for Neighborhood development (PHENND), which works with 35 colleges
and universities across the Greater Philadelphia region.
PHENND actively seeks to revitalize local communities and schools and
foster civic responsibility among the region's colleges and universities. PHENND
provides a vehicle for coordinating and, where appropriate, combining the efforts
of higher eds so that they can make a significant contribution to improving the
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entire Philadelphia region. And due to an increasing interest in higher-ed/school
partnerships, PHENND recently began convening a “K-16 Partnerships Network,”
which brings together faculty, administrators, and nonprofit leaders interested in
improving and expanding school partnerships.
One example of PHENND’s work is with the District's GEAR UP program;
PHENND helps coordinate the involvement of college student tutors from over 7
different campuses to help serve children in 16 schools. An Office of Strategic
Partnerships will help intermediary organizations like PHENND better coordinate
and expand partnerships District-wide for all types of initiatives---school-tocareer, college access, STEM, the arts, family employment, etc.
The partnership approach to change will help realize each of the core
strategies of the Action Plan. I am making this claim based on the Netter Center’s
work in West Philadelphia. Our partnerships with Sayre and University City High
Schools, for example, have contributed to the overall recent increase in the
school-wide rates of seniors graduating with post-secondary plans, college
acceptances, and scholarships awarded. This success was recognized this past
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October by the AT &T Aspire High School Education Foundation, which awarded a
Local High School Impact grant to our partnership. Over 1000 programs applied
from across the United States, only 47 were chosen--and the partnership in West
Philadelphia was the only Aspire awardee in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
More generally, with higher education as a core, ongoing partner, we will
be able to powerfully increase the number and percentage of career and college
ready students who graduate from our high schools and colleges and function as
confident, creative, caring, contributing citizens of our city, state, and nation. In
short, through the democratic, evolving, collaborative, partnership approach
called for in the Action Plan and put into practice through the Office of Strategic
Partnerships, together we will be able to significantly improve the learning and
development of all of Philadelphia’s students.
Thank you again for your time and interest.
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