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For the past decade the 21st Century Community Learning Centers initiative has asked schools to work in partnership with community- and faith-based organizations to support children's learning during the hours after school and during the summertime. Consequently, there has been tremendous growth across the nation in intentional efforts to forge meaningful partnerships between schools and afterschool and summer programs.

Increasingly, the field is recognizing that these partnerships are essential to efforts to expand when, where, how, and what students learn (Little, 2011). This article begins with an overview of the benefits of school-community partnerships to students, schools, and community organizations. It then examines the role of partnerships in the 21st Century Community Learning Centers initiative, reviewing national data on the numbers and kinds of partners that 21st Century Community Learning Centers nationwide are engaging with to support student success. The article concludes with a discussion of four features of effective learning partnerships.

The Benefits of School-Community Partnerships

When schools and community organizations work together to support learning, everyone benefits. Partnerships can serve to strengthen, support, and even transform individual partners, resulting in improved program quality, more efficient use of resources, and better alignment of goals and curricula (Harvard Family Research Project, 2010).

First and foremost, learning partnerships can support student outcomes (see, for example, Little, Wimer, & Weiss, 2008). For example, the Massachusetts Afterschool Research Study found that afterschool programs with stronger relationships with school teachers and principals were more successful at improving students' homework completion, homework effort, positive behavior, and initiative. This may be because positive relationships with schools can foster high quality, engaging, and challenging activities, along with promoting staff engagement (Miller, 2005).

In addition to supporting student learning directly, partnerships can have additional benefits to students and their families. They can

provide continuity of services across the day and year, easing school transitions and promoting improved attendance in after school programs;

facilitate access to a range of learning opportunities and developmental supports, providing opportunities for students and teachers alike to experiment with new approaches to teaching and learning;

facilitate information sharing about specific students to best support individual learning; and

provide family members with alternative entry points into the school day to support their student's learning.

Learning partnerships can also greatly benefit schools. They can

complement the academic curriculum with a wider range of services and activities, particularly enrichment and arts activities that may not available during the school day;

support transitions across the school years, particularly the critical middle to high school transition, which research indicates is a key predictor of high school graduation (Neild, Balfanz, & Herzog, 2007);

reinforce concepts taught in school without replicating the school day, often exposing classroom teachers working in the after school program to new pedagogies;

improve school culture and community image through exhibitions and performances that help "shine the light" on students whose talents may not be apparent in the classroom; and

gain access to mentors, afterschool staff, and other resources to support in‐school learning and improve the teaching and learning in the classroom itself.

Finally, learning partnerships with schools can strengthen and support community partners. They can

help gain access to and recruit groups of students most in need of support services;

improve program quality and staff engagement, particularly when there is crossover between school and community organization staff;

foster better alignment of programming to support a shared vision for learning, one which aligns curriculum to support state and local standards; and

maximize resource use such as facilities, staff, data, and curriculum.

Using Partners to Complement Program Offerings

Being a Lifelong Achiever Starts Today (BLAST) is a 21st Century Community Learning Centers initiative program in Atlanta, Georgia. It has an effective collaboration with Atlanta Memorial Hospital and New Attitudes Health and Fitness Center. Students are taught and mentored to help improve their lifestyle by making dietary changes and exercising properly and regularly. Students have access to a full array of health professionals and services at the center and can participate in a 10-week wellness program. At the end of the 10-week course, known as "The Body Shop," the student who has made the greatest transformation receives a New Attitudes membership. This membership provides access to the entire wellness and fitness center for one year. Many students also learn how to swim and overcome their fear of the water. Since there is no community pool or community gym available, this partnership has made resources available to students that would otherwise not be available to them (Manhattan Strategy Group, 2011).

The Role of Partnerships in 21st Century Community Learning Centers

Partnerships are a critical component of 21st Century Community Learning Centers, and each year since 2006 the number of partners has continued to grow. By 2010, the 3,450 funded grantees engaged over 30,000 partners, with an average of almost 9 partners per grantee. Community-based organizations were the most common partners in 2010, almost three times higher than any other type of partner. For-profit corporations and school districts were the second and third most utilized partners, with colleges and universities also playing a main partnership role.

Partners perform a number of important roles: They offer programming, provide in-kind services, and provide paid and volunteer staffing (see Table 1). Further, Table 1 illustrates that more partners have steadily made more contributions to 21st Century Community Learning Centers over the past 5 years.

Table 1. Number of grants with a partner providing a given contribution type across 5 years of annual performance reporting.

Over the past 5 years partners have contributed over $1 billion to support 21st Century Community Learning Centers programming.

Analysis of the financial support that partners contribute by providing the services listed above reveals that in 2010 alone, partners contributed over $230 million to the 3,450 initiative grantees. Over the past 5 years partners have contributed over $1 billion to support 21st Century Community Learning Centers programming.

Together, these data suggest that partners are an essential component of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers initiative and they have been growing significantly in all dimensions over the past 5 years. Partners provide vital in-kind services and supports, as well as real dollars, which add significant value to the work of 21st Century Community Learning Centers. As centers consider bringing on more partners it is important that project and site directors understand how to develop and cultivate effective partnerships. The next part of this article discusses the features of effective partnerships.

Community Partners Can Support School Partners

Roger Williams, a Title I School in Providence, Rhode Island, is one of three anchor schools for a wide range of afterschool programs in the South Side/West End AfterZone supported and coordinated by the Providence After School Alliance (PASA). While Roger Williams struggles to make AYP, its partnership with PASA, city agencies, and community-based organizations to expand afterschool services has contributed to improved school performance. The partnership with PASA has played a critical role in improving the scale and quality of afterschool services at Roger Williams, currently reaching more than 360 youth in 45 different programs. Funding and staffing support from PASA has provided resources to expand academic and enrichment program options and double the number of participants. PASA also improves program quality by supporting partnerships with high quality providers that include community- based organizations, individual instructors, the school district, and the local police department (Providence After School Alliance, internal communication, 2011).

Features of Effective School-Community Partnerships

There is emerging consensus on an inter-related set of features that help promote and sustain healthy school-community partnerships (Harvard Family Research Project, 2010):

A shared vision for learning and developmental outcomes for students. This vision acknowledges the critical, complementary roles of schools, community partners, and families. A shared vision also helps partners avoid working against each other and instead pursue a common vision of student success. When school leaders embrace a vision for student success that considers students' physical, emotional, and social well-being in addition to academic outcomes, the partnership is more likely to be successful than when competing agendas operate during the expanded learning day.

A diverse set of partners with effective communications mechanisms and relationships among multiple staff at multiple levels. Strong and sustainable partnerships need relationships that are built at multiple levels (for example, at the district, school, and classroom levels) and among multiple school staff, including district and nonteaching staff. Working with partners at different levels helps the afterschool and summer programs become integral to the daily life and culture of the school at all levels, from the principal to the custodian. In addition, relationships at various levels can help mitigate the effects of staff turnover at other levels; for example, strong relationships with teachers can help sustain the partnership in the event of a change in principals.

Intentionally blended staffing with role clarity to promote understanding of how the work is relevant to all. For afterschool and summer programs, this means hiring staff who have legitimacy in the school building and who are skilled at building relationships with school staff. Some programs do this by hiring licensed teachers, people who "speak the same language" as school-day teachers, can substitute and consult in classrooms, and can participate in professional development activities. Hiring licensed teachers who also teach at a host school facilitates information sharing and forges connections with other teachers who might not otherwise make time for "outside" programs or services. Blended staffing may also mean a liaison who serves an important bridging function between the school and the afterschool or summer program.

Clear data-sharing processes and agreements. One feature of a strong collaboration is the ability of partners to access information and data from each other, including, if possible, student-level academic data (e.g., test scores and grades). Afterschool and summer programs can use these data both to track and strengthen student performance and to demonstrate the impact of their services. In addition to getting data from schools, some programs provide their own data to schools to promote reciprocal data sharing.

As efforts to expand learning opportunities and time continue to grow under a variety of approaches and models-whether afterschool, summer learning, expanded or extended learning day or year, or out-of-school time-it is important that all these efforts build on the strong base of effective partnerships already present among schools and afterschool and summer programs, capitalizing in particular on the rich history of partnerships advanced by 21st Century Community Learning Centers.

School Day Staff Can Support Student and Staff Recruitment Efforts

The City Day Extended Academy Mentoring Program is a 21st Century Community Learning Centers initiative program in Salt Lake City, Utah. To create cohesion between the school-day and afterschool programs, school day teachers are highly involved in the planning and implementation of programs, and all afterschool staff must follow the same policies and procedures regardless of site. Staff are recruited for specific roles within the programs. The Project Director creates a list of required qualifications for particular programs that principals must heed when hiring afterschool staff. Along with the Project Director's recommendations, consulting teachers in the district complete staff observations and provide a list of individuals who have demonstrated skills and characteristics that may be well suited to the afterschool program. Principals make a concerted effort to hire program staff who have been with the district for 3 or more years and who have appropriate professional licenses; new teachers, or those changing grade levels, are not actively recruited in order to allow them sufficient time to get acclimated before gaining additional responsibility within the district (Manhattan Strategy Group, 2011).

For More Information
School-Community Partnership Resources
References

Harvard Family Research Project. (2010). Partnerships for learning: Promising practices in integrating school and out-of-school time program supports. Retrieved from http://www.hfrp.org/publications-resources/browse-our-publications/partn...

Little, P. (2011). Expanded learning opportunities in Washington state: Pathways to student success. Retrieved from http://www.schoolsoutwashington.org/UserFiles/File/ELO%20Policy%20Brief%...

Little, P., Wimer, C., & Weiss, H. (2008). Afterschool programs in the 21st century: Their potential and what it takes to achieve it (Issues and Opportunities in Out-of-School Time Evaluation No. 10). Retrieved from http://www.hfrp.org/content/download/2916/84011/file/OSTissuebrief10.pdf

Manhattan Strategy Group. (2011). High school promising practices project for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, Addendum 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.

Miller, B. M. (2005). Pathways to success for youth: What counts in after-school. Retrieved from United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley website: http://supportunitedway.org/

Neild, R. C., Balfanz, R., & Herzog, L. (2007). An early warning system. Educational Leadership, 65(2), 28-33.

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School-Community Learning Partnerships: Essential to Expanded Learning Success

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For the past decade the 21st Century Community Learning Centers initiative has asked schools to work in partnership with community- and faith-based organizations to support children's learning during the hours after school and during the summertime.

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The Necessity of Having High Expectations

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Conveying compassion for students while holding them to high standards can help improve equity in education.

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When used effectively, technology can greatly contribute to creating equity in schools. It removes barriers to learning materials, supports students where they are across varied learning contexts and needs, and gives educators more insight into the learning environments they're creating.

However, we can only realize these equity-centered benefits when we use technology in innovative and powerful ways. That means we shouldn't just use edtech to replace worksheets, run "drill and kill" exercises, or crunch assessment performance numbers.

To better understand how using technology can create equity in schools, we'll outline how technology creates more equitable situations in the classroom. And to help you better understand how you can use technology to create equitable situations in your classroom, school, or district, we'll talk about districts who are already using technology in a powerful way to increase equity for their students.

Three ways technology can help increase equity in schools

Technology isn't the only tool we can use to create equitable learning environments, but there are a few ways it can assist in that mission.

1. Students can access learning materials outside of school

One of the most straightforward ways that technology contributes to equity in schools is ensuring that every student has access to learning materials, even outside of the classroom. Students have fewer barriers to learning when they can use their tablets or laptops not only to find homework instructions, read e-books, and share important information with their families, but to create and work on independent projects, research topics that interest them, and connect with subject experts.

2. Students and educators have more tools to create a learning environment that fosters personalized learning

Edtech-especially edtech with a narrow, specific focus -can help create a personalized learning experience, ensuring that, through a differentiated approach, all students can access information at their own pace and in a way that's best suited to their learning needs. Supporting learner variability ideally means that more students become deeply engaged in their learning and fewer students are left behind.

3. Educators and district leaders can use data to make informed decisions

Outside of keeping track of test scores, educators can use technology to get helpful insights and more effectively make data-informed decisions. Connecting secure datasets such as absenteeism and homework completion with formative mathematics assessments, for example, allows educators to consider why issues may be happening, decide on a course of supportive action, and then use data to determine effectiveness.

Technology will help create equity in schools when it's used powerfully

Providing access to technology is important but not a complete solution when it comes to getting rid of systemic disparities caused by issues like income inequality, geographic isolation, or discrimination. Ensuring students have opportunities to use technology in powerful ways will also contribute to creating more equitable learning environments.

Digital Promise's League of Innovative Schools includes school districts who are using technology to create more equitable learning experiences. Here are some examples.

Ensuring internet access outside of school

Consider this: you've just been handed the keys to a car, and you're told you can drive it anywhere you want. There are so many possible destinations open to you, and you hop in ready for your road trip. But you look through the windshield to realize there's no road in front of you. Suddenly, your trip is looking a little more difficult (and a little less enjoyable). Your car is still useful; you can still go anywhere you want. But getting there would have been a lot easier if a road had been built.

A tablet without an internet connection is similarly useful. You can use it for writing, animating, making movies, and taking photos. But once you add the internet, the realm of possibilities is wide open. And finding tools and resources to support and supplement learning becomes much easier with the power of an Internet search available to you.

Disparities in internet access are tied to geographic isolation and differences in income, among other factors. According to Census Bureau data from 2016, nearly 82 percent of all households in the U.S. have an internet subscription of some kind. However, only 74 percent of households in nonmetropolitan areas have an internet subscription, compared to 83 percent of households located in metropolitan areas. And only 59 percent of households with an annual income of less than $25,000 have an internet subscription, compared to 89 percent of households making between $50,000 and $99,000 per year.

To bridge gaps in internet access between school and home, districts are getting creative to make WiFi available to students as often as possible. Morris School District in suburban New Jersey partners with EveryoneOn to offer all district households low-cost internet access. In rural Alabama, Piedmont City School District helped provide students with internet access by installing a town wireless network in 2011 using a federal E-rate grant. The district has since transitioned to providing MiFi devices for each student to ensure their internet access is uninterrupted, even when WiFi connections remain spotty in some areas.

Providing true 24/7 access to learning means more than distributing devices and providing internet connections in the classroom. It means taking a close look at student experiences when they leave the classroom and giving them every opportunity to continue learning whenever they want, wherever they might be.

Investing in professional development so teachers effectively personalize the learning experience for their students

To empower teachers to use technology in a way that complements a personalized learning environment, professional development, instructional coaching, peer-to-peer teaching, or a combination of all three will ensure that the technology has significant ROI.

In suburban Illinois, Gurnee School District 56 decided to take their commitment to personalized learning one step further by offering personalized professional development to educators. Teachers have access to workshops, in-class coaching, and building-based tech facilitators during the school year. In the summer, the district runs the Summer Tech Academy, where teachers can hone their skills and learn different ways to integrate technology in their classrooms. Providing access to this type of PD not only helps teachers learn new things, but also emphasizes the effectiveness of personalized learning for educators who experience it.

Effective and powerful use of technology in the classroom should involve helping teachers feel both comfortable with unfamiliar tech, and enthusiastic about new opportunities to create innovative learning experiences that meets learners where they are.

Using data to focus on measures outside of test scores

Finally, using student data to create a holistic picture of the current state of your learning environment and a complete picture of your learners-including mental and physical health-is more effective than simply tracking assessment data. Ensure that data is carefully and securely collected and that top notch privacy practices are in place

In Connecticut, Meriden Public Schools (MPS) uses a district-created "Climate Suite" to measure, track, and improve students' experiences in its schools. The district collects data through a School Climate Survey, a Getting to Know You Survey, and an MPS Cares self-reporting tool. Using this data, MPS is better able to cater to the social-emotional health of its students. As a result of actions taken using this data, MPS has seen a 93 percent decrease in expulsions and a 23 percent decrease in chronic absenteeism.

Start using technology to create equity in your schools

Access to technology alone isn't enough. Creating true equity in schools requires a commitment to increasing access to learning tools for students and their families, equipping teachers with the knowledge and skills to use new tech powerfully, and using student data effectively to make informed decisions about improving their learning experiences.
Resources to help you use technology to increase equity in schools:

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How Access to Technology Can Create Equity in Schools - Digital Promise

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When used effectively, technology can greatly contribute to creating equity in schools. It removes barriers to learning materials, supports students where they are across varied learning contexts and needs, and gives educators more insight into the learning environments they're creating. However, we can only realize these equity-centered benefits when we use technology in innovative and powerful ways.

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Ashley Hall is an Assistant Professor in the Rusche College of Business at Stephen F. Austin State University.

COVID-19 thrust many students and employees home unexpectedly. While cell phone ownership and computer access are often viewed as commonplace in America, in reality disparities in access to these tools exist.

This issue was highlighted when schools switched to virtual learning environments in a matter of days and some students were left scrambling to acquire the electronic tools they needed to successfully complete the course.

Two broad areas of potential technology pain points are connectivity issues and access to the technology. Here are some ideas for how instructors can work around these issues and promote access and equity in online learning.

Internet Connectivity

High-speed Internet may not be an option in all of the towns where students live, so instructors should keep this in mind when designing a course and delivering content. For some students, required virtual meetings or hours of video-watching will require them to drive to neighboring towns or sit in the parking lot of a business with open-access WiFi.

Empower students to access material in a manner that suits their Internet availability by considering whether information can be communicated in multiple mediums, like video and text. Instead of requiring students to watch a lecture live, consider recording the lecture so students can watch it at a later time and plan to watch multiple videos in one sitting once they acquire the necessary Internet speeds.

Technology Access

Access to necessary technology is another barrier students may face. In some situations, there may be one family computer that multiple people share. This will require juggling multiple schedules, which is made even more complicated if there are several individuals involved in virtual schooling or online classes.

Instructors should have well thought out course structures and calendars so that students know what to expect and can plan their use of the one computer accordingly. Assignment deadlines that are consistent from week to week can also help in planning out computer use among household members.

In the past, some students may have relied on using on-campus computer labs to complete assignments. At this time, such resources may be unavailable or severely restricted. This will require students to find alternative ways of completing online coursework like sharing a computer, borrowing one from someone who has an extra or in some cases, trying to do without by relying on a smartphone or tablet.

In all likelihood, not all course materials are mobile-friendly, which may negatively impact the student's experience in the class as well as his or her learning and grades. If possible, let students know what content and assignments are mobile-friendly and which require a computer. This can help students plan accordingly and prevent last-minute scrambling to find a computer to complete an assignment.

The sudden change to remote learning caused a rush on technology purchases. As such, some key pieces of equipment may be out of stock, backordered or delayed in shipping. This means that even if students wanted to acquire the technology, they may not be able to do so. Providing students with options may help with this issue. For example, if a student cannot obtain a webcam to record a presentation, would a cell phone video recording be an acceptable alternative?

Open Communication

Regardless of the technology challenge faced, encourage students to reach out to you with questions or concerns and keep an open line of communication. While mastery standards should be equitable for all students, it may be possible for students to demonstrate mastery in various ways based on the technology available to them. Internet and technology access issues will impact students in different ways, but together you can work to overcome these obstacles.

Looking for simple tweaks you can make to improve your online instruction? Check out our webinar, "Life Hacks" to Enhance Your Online Course Today.

New Course Model?

Prepare yourself with our professional development series for faculty.

Related articles:

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Addressing Technology Access in Education - Today's Learner - Cengage

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Ashley Hall is an Assistant Professor in the Rusche College of Business at Stephen F. Austin State University. COVID-19 thrust many students and employees home unexpectedly. While cell phone ownership and computer access are often viewed as commonplace in America, in reality disparities in access to these tools exist.

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Learning Curve: student perceptions have a huge impact on understanding

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Learning Curve: student perceptions have a huge impact on understanding

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IIEP Policy Toolbox | Education Policy Toolbox

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Promising policy options
Analyse the community
The school principal must examine the community in which the school lies in order to create good relationships with its members. Communities are composed of different ethnic, religious, and socio-economic groups that may have either mutual or divergent interests. Nevertheless, a community is defined as such because certain characteristics are shared by all its members -such as geographical proximity- which differentiates them from others. Recognizing the diversity within the community and understanding its characteristics, power-balance components, as well as its traditions, must be a primordial step for the school principal before beginning to build the relationship.

The District or local Education Office -or other competent authority- should support each school principal in analyzing any previous form of participation of the community in their school. Understand if the initiatives were successful and if not, why.

The District or local Education Office -or other competent authority- should support the school head in surveying community leaders, community members, teachers, and school staff to determine needs, interests, and ideas for community participation in school.

The school principal should support the school's personnel and most importantly, the teachers, to be open to the community's involvement in the school. Good relationships and regular communication between the teachers and the community are fundamental.

The District or local Education Office -or other competent authority- should support the school principal in identifying individuals who know about the community's history, language, religion as well as cultural beliefs; and, who have an overall knowledge of the school and its internal processes. Persuade them to help build the relationship between the school and the community.

The District or local Education Office -or other competent authority- and each school principal should identify community leaders and religious, political, ethnic, disability groups as well as businesses. Analyse their skills, knowledge, and capacities. Assess their overall knowledge of the school and their willingness to build a relationship. During the process, assess the risk of monopolization of partnerships by political and intellectual elites inside the community and examine their relationships with other community members. For instance, through a review of World Bank programmes the domination of the partnerships between the school and the community by the local elites was highlighted as a major concern (Nielsen, 2007).

Recognize that not all community members will be willing to get involved with the school. Assess who participated, who did not, and why. Understanding the reasons why community members are not participating in school can help overcome the barriers. For example, some community members -such as PTA members or teachers- may not participate because they do not feel legitimized, excluded or poorly informed to do so. For instance, in South Africa: 'many parents lack the cultural capital to participate in the decision-making process, and accept the professionals' (principals and the teachers) definition of participation in democratic decision-making' (Grant Lewis and Naidoo, 2006: 423).) Creating specific strategies to include and legitimize everyone's intervention is, therefore, a necessity.
Adopt pertinent policy measures to encourage the community's participation in school
Consult community members and school-level actors and identify the main challenges in the school-community partnership and possible strategies to overcome them.

Develop structures with good representativeness of the school-community partnership (school teaching and non-teaching staff, student, parents, civil society, local authority, etc.). Pay specific attention to the roles, duration of the mandate, and mode of designation.

At the macro-level, the participation of communities in the school is not meant to replace the State's responsibility. In fact, it requires the government to reinforce its involvement by passing specific legislation, decrees, policies, procedures and guidelines concerning the different structures that link the school and the community.

At the micro-level, district or local Education Offices should establish clear policies and guidelines that define the responsibilities and functions of bodies composed by community members. Ensure the availability and accessibility of legal texts at the school and community level. Additionally, it is very important to give both school and community stakeholders specific training on their new responsibilities and inform them precisely about the existing regulations. As Bray states: 'Partnerships need nurturing. Skills do not develop overnight and attitudes may take even longer to adjust' (2001: 33).
The role of the school head, community leaders and external actors
For the school head, it is essential to have a school principal with strong leadership skills and interpersonal qualities. Recurrently, it is the school head who triggers the participation of community members in school and maintains a good relationship with them. Therefore, his or her willingness to open the school to the community and involve it in the management process is indispensable. The school head must spend time and effort preparing and encouraging the community's participation in school. In addition, s/he must share the vision and plans of the school with community members, listen to their different points of view and invite them to collaborate in school.

With community leaders and external actors, make sure to motivate community leaders and external actors -such as NGOs- to stay active in school. They are a key to maintaining a good relationship between the community and the school since they act as linking agents. Regular communication with the community in the name of the school is essential.
Design and implement awareness-raising campaigns
Design awareness-raising campaigns to help parents and community members understand the reasons for and benefits of their participation in school. Use multiple communication tools. If multiple languages are spoken in the community, translate the information and provide oral messages for illiterate community members. Ensure the availability and accessibility of legal text at the community and school level concerning the community's participation in the school.

Inform community members about the different involvement opportunities, policies, and programmes. Make them understand that participation is inclusive, and provide simple and concrete initial projects, for example building a wall. This can be led by the school principal.

Promote community involvement in the school with the help of community members and school staff. Make those actors feel responsible for the success of the outreach strategy and motivate them to persuade more community members to participate in school.

Host events to involve the community members. Organize them with the help of children, teachers, school authorities, families and community members.

Maintain an open, strong, transparent, regular and effective communication with community members with the help of School Committee members and the Community Development Officer -in case there is one (his/her task is to create a link between schools, homes, and communities). As stressed by Swift-Morgan, 'the quality of the school-community partnership is proportional to the degree of communication between the school and its community' (2006: 356).

Ensure the organization of regular and open meetings about the school to share important information such as results, funds, activities. Involve stakeholders and allow them to express their concerns, ideas, and opinions.
Formal involvement of community members in school
Create inclusive groups by recurring to national legislations, policies, and procedures to involve community members in school. Decide a pertinent structure for their participation, for example, School Management Committee (SMC), Village Education Committee (VEC), School Development Committee (SDC) and/or Parent and Teachers Associations (PTA). Make sure that the members of the bodies are representative of the community served by the school. Fight against the unequal access to participation due to socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, disability, political affiliation, and gender by defining inclusive criteria for membership -decide whether members are elected or nominated.

Define clear and mutually accepted roles and responsibilities by defining the roles, functions, responsibilities, and rights of each organization through a written statement. Conceive a clear plan of action for each structure in coordination with the other bodies, school authorities, and teachers. This is essential, and even more, when multiple structures co-exist, as a lack of clarity of assigned roles and overlaps of responsibility may become a source of conflict. Develop a culture of accountability and participation.

The involvement of community members in school is very useful to mobilize financial, material and human resources. Community members can also participate in changing the community's attitudes toward schooling. School Committee members can visit reluctant parents, explain the benefits of education and convince them to enrol their children to school. They may help the school authorities, as well as local and national authorities, to identify factors contributing to educational problems such as low enrolment, for instance, in Malawi, Uganda, and the United Republic of Tanzania (UNICEF, 2009:232)).

Community-based Education Management Information Systems (C-EMIS) is a decentralized tool used by community members to collect information about marginalized children in and outside the school system, which acts as a complement to the national EMIS, and that has been piloted in countries such as Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan (with the support of Save the Children and UNICEF) (Ahuja, 2005).

Enhance long-term commitment through periodic meetings and regular communication. Organize regular meetings-keep in mind the time of the meetings so that mothers/women, as well as people who work, can attend. Involve teachers in the meetings -this is essential to create a relationship between them and the community members. Keep a record of all meetings, decisions, and the community's financial and material contributions. Ensure timely and regular access to information for community members.
Conduct continuous M&E of school and community's partnerships
It is essential to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the school-community partnership. The school head should launch periodically an assessment of the functioning and effectiveness of existing structures. Evaluate for example the number of meetings held, the variety of issues addressed, the level of authority that the formal bodies have and if the objectives have been accomplished. Communities constantly evolve, as well as their needs and demands, and so should the partnerships established between schools and community members.
Provide support and regular training
Enhancing the community's capacities through training is essential to create effective partnerships between the school and the community. The District Education Office, through a pedagogical advisor, or external actors -such as NGOs- could accompany the school and the community in practicing their collaboration and create capacity-building opportunities.

The District Education Office should assess the capabilities of the community and provide training. Community activism, advocacy, and leadership: community members can be trained to create strong activism campaigns and advocacy in favour of enrolment and the benefits of education in their community. Provide training to school staff to create effective relations with the community. It is important to train teachers on practical ways to work and communicate effectively with community members and parents, for instance, school committees can find volunteers to introduce teachers to the community. Encourage them to appreciate diversity and reduce barriers to the community's involvement in school.

*For more information consult Policy page Socio-cultural barriers to schooling.

Other policy options
Participative Decision Making: encourage and allow the community to play a principal role in school governance
The decentralization movement in many countries has led to the transfer of some functions to the school level and therefore, the amplification of schools' autonomy. In some systems, decentralization has been so profound that the decision-making authority for school operation has been transferred to actors inside the school, such as the headteachers, teachers, parents, community members participating in school and students, this is known as school-based management (SBM). Although SBM has been found to be very effective in some contexts such as in El Salvador (EDUCO), it is necessary to research and discuss it further, as well as analyse each particular context, before implementing it.

Policy options for improving Equity and Inclusion

Gender-responsive policies

All of the different strategies mentioned in the general section of the present Policy page apply for this section. Stakeholders in charge of implementing them must make sure to take gender issues into consideration to effectively promote access and retention for all children. The following policy recommendations could be implemented to complement the aforementioned strategies.
Promising policy options Include a gender analysis within the community analysis
Gain a clear understanding of existent gender roles, structures and attitudes related to decision-making at the community level. Tackle them down to ensure an equitable engagement of community and family members within schools. Particularly, ensure women's active participation (Derbyshire, 2002).
Equitable participation within formal structures (SMC, VEC, SDC, PTAs)
To guarantee women's active engagement within formal structures, the following strategies are recommended:

empower women in the community to actively participate in the school and be part of the structures in place;

assign them real responsibilities within the structures;

support them to embrace leadership roles;

make meetings flexible (time and place) to ensure their attendance; and

promote men's positive attitudes towards women's active participation (especially male community and religious leaders).

Provide gender-sensitive training opportunities to community and family members
Training opportunities should tackle gender issues affecting the participation of community members within the schools. For instance, provide special training in leadership skills, confidence building, communication skills, gender-sensitivity, and gender-mainstreaming.
Gear community and families' engagement towards building inclusive, gender-responsive schools
Community and families' active engagement in schools should be geared towards building inclusive, gender-responsive schools (physically, academically and socially) as well as promoting children's access and retention. Community and family stakeholders can contribute by:

developing awareness-raising campaigns to highlight the importance of schooling, tackle down socio-cultural beliefs against schooling and discriminatory gender norms which affect children's education (e.g. child marriage). For example, in southern Sudan, awareness-rising on the importance of girls' education done by community education committees, increased girls' enrolment to 96 percent (Miller-Grandvaux and Yoder, 2002, cited by Sperling, Winthrop and Kwauk, 2016);

monitoring attendance;

collecting information on children out-of-school;

supporting the schools and families to develop flexible timetables;

linking what is taught in school with children's daily lives (practical knowledge);

providing safe transportation to and from school;

ensuring that the school is a safe, welcoming, inclusive, gender-responsive environment (for more information consult Policy pages School climate and School-related violence). For example, in Ethiopia, the community's engagement within schools focused on creating gender-responsive schools (UNESCO, 2017); and

contributing to the establishment of monetary and non-monetary incentive programmes to support children's attendance to school: Scholarships, subsidies, school feeding programmes, providing school supplies and uniforms (for more information about this subject consult Policy pages High direct costs and High opportunity costs).

These strategies should be designed to reach the most affected children within the community -either girls, boys or LGBTIQ children. Performing a previous gender analysis is recommended to ensure that the policy options selected to target the pertinent population.

Policies for children with disabilities
Promising policy options Extend the education community (DPO's, parents of children with disabilities, etc.)
Government legislation and policy, as well as schools, should consider the following groups as an integral part of the education community (UNESCO, 2009 d):

Ensure their representation and active engagement within formal structures (e.g. SMC, VEC, SDC, PTA) and throughout the decision-making process. For example, Malawi's SCM includes parents of children with disabilities (Grimes, Stevens and Kumar, 2015).
Mobilize knowledge and resources
The valuable knowledge and resources of the aforementioned stakeholders should be acknowledged and mobilized by governments and schools. Get their support to promote the understanding of inclusion within the community and build consensus around inclusive education. Persuade families in the community with children with disabilities out of school to enrol them. For example, in Viet Nam various community stakeholders came together to visit every house in communities -ranging from 5,000 to 7,000 residents- to identify children with disabilities out of school and encourage their families to enrol them (Howgego, Miles and Myers, 2014).

Advocacy and public awareness of the rights, needs, and capacities of children with disabilities is fundamental. Communities and families can act as levers for inclusive education in contexts where mainstream settings still deny the right of children with disabilities to access general education (UNESCO, 2009 d). For example, as a result of the strong advocacy done by a parents' association, Inclusion Panama, the Panamanian government changed the law in 2003 and introduced a new policy to make all schools inclusive (WHO, 2011). Similar actions have been done in Lesotho, South Africa and Australia (Miles, 2002). conceive low-cost documents to share information on how and why children with disabilities should access and participate in school.

Additional strategies include:

provide assistive devices (consult Policy page Availability of teaching aids);

build accessible school infrastructure (consult Policy pages School Physical infrastructure and Buildings are not ready);

contribute to making curriculum inclusive and accessible (consult Policy page Inadequate curriculum);

fundraise to purchase the needed teaching and learning materials and assistive devices (consult Policy pages Availability of teaching aids and Availability of textbooks);

provide transport for children with disabilities to and from school. Provide medical treatment (especially CBR programmes). Map all of the existent services for children with disabilities. Reflect together on how to overcome existing barriers to access and learning, building more inclusive education systems;

ensure that the school is a safe, welcoming and inclusive environment (for more information consult Policy pages School climate and School-related violence);

promote volunteering opportunities within the school. Assist teachers. For instance, parents can share with teachers their knowledge concerning their children's needs. Conversely, parents can learn from teachers to continuously reinforce their children's learning at home (UNESCO, 2001). Assist children with specific disabilities, such as mobility impairments. Make learning aids as well as teaching and learning materials accessible;

ensure their participation in training opportunities for inclusive education (gain their insight and support, especially from DPOs, when organizing the training).

Policies for displaced populations and host communities

All of the different strategies mentioned in the general section of the present Policy page apply for this section. Stakeholders in charge of implementing them must make sure to take cultural awareness into consideration to effectively promote access and retention for all displaced population children. The following policy recommendations could be implemented to complement the aforementioned strategies.
Promising policy options Training community members to participate in school management
It is important to prepare communities to play an ongoing role in the management of schools. For example, UNICEF Somalia has produced an illustrated book for sharing with parents and community leaders, indicating how they can contribute to the quality of school life. Community members understand the reasons for non-enrolment or drop-out of children, notably children from disadvantaged families and girls, and can help overcome these problems.

The involvement of the community in school management can facilitate communication of survival and peace-building messages to adults. Since many displaced persons will return to countries and districts where education cannot be adequately supported by the government, this is an area for more research and dissemination of good practice. (UNHCR 2001)

The school education committee or parent-teacher association can be a grassroots training ground for improved local and national governance (Vargas-Baron and McClure, 1998; WEF, 2000c: 18-23, as cited by UNHCR 2001). In many cases, this idea is welcomed by programme managers and teachers, but there may be little concept of the role of such a committee (beyond asking for labour on school buildings and for fees).

The German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) refugee education programme in Pakistan has recently prepared a manual for community support to schooling, based on the work of its community mobilization unit (UNHCR n.d.).
Strengthening local educational administration
In post-conflict situations, national- and district-level education authorities may be functioning with new staff and without basic office equipment or transport. However, they may be asked to present strategies to donors and to coordinate the actions of UN agencies, NGOs and community groups. Training, as well as modest material assistance, should be envisaged in the early stages of reconstruction. Some of the common beneficial strategies are:

Parents can share with teachers their knowledge concerning their children's needs and promoting cultural awareness. Conversely, parents can learn from teachers to continuously reinforce their children's learning at home (UNESCO, 2001). Make learning aids as well as teaching and learning materials accessible to assist teachers, and ensure their participation in training opportunities for inclusive education.
Foster community members' involvement in training displaced population teachers and youth leaders
Community members have a vital role to play in the wider range of "structured activities" needed to involve both children and adolescents. For example, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) project proposal for emergency response in West Timor, had specified one community educator and four community youth leaders per 100 refugee children and adolescents, to lead two daily sessions of structured activities including drawings, group discussions, theatre and music, sports, recreation, and basic educational activities. ( https://www.rescue.org/)

There are many trained and/or experienced teachers among the refugees, as with the intact Rwandan communities which took refuge in Tanzania in 1994 (UNHCR 2001). However, there are almost always educated refugees who take up teaching for the first time, which means that in-service teacher training plays a vital role. Provide a brief "new teacher training " and then systematic in-service training and mentoring, which should include training of mentors and head-teachers (Lange, 1998 as cited by UNHCR 2001). After the initial demand is covered, there should be a selection test to identify teachers for the post-emergency phase.

Policies for minority populations

All of the different strategies mentioned in the general section of the present Policy page apply for this section. Stakeholders in charge of implementing them must make sure to take cultural awareness into consideration to effectively promote access and retention for all ethnic minority populations. The following policy recommendations could be implemented to complement the aforementioned strategies.
Promising policy options Foster community and school engagement towards promoting good governance
It is first important to understand what constitutes School and Community good governance. Good governance is a set of responsibilities, practices, policies, and procedures exercised by an institution to provide strategic direction to ensure objectives are achieved and resources are used responsibly and with accountability. Good governance practices support schools by helping them manage their resources so they can deliver quality education, this includes (as defined by World Bank) :

a more democratic and responsive system of school management, including more efficient utilisation of resources;

greater participation of all stakeholders (teachers, students, parents and school management) in the development of school policies, rules, plans, and code of conduct;

greater transparency in all school activities, including the increased flow of information among all stakeholders about school plans, finances, rules and regulations, and programs;

strengthened accountability among stakeholders to improve school management;

coordination among various levels of formal governance (e.g., the District Education Office, Resource Centre, or other educational institution); and

more open communication among stakeholders about how to manage schools.

These goals can be achieved by increasing and involving participatory organisations, for instance, by forming School Management Committees through an election process, forming Parent-Teacher Associations through an election process, forming Children's Clubs in schools through an election process, and by forming sub-committees as needed (such as a Physical Construction or a Teachers Selection Committee) through inclusive parent meetings.

Strive for equal and active participation of stakeholders inclusive of all ethnic and caste groups, religions, and genders in community meetings, with School Management Committee (SMC) meetings once every two months, Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) meetings once every two months, public hearings with all school stakeholders (two times per year), and through interaction and discussion program among teachers, students, parents and school management for each class (once every three months).

A good strategy is also to incentivise the preparation and annual review of academic plans, PTA action plans, and financial plans through meetings with teachers, students, parents, and the SMC. Compulsory participation of stakeholders in generating local resources for the school.

Monitor classroom conditions and seating arrangements for students. Monitor the teaching environment based on the following criteria:

child-friendly teaching;

using various teaching aids and materials;

management of alternate teacher in the absence of the main teacher; and

inclusive nature of the classrooms and classroom practices.

Refer to Annex 1, for an example of what constitutes the School Management Committee (SMC), in India. It is a circular from the Directorate of Education, New Delhi.
Annex 1
For an example of what constitutes the School Management Committee (SMC), in India. It is a circular from the Directorate of Education, New Delhi.

It comprises of representation such as:

50% of women in the committee.

Proportional representation of parents/guardians of students from disadvantaged groups and weaker sections.

Source: India. 2013. Directorate of Education. Guidelines for composition of School Management Committee under the RTE Act and its functions.

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Relationship between schools and their communities | Education | IIEP Policy Toolbox

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Analyse the community The school principal must examine the community in which the school lies in order to create good relationships with its members. Communities are composed of different ethnic, religious, and socio-economic groups that may have either mutual or divergent interests.

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When school districts began closing in mid-March, education-technology usage dropped over 60 percent in the first week. After that initial drop, usage has increased steadily, but with an alarming set of trends. According to an analysis of 2 million students and teachers throughout the United States, fewer students have been accessing education technology, but those who have been are accessing it 40 percent more often than they were prior to closure of schools. In other words, those who are using education technology are using it more, while those who are not are getting left behind. This is the very definition of an expanding digital divide.

The EdTech300 is an index of daily web engagement of the 300 most active education-technology tools every day, accounting for both pervasiveness and amount of engagement by active users. The ET300 is calculated by LearnPlatform, based on the average number of events per 1000 active users, across over 2 million students and teachers in the US.
Source: LearnPlatform, US ET300. Click for full report.

While many districts have distributed laptops and Wi-Fi hot spots, access is only the first step. Remote-learning plans that support engagement and effectiveness will define equity (or lack thereof). A deeper look into the data shows differing-and sometimes disturbing-patterns in student and teacher engagement with education technology in different geographies. Policies and investments in safe and cost-effective technology ecosystems are leading some states to bounce back more quickly for more of their students, while others appear to be digging a deeper hole. The patterns in certain states and districts point to three key steps states should take to ensure equitable implementation of education technology.
1. Invest in Engagement and Effectiveness, Not Just Access
The need for a device and connectivity is table-stakes for pervasive access, and groups urging federal flexibility for programs like the US Department of Education's Title programs are well-supported by the data. Going beyond access to support broad engagement should be the priority, however.

Utah has been investing in effective "fidelity" of education-technology use for the past five years, and the trends show a rapid, relatively smooth transition to remote learning when compared to other states. Utah's Digital Teaching and Learning Initiative has focused on core-subject instructional technologies, professional development, and local control for decisions about how often tools are used with different groups to reach the best outcomes. With policies and regulations to equip local and state leaders with the data to make ongoing decisions, the state shows early positive signs.
2. Lower Costs and Make Access Safer by Centralizing Student-Data Privacy Management
With the rapid acceleration to online and remote learning, it is essential that states and districts ensure their technology tools comply with federal regulations and state laws related to student-data privacy. Thirty-eight states have enacted stringent regulations for privacy in the past four years, but the onus (and cost) of ensuring compliance with federal and state requirements, keeping track of products' ever-changing privacy policies, communicating with parents, and safeguarding students' personally identifiable information is borne by local education agencies.

Connecticut, which passed one of the earliest and most stringent privacy regulations in the country four years ago, centralized their statewide student-data privacy clearinghouse after district administrators bemoaned the redundant privacy vetting each district was required to complete. In the last two years, providers have been able to share privacy policies and ensure compliance in a single location, and administrators see this information centrally, eliminating millions of dollars of staff time taken by having to repeat the same steps in each district. Through an executive order by the governor in mid-March, Connecticut quickly leveraged the system to further streamline requirements, and, in the interest of rapid recovery, gave local officials and educators confidence in the growing list of approved tools for their remote learning plans. Now, Connecticut is close to reaching previous levels of access and engagement, while other states' levels remain flat or are rising slowly.
3. Increase Purchasing Power with Cooperative, Small-Batch Purchasing
Cost-effective decision-making will be key to ensure individual students get what they need to succeed. In the 2018-19 school year, over $1 billion was paid for education-technology licenses that were never used. As the economy slows down, and state and local budgets begin to fall short, a purchasing-mindset shift from "everybody gets one" to "everybody gets what they need" can save states tens of millions of dollars, especially in an environment of increased digital learning.

While many things are unknown in this evolving learning landscape, one thing is certain: policymakers that work together to support safe, equitable, and cost-effective infrastructure to support learning for all students will not only bounce back quicker, but also avoid expanding the digital divide.
Karl Rectanus is co-founder and CEO of LearnPlatform.
Read more from Education Next on coronavirus and Covid-19.

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Access to Education Technology Is Not Enough

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When school districts began closing in mid-March, education-technology usage dropped over 60 percent in the first week. After that initial drop, usage has increased steadily, but with an alarming set of trends.

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Equitable access
Robust and reliable access to current and emerging technologies and digital resources, with connectivity for all students, including those with special needs, teachers, staff and school leaders
What is it?

To bridge socioeconomic gaps and truly support digital learning for all students, an initiative must ensure sufficient bandwidth and connection speeds to allow learning and teaching to occur anytime, with limited interruptions resulting from infrastructure problems. But equitable access means more than simply providing devices and connectivity. It also means giving every student the opportunity to learn from teachers who understand how to use technology to both enhance learning and create quality learning experiences for students with special needs.

Why is it important?

Technology offers the potential to improve education for disadvantaged students, regardless of at-home availability - but only if all students are able to fully participate. When planning for technology implementation, it's imperative to consider not only the number of technology devices you need but also how you can leverage available digital resources to meet learning and teaching goals.

Technology has proven particularly effective for meeting the needs of students with special needs. The ISTE Standards require teachers to have access to both the tools and the skills to support this population.

What does it look like?

As part of any systemwide technology plan, leaders should develop a strong foundation of policies addressing the various elements needed for equal access. These policies should:

Ensure individuals know how to access the technology

Outline where to go for help getting access

Be flexible enough to accommodate diverse learners and instructional needs

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Robust and reliable access to current and emerging technologies and digital resources, with connectivity for all students, including those with special needs, teachers, staff and school leaders To bridge socioeconomic gaps and truly support digital learning for all students, an initiative must ensure sufficient bandwidth and connection speeds to allow learning and teaching to occur anytime, with limited interruptions resulting from infrastructure problems. But equitable access means more than simply providing devices and connectivity.

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College of the Sciences and Mathematics, West Chester University, West Chester, PA, United States

Chadds Ford Elementary School, Chadds Ford, PA, United States

In an era when education is supposed to be a means for good jobs and linked to extrinsic values such as fame and money, students are losing interest in school education. The goal of this research is to see if there is any correlation between the students' views of school worthiness and schoolwork, and demographic variables. Our hypothesis is that several key demographics involving diversity, income, and education will affect how students view school and its importance. Results show that there is no correlation between the demographic variables we analyzed and the student perception of school worthiness.

Introduction

iGen is the generation of citizens born in the era of the Internet. iGen'rs are born in the technology age with large amounts of information available at their fingertips and through touch screens ( Twenge, 2017). This generation is introduced to information through a digital path, unlike prior generations that relied on printed materials. Students from this generation expect that in a fully immersive learning environment in the classroom they should be able to seamlessly connect academic experiences to personal experiences ( Oblinger et al., 2005). They prefer learning that allows them to be fully engaged and to be part of the learning process themselves. Digital resources allows iGen'rs to learn through experiential learning and their expectation in a classroom setting is one that allows collaboration and discussions to occur freely using digital learning tools ( Oblinger et al., 2005). Unfortunately, the learning environment in many schools does not take this into consideration. This has led to an increasing disconnection between student expectations and learning environment within the classrooms, contributing to students losing interest in education ( Shernoff et al., 2014; Twenge, 2017). An increased focus on assessment outcomes has resulted in teachers teaching for tests and encouraging memorization of facts, which only compounds the problem ( Ness et al., 2016). In addition, society instills in students that education should lead to good jobs. As a result, many students have goals focusing on career, money, fame, etc. ( Twenge et al., 2012). If the education system does not help connect the curiosity of students to their career goals with technological advances, students will feel that school and education are not worthwhile.

Demographic variables have been shown in research to have a strong correlation with student success ( VanderStel, 2014). Okapala (2002) showed that the socioeconomic status of students is an important predictor of achievement. Students from low socioeconomic backgrounds struggled to achieve in class. Research indicates that students from low socioeconomic households and communities develop academic skills at a slower pace than students from higher socioeconomic groups ( Morgan et al., 2009). The school systems in low socioeconomic communities are often under resourced, negatively affecting students' academic progress and outcomes ( Aikens and Barbarin, 2008). Hodgkinson and Goldberg (2000) found that one can predict 45% of the national assessment scores independent of our knowledge of their race, indicating socioeconomic status is twice as predictive of academic achievement than race. Parent's level of education also has a critical influence on achievement of students in the classroom. It has been found that students achieve better scores when their parents have a post-high school education ( Okapala, 2002). Dubow et al. (2009) provided statistical evidence of the importance of parental education on student success and how parent education affects late adolescent achievement and achievement-related aspirations. Race as a variable has also shown to play an important role in student success. A large body of literature exists documenting race as a significant factor in predicting the test scores amongst students ( Fryer and Levitt, 2004; Clotfelter and Ladd, 2009; Penney, 2017; Reeves and Halikias, 2017). Studies have shown that students from African-American and Latino backgrounds receive significantly lower test scores than Caucasian students ( Flores, 2007; Reeves and Halikias, 2017). However, not all minorities suffer from test score deficiencies relative to white students. In fact, being of Asian descent is correlated with higher test scores than whites ( Krueger, 1999; Weili and Lehrer, 2010). Researchers have found numerous reasons behind the impact of race on student success. These includes lack of investment in child education, differences in family social structure, persistent cultural effects, and race-based differences in expectations ( Wiggan, 2007; VanderStel, 2014).

Despite the plethora of literature on finding the correlation between demographic variables and student success, no data exists relating the relationship between any of the demographic variables and student perception of school worthiness, particularly for the students belonging to iGen. School worthiness is defined as the importance of school in the lives of students in preparing them academically. The goal of this research project is to evaluate the students' perception of school worthiness across middle and high school grades and investigate if there is any correlation between demographic variables and student perception of school. We test the hypothesis that if the students are enrolled in school from counties with low median household incomes, low level of parent education, and a higher percentage of racial diversity, then their positive perception of school worthiness will be lower.

Methodology

Retrospective published data was used in this study. The Pennsylvania Youth Survey (PAYS) data files for the years 2013 and 2015 were downloaded for each of the participating counties from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency website ( www.pccd.pa.gov). From the reports, survey results for 2011, 2013 and 2015 were obtained. Data is not available for surveys prior to 2011. The PAYS survey has two questions that are directly linked to student perception of school worthiness. The questions are (i) How important do you think the things you are learning in school are going to be for your later life? and (ii) How often do you feel that the school work you are assigned is meaningful and important? Data was recorded for 6, 8, 10, and 12th grade. The mean values of 2011, 2013, and 2015 were used for analysis at each grade level. Census data for each county were obtained from the United States Census Bureau ( https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/). For each county, the PAYS data was arranged by grades in the Excel ® file followed by the census data. Pearson correlation analysis was performed using the data analysis tools available in Excel ®. The raw data file is provided in the supporting table (Table S1).

Results and Discussion

The Pennsylvania Youth Survey (PAYS) is an anonymous, voluntary and confidential student survey administered in odd-numbered years to youth in 6, 8, 10, and 12th grades in participating schools throughout the state. The self-reporting survey includes questions related to attitudes, knowledge, behaviors, and experiences. PAYS is administered to both public and private schools across the state. Executive summary reports from the state suggests that in 2011, 16,899 valid responses were analyzed for the report ( Pennsylvania Youth Survey Report, 2011). In 2013 and 2015, the numbers were over 200,000 each time ( Pennsylvania Youth Survey Report, 2013, 2015). In the current study, we use the mean of the 3 years for analysis and thus the data is based on the valid survey responses of over 430,00 students evenly distributed across the state. For all 3 years, there were nearly an equal number of males and females who took the survey. The two questions in the survey that reflect the student's perception of school worthiness are: feel school is important for their later life, and feel assigned schoolwork is meaningful and important.

As shown in Table 1, in 6th grade, an average of 35% of students feel that school is not important for their later life (~1:3 students). The number increases steadily across the grades, and by 12th grade an average of 63% of students feel that school is not important for their later life (~3:5 students). Similarly, 49% of students in 6th grade feel that assigned schoolwork is not meaningful and important (~1:2 students). As the grades increases, the number of students feeling the schoolwork is meaningful and important decreases. By 12th grade, 78% of students feel that assigned schoolwork is not meaningful and important (~3:4 students). Looking at the maximum values in Table 1, one can see that even in the county with maximum values, <3 out of 5 students in 12th grade feel that school is important and only 1/3rd of students in 12th grade feel the assigned schoolwork is meaningful and important. In contrast, there are counties where approximately 7 out of every 8 students in 12th grade feel that assigned school work is not important.

Table 1. Table showing the minimum, maximum, and mean values with standard deviation, for each of the questions in the PAYS survey and each grade for the state of Pennsylvania as a whole.

Table 2 provides the Pearson correlation matrix between the census variables selected for analysis as independent variables and the two PAYS survey questions at individual grade levels. There are seven racial diversity related variables in the census data. These variables account for the percentage of the population from different racial backgrounds including African American, Asian, Hispanic, and mixed races (Table 2). The percentage of foreign born persons is a variable reflecting a combination of racial and cultural diversity (Table 2). Each of these eight census data variables linked to diversity show no correlation against the two PAYS questions studied, with p-values ranging from −0.29 and 0.25. Similarly, no correlation was observed between the students' attitude toward school and assigned schoolwork with the two census data variables related to level of education (percentage of population who are high school graduates or higher and percentage of population having a bachelor's degree or higher). As seen in Table 2, results also show no correlation between the students' attitude toward school and the three variables related to income (median household income, per capita income, and percentage of population in poverty). However, when the two questions are analyzed against each other, results indicate that there is a very strong correlation. The correlation coefficients suggest a strong positive correlation between how students feel about school and its importance for their later life and their perception of assigned schoolwork being meaningful and important ( r > 0.8).

Table 2. Correlation matrix showing correlation coefficient between the questions selected in PAYS survey and demographic variables.

Results from the study indicate that our stated hypothesis was false. Analysis of the data from the state of Pennsylvania suggests that diversity within the community, socioeconomic level, or education level are not associated with student perception of school worthiness. Students from all backgrounds can have a negative perception of school worthiness and the perception is prevalent across middle and high school grades.

Further studies need to be conducted to confirm if the conclusion holds true across the country. Similarly, validation studies correlating student perception of school worthiness and their individual demographic variables need to be performed to further verify our conclusion. The current study utilizes census data as indicators of student demographic variables.

Nevertheless, the data indicates that it is imperative upon policy makers, school administration, and teachers to investigate how to change the prevalent negative perception about school worthiness amongst students. Results are a clarion call from the students that the current system is not meaningful or important to them. There seems to be a large disconnection between their expectations of learning and our deliverables. Students' expectations range from an interactive educational environment in the classroom where ideas and discussion happen between the students and interaction between students and teachers. While the reasons for such disconnection could vary amongst different groups of students, one of the common reasons amongst iGen is the use of technology in the schools ( Levin and Arafeh, 2002; Twenge, 2017). In a survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, students reported that there is a substantial disconnection between how they use the technology and internet for the school and how they use it during the school day and under the teacher's direction ( Levin and Arafeh, 2002). Rau et al. (2008) showed that when instructors use technology for communication with students, student learning motivation, pressure, and performance were improved. Similarly, Lan et al. (2007) illustrated the use of mobile technology increasing reading motivation and collaboration amongst elementary school students. While these are only few examples, it is evident that incorporation of technology into the classroom increases student satisfaction and performance.

In an era when success and failure of schools and teachers are determined in large part by assessment scores, the freedom to adopt changes at a macro level that would yield sustainable positive change in student perception may be limited. Nevertheless, school administrators and policy makers must analyze resource allocation, flexible scheduling, criteria for academic success, and dependency between student learning outcomes and teaching effectiveness.

The most realistic chance for changing the negative perception amongst students lies in the hands of classroom teachers. Those who have taught in schools for generations can attest that baby boomers learned in a formal and structured environment. Students from Gen-X studied through group work in an interactive learning process. Millennials studied using multisensory approaches and within collaborative environments. Teaching iGen would require us to realize that apart from increasing the use of meaningful technology in the classroom to engage the students, we need to start focusing on teaching skills rather than content. Content is easily accessible to the students at all times. Devoting instruction time on teaching students soft and hard skills required for success in the future would be more beneficial to these students ( Alcock et al., 2017). Such instruction may motivate the students and make them aware of their own actions and choices. Teachers need to integrate opportunities for iGen students to demonstrate their knowledge in methods beyond traditional forms such as quizzes and tests. Teachers also need to be more mindful of the homework they are assigning to the students. Studies have shown that if teachers manage to not repeat the homework type, not overburden the students with too much work, show a sense of respect to all the students' backgrounds, and establish a homework system, students will indeed learn to appreciate homework, school, and education ( Paulu and Darby, 1998; Galloway et al., 2013).

It is not clear from this study if the transition to middle school is a variable in low school worthiness for 6th grade students, or if they have started losing interest in education from elementary school. More research needs to be conducted to identify the grade level in which students start to lose interest in education. Regardless, this study suggests that the attempts to motivate the students and ignite the yearning for education should be concentrated at elementary and middle school level.

In conclusion, the study suggests that students from 6th grade and above have a negative perception of school worthiness and such a perception is ubiquitous across the student population. There is no relationship between demographic factors and the negative student perception. It would require a philosophical and pedagogical change in the manner in which we teach the students in the school environment. Only then will we witness classrooms full of motivated students sparked with a desire to learn and make a difference.

Author Contributions

VS and AS were responsible for design of experiment, data collection, analysis, and manuscript preparation.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2018.00045/full#supplementary-material

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Relationship Between Student Perception of School Worthiness and Demographic Factors

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In an era when education is supposed to be a means for good jobs and linked to extrinsic values such as fame and money, students are losing interest in school education. The goal of this research is to see if there is any correlation between the students' views of school worthiness and schoolwork, and demographic variables.

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Abstract

The effective schools literature has shown that school-contextual aspects matter for students' academic and social outcomes. A potential link here may be the quality of the relationships between teachers and students, but few studies have investigated whether features of school effectiveness are in fact associated with students' perceptions of teacher caring, which is the main purpose of this study. Based on recently collected data from 150 senior-level school units in Stockholm, school effectiveness in terms of teacher-assessed 'school leadership', 'teacher cooperation and consensus', and 'school ethos' ( n = 2073) was analyzed in relation to perceived teacher caring as reported by students ( n  = 8022). Two-level linear regression analyses showed that all three aspects of school effectiveness were predictive of higher levels of perceived teacher caring among students. The findings suggest that these features of school effectiveness constitute an important foundation for promoting the quality of teachers' relationships with their students.

Introduction

Processes that take place in the school context and in educational settings, in general, are fundamentally relational. These relationships are established at different levels, for example, between students and between teachers, as well as between students and teachers. The relationship between students and teachers has been a worldwide research topic of interest for many years, and a vast amount of studies have confirmed its role as a predictor of students' academic outcomes and social adjustment ( Roorda, Koomen, Spilt, & Oort, 2011; Thapa, Cohen, Guffey, & Higgins-D'Alessandro, 2013; Wentzel, 2009). A key aspect of the student-teacher relationship concerns the students' perceptions of how their teachers care for them ( Muller, 2001; Teven & McCroskey, 1997; Wentzel, 2012). Teacher caring has previously been identified as an important factor for increasing student motivation and learning in the literature of effective schools ( Comadena, Hunt, & Simonds, 2007; Velasquez, West, Graham, & Osguthorpe, 2013). Making certain that a school's correspondence with the principles of effective schools actually has the desired impact at the student level is central for efforts to improve schools' teaching and learning environment.

Building relationships of care with the students is crucial for every teacher, not only because it serves as the foundation for supporting them in their learning and overall developmental process but also as something worth aiming for in its own right ( Noddings, 2003). According to a literature review on caring relationships, 'Numerous studies have also indicated that a caring teacher can positively impact learning outcomes, motivation, and social and moral development' ( Velasquez et al., 2013, p. 163). Some studies moreover indicate that teacher caring has a greater impact on students who are struggling academically ( Velasquez et al., 2013) and thus withholds the potential of mitigating the risk factors for school failure. Despite this, however, there is still a lack of knowledge regarding the contextual prerequisites for teacher caring, and further research has been called for ( Velasquez et al., 2013).

Internationally, several studies have pointed to differences between schools regarding organizational characteristics that influence the school's ethos ( Rutter, 2000). Studies confined to Swedish conditions have shown that teachers' perceptions of their work environment in terms of workload, reward, and values differ substantially across schools ( Allodi & Fischbein, 2012). There are also large variations in teachers' views of their mission, their work situation, and their working conditions ( Swedish National Agency for Education (SNAE), 2006a, 2017). Earlier research has demonstrated that school staff's reports on the psychosocial climate at the schools, for example, trust and opportunities for participation, and commonly accepted and clear goals, are associated with student outcomes, including health and truancy ( Virtanen et al., 2009). In addition, organizational characteristics, such as school leadership and teacher collaboration, have been found to co-vary with the prevalence of bullying among students ( Ertesvåg & Roland, 2015; Låftman, Östberg, & Modin, 2017b). Based on the above reasoning, the aim of this study is to examine how school effectiveness in terms of school leadership, teacher cooperation and consensus, and school ethos - as rated by teachers - is associated with ninth grade students' perceptions of teacher caring.

The Swedish context

Over the past 30 years, most education systems in the Western world have changed to a much clearer market adaption ( Apple, 2011; Ball, 2007). This has been particularly true in Sweden ( Björklund, Clark, Edin, Fredricksson, & Krueger, 2006; Lundahl, Arreman, Holm, & Lundström, 2014), which by now has one of the most liberal school markets in the world ( Bunar, 2008). The Swedish school market essentially derives from three educational reforms implemented in the 1990s, namely, the decentralization reform, the free school choice reform, and the independent school reform ( Ramberg, 2015). The reforms are based on a neo-liberal school policy where concepts like privatization, market adaption, freedom of choice, and competition dominate. Essentially, it meant that students/families became entitled to choose which school to attend, that independent schools received government funds to operate their educational activity, and that the municipalities took over the employer responsibility for the teachers from the state (e.g. Lewin, 2014; Lundahl, 2002). Several studies have investigated the effects of these school reforms. The results show that there has been a marked increase in between-school variance with regard to school results ( Fredriksson & Vlachos, 2011; Gustafsson & Yang Hansen, 2017), and some suggest that this is largely explained by the free school choice ( Östh, Andersson, & Malmberg, 2013). The fact that the between-school variation is particularly strong in municipalities with a high proportion of independent schools (as in Stockholm municipality) is also consistent with such a conclusion ( Böhlmark & Holmlund, 2011). The free school choice has been shown to predict school segregation in Sweden ( Yang Hansen & Gustafsson, 2016) and to be a likely contributor to the increased ethnic segregation that has taken place between schools during the past decade ( SNAE, 2006b). These findings are in line with the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report, showing that the inequalities in the distribution of learning outcomes have increased in Sweden during the past decade ( Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2016). The reported differences between students and between schools, in terms of sociodemographic conditions and academic performance, highlight the importance to adjust for such background characteristics as far as possible.

Perceived teacher caring

Perceived teacher caring originally emanates from the philosophical history of ideas, and can be said to represent a good act with care for someone else, in this case from teacher(s) to student(s). The term is close to Aristoteles' notion of 'goodwill', which evolved around his discussion of the concept of ethos ( McCroskey, 1992; Teven & McCroskey, 1997). Several researchers have shown interest in and identified crucial aspects of the concept. One of these aspects is responsiveness, reflecting the degree to which teachers immediately and assertively react to students' needs or problems ( McCroskey, 1992; Teven, 2001, 2007). Giving praise to students who work hard and do well ( Burnett, 2002) and rewarding good behavior, willingness to listen, and ability to reduce anxiety ( Bulach, Brown, & Potter, 1998) appear to be other important aspects of how students perceive their teachers' degree of caring. Involving students and establishing a safe environment also seem to be important components in the creation of a caring environment ( Hawk & Lyons, 2008). Thus, in broad terms, perceived teacher caring refers to actions performed by the teacher, which are perceived by the students as something good. It should be noted that it is not the actions themselves or the intention of them that are focused upon here, but rather how these actions are perceived by the students ( Teven & McCroskey, 1997).

Effective schools

The bearing idea of effective schools is to look beyond the effects of individual characteristics, such as cognitive ability and social background, where individual risks are seen as carriers and causes of differences in achievements, and instead focus on what can be done at the organizational level of the school to improve student academic and social outcomes. Rutter and his colleagues were pioneers in the research area of effective schools ( Rutter, Maugham, Mortimore, Ousten, & Smith, 1979), while nationally in Sweden Grosin (2004) made significant contributions to the field. Based on Rutter et al.'s (1979) empirical studies in England, it was shown that some educational environments were more successful than others in introducing adolescents into adulthood and by managing to counteract negative effects of external factors (such as low cognitive ability and adverse social background). The prominent features of effective schools referred to in the literature differ in some parts, depending on methodological considerations and theoretical starting points. Edmonds (1979) proposed five salient features of effective schools that have been recurring in most studies: a strong administrative leadership, high expectations for children's achievement, an orderly atmosphere conducive to learning, an emphasis on basic-skill acquisition, and frequent monitoring of students' progress. From the 1980s, there has been a strong consensus within educational effectiveness research regarding the kind of school-level conditions that are of importance ( Scheerens, 2016). More recent studies on effective schools have placed a greater emphasis on school principals in terms of their capacity to articulate a vision for the school and to create the shared meaning and common goals needed to reach this vision ( Blair, 2002). The underlying idea is that higher levels in the school structure should provide the necessary conditions for processes at lower levels (i.e. at the teacher and student levels) to come into force. Thus, the degree to which principals have managed to implement 'effectiveness characteristics' at their schools can be expected to show in teachers' degree of cooperation and consensus ( Ertesvåg & Roland, 2015) as well as in how the teachers relate to and behave toward the students as reflected in the school's ethos. Ultimately, this should of course also manifest itself in a more prosperous and successful student body.

School leadership can be defined as providing direction and exerting influence in order to achieve the goals that have been set for the school ( Leithwood & Riehl, 2003). Strong school leadership is beneficial for school improvement in general since it provides clear directions for improvement and creates structures for efficient collegial work ( Ertesvåg & Roland, 2015). A number of scholars have suggested that the formal leadership of principals affects a variety of educational outcomes ( Louis, Dretzke, & Wahlstrom, 2010) and that the school leadership is of great importance for the development of the school as a whole ( Grosin, 2003). Empirical evidence regarding the effect of leadership on students' academic outcomes suggests that associations exist but that the effects are modest ( Hattie, 2008; Leithwood, 2007; Muijs, 2011). According to Hattie (2008), the school's leadership has a greater impact on how teachers perceive their work situation. In a similar way, Leithwood and Riehl (2003) argue that school leadership effects are indirect, where 'leaders influence student learning by helping to promote vision and goals, and by ensuring that resources and processes are in place to enable teachers to teach well' (p. 3). Although the effects of leadership largely occur indirectly, some features of effective leadership seem to be crucial. Setting direction by identifying and articulating visions and goals for the school and creating the shared meanings needed to realize these visions are often put forward as important components of effective leadership as are high performance expectations on the staff. This involves helping the staff develop by offering intellectual stimulation and by providing individual support if needed. Building collaborative processes and strengthening the school culture are additionally important characteristics of an effective leadership ( Leithwood & Riehl, 2003). Thus, school leadership is crucial to how the organization works at all levels of the school's structure.

Teacher cooperation and consensus are interrelated in many ways as it requires cooperation and interaction to reach consensus on educational issues ( Ertesvåg, 2014). Scholars have argued that it is difficult to examine the effects of teacher cooperation since they are many times '. . . mediated by other working conditions' ( Kelchtermans, 2006, p. 234). However, in a recent systematic review, it was shown that there are clear benefits from teacher collaboration on conditions related to the student level, the teacher level, as well as the school level ( Vangrieken, Dochy, Raes, & Kyndt, 2015). Research on teacher cooperation emphasizes in particular the importance of everyday interaction and opportunities to meet regularly to plan educational content as well as sharing stories, materials, or experiences ( Van Waes et al., 2016). As shown in a study by Johnson (2003), most, but not all, teachers regard collaboration as something positive since it offers an exchange of support, contributes to stronger teacher morale, and increases possibilities of learning from each other. The benefits from teacher collaboration at the student level are reported to be improved student understanding and learning ( Vangrieken et al., 2015). It has also been shown that teachers' participation in professional cooperation affects teaching practices and student learning positively ( Vescio, Ross, & Adams, 2008). Despite the fact that the effects of teacher cooperation often seem to be mediated by other circumstances, it is clearly an important aspect of school effectiveness since it refers to an arena for exchange of ideas, developing and discussing new materials, as well as receiving feedback from colleagues. Moreover, since issues of teacher cooperation and consensus must be considered as very complex and situational ( Van Gasse, Vanlommel, Vanhoof, & Van Petegem, 2017), it is reasonable to assume that there is substantial variation between schools, which is also indicated by empirical studies ( Ertesvåg, 2014).

School ethos broadly refers to the norms, values, and beliefs, which permeate the school and manifest themselves in the way that students and teachers relate, behave, and interact toward each other ( Rutter et al., 1979). School ethos is closely related to the concept of school climate, but while school climate often tends to be operationalized through student assessments ( Koth, Bradshaw, & Leaf, 2008; Låftman et al., 2017a), we apply the term school ethos to emphasize our focus on conditions at higher levels of the school structure. Aspects of school climate (as well as of school ethos) involve the common beliefs, values, and attitudes that are produced and enforced through social relationships between students, teachers, and other school staff ( Koth et al., 2008). Glover and Coleman (2005), who reason on the concepts of school climate, school culture, and school ethos, describe ethos in terms of 'student and teacher cohesion, a strong academic emphasis, positive teacher expectations of pupils, positive teacher attitudes towards students, a stress on positive rewards and consistent, and shared values and standards' (pp. 257-258). A similar definition is made by Halstead and Taylor (2000, p. 176), who suggest that school ethos as a term mainly encompasses the attitudes and expectations of teachers, the learning climate, the way that conflicts are resolved, the physical environment, the nature of student involvement in the school, discipline procedures, anti-bullying and anti-racist policies, the schools' underlying philosophy and aims, and the system of caring. High expectations from teachers are, for example, associated with more school engagement, higher self-expectations, and better academic achievement among students ( Agirdag, Van, Houtte, Van, & Avermaet, 2013; Archambault, Janosz, & Chouinard, 2012; Brault, Janosz, & Archambault, 2014; Hattie, 2008).

Aim of the study

In this study, we examine whether three teacher-rated key dimensions of school effectiveness - school leadership, teacher cooperation and consensus, and school ethos - are predictive of students' perceptions of teacher caring.

The following hypotheses are formulated:

H1. Students' perceptions of teacher caring vary across schools.

H2. Teachers' ratings of their school's effectiveness are positively associated with students' perceptions of teacher caring.

H3. School variation in students' perceived teacher caring is at least partly accounted for by differences in school effectiveness.

H4. The associations between teachers' ratings of their school's effectiveness and students' perceptions of teacher caring remain when adjusting for individual and school-contextual characteristics.

Data and method

The data are derived from the Stockholm Teacher Survey (STS) of 2014 and 2016 and from the Stockholm School Survey (SSS) of 2014 and 2016, as well as added data derived from the SNAE. The Teacher Survey was performed through a web-based questionnaire to all senior-level teachers in the participating school units from the 2 years. The purpose was to collect school-contextual information via teacher-rated indicators of working conditions and features of school effectiveness at the school and to link this (i.e. school mean values of teacher ratings) to outcomes based on student-reported information in the same school units. The response rate of the STS was 54 percent. The SSS is a sample of ninth graders (aged 15-16) in all public and many of the independent schools in the Stockholm municipality, with questions on, for example, school climate, teacher support, bullying, and health. The survey was conducted during class time and the response rate was 83 percent. After combining the different data sources, our data material consists of 10,288 responding students and 2073 responding teachers in 150 school units. Mean values of teachers' responses were calculated for each school and linked to individual student data. In this study, we excluded students with internal non-response on any of the included variables, which resulted in a study sample containing information from 8022 students (internal attrition 22%) distributed over 150 school units.

Individual-level measures

Perceived teacher caring is the dependent variable in this study. It is measured by an index consisting of seven questions of whether teachers give praise to students who do well (two items), provide direct support if needed, intervene if someone is being harassed or bullied, explain what is allowed and what is not, involve students in the planning of educational content, and provide positive feedback to parents. The variable is normally distributed and has a good model fit (root mean square error approximation (RMSEA) = .06; Tucker-Lewis index (TLI) = .93; comparative fit index (CFI) = .95) and reasonably high internal consistency (Cronbach's α = .74).

Grades were operationalized as the summation of the student's self-reported grades in the core subjects Swedish, English, and mathematics from the previous term. Grades in letters were given numerical values (A = 5, B = 4, C = 3, D = 2, E = 1, and fail (F) or no grade = 0) resulting in an approximately normally distributed index ranging between 0 and 15.

Gender was constructed from the question 'Are you a boy or a girl?'

Family type was measured by the question 'Which persons do you live with?' and the respondents could mark one or several options. Those who ticked both boxes 'Mother' and 'Father' were classified as living with two custodial parents in the same household, and contrasted to all others.

Parents' education was constructed from the question 'What is the highest level of education of your parents?' with the following response categories to be ticked separately for the mother and the father: (a) 'Less than 9 years of schooling', (b) 'Compulsory school', (c) 'Upper secondary school', (d) 'University', and (e) 'Don't know'. The variable was constructed by identifying students who reported that (a) 'both parents have a university education', (b) 'one parent has a university education', (c) 'no parent has a university education', and (d) 'do not know or missing'. The last category was constructed in order not to lose too many observations.

Migration background was measured by the question 'How long have you lived in Sweden?' with the response categories (a) 'All my life', (b) '10 years or more', (c) '5-9 years', and (d) 'Less than 5 years'. This variable was dichotomized into the following categories: Lived in Sweden 10 years or more (a + b), and Lived in Sweden less than 10 years (c + d).

Year of investigation was also adjusted for because our analyses were based on pooled data from 2014 and 2016.

School-level measures

School effectiveness was measured through three teacher-rated indices, developed through exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in Mplus. The indices in turn are based on items formulated from a theoretical idea that they should measure the dimensions asked for. Initially, we carried out the EFA for checking and confirming that the items were related as postulated. Then, CFA was performed to assess model fit statistics for the different indices.

School leadership includes 10 items that represent how well the school is led in terms of the management (e.g. 'The management has an interest in pedagogical questions', 'The management has high expectations of me as a teacher', and 'This school is led in a good way'). The index has a good model fit (RMSEA = .06; TLI = .99; CFI = .99) and high internal consistency (Cronbach's α = .91). Teacher cooperation and consensus was operationalized through seven items, indicating how good and vital the teachers assess the cooperation and consensus at the school (e.g. 'I can discuss work problems with my colleagues', 'Teachers meet regularly to discuss and plan lessons', and 'There is consistency in the approach to school goals among teachers'). The model fit is reasonably good (RMSEA = .10; TLI = .95; CFI = .97) and the measure has high internal consistency (Cronbach's α = .85). School ethos, finally, is represented by nine items, capturing the school's overall ethos (e.g. 'At this school we actively work on issues such as violence, bullying and harassment among students', 'This school provides a stimulating learning environment', and 'Teachers have high expectations on student performance'). The index has a good model fit (RMSEA = .05; TLI = .98; CFI = .98) and high internal consistency (Cronbach's α = .92). For all three measures, higher index values indicate a better correspondence with the principles of effective schools. All items were rated by teachers on a 5-point Likert-type scale ('strongly disagree' to 'strongly agree'). We divided each of the three indices into thirds in order to identify schools with 'weak', 'intermediate', and 'strong' correspondence with the principles of effective schools. This was done in order to take possible non-linear associations with perceived teacher caring into account. However, the analyses were also performed with continuous ( z-standardized) scales (data not shown). The three indices were highly correlated ( r = .76-.81) and were therefore not included simultaneously in the models ( Hox, 2002).

The analyses also adjust for three variables at the school level derived from official statistics from the SNAE for grade 9. Average parental education is a measure of the school's average parental education level. Proportion of students with foreign background refers to the proportion of students at the school with both parents born abroad. School type refers to public or independent school.

Descriptive statistics of all variables used in the analyses are presented in Table 1.

Descriptive statistics of the data.

The method used was multilevel modeling which handles hierarchical data, for example, students who are nested in schools. Two-level linear regression models were performed using Stata's xtmixed command. By estimating an 'empty model', we assess whether there is statistically significant variation in perceived teacher caring across schools. Such a model does not contain any independent variables but allows the variation in perceived teacher caring to be separated into two different components, one for each level (individual, school). Model 1 shows the estimates for the dependent variable and Model 2 adjusts for all individual-level variables. Model 3 adds the schools' average parental education and the proportion of students with foreign background, and Model 4 further adjusts for school type.

Data from the SSS were collected anonymously and are, therefore, not considered an issue of ethical concern according to a decision by the Regional Ethical Review Board of Stockholm (2010/241-31/5). The STS has been approved by the Regional Ethical Review Board of Stockholm (2013/2188-31/5; 2015/1827-31/5).

Results

Figure 1 illustrates how perceived teacher caring varies across thirds of the three aspects of school effectiveness. The mean values of perceived teacher caring for all three aspects differ in a gradient manner, with the lowest values reported by students in schools characterized by a weak correspondence with the principles of effective schools and the highest values reported by students in schools with a high degree of effectiveness.

In order to assess whether the pattern remains in a multiple regression framework, two-level random intercept linear regression models of perceived teacher caring were performed. Tables 2 to 4 present results from analyses where perceived teacher caring serves as the dependent variable and school leadership ( Table 2), teacher cooperation and consensus ( Table 3), and school ethos ( Table 4) serve as the independent variables. Control variables and their estimates are also reported in Table 2 to 4.

Two-level linear regression analyses of perceived teacher caring regressed on school leadership.

Two-level linear regression analyses of perceived teacher caring regressed on teacher cooperation and consensus.

Two-level linear regression analyses of perceived teacher caring regressed on school ethos.

The results show that students in schools with an intermediate and strong school leadership rate perceived teacher caring higher compared with those in schools with a weak school leadership ( Table 2). The estimate for intermediate school leadership is 0.71 ( p = .002), indicating that students average ratings lies 0.71 units higher on the index of teacher caring compared to schools with a weak school leadership. Among students in schools with a strong school leadership, the corresponding estimate is 1.04 ( p  = .000). However, there is no statistically significant difference in perceived teacher caring between students in schools with intermediate versus strong teacher ratings of the school leadership (data not shown). The estimates do not change considerably when controlling for individual-level variables (Model 2), but decrease slightly when adding the school-level variables (average parental education level and proportion of students with foreign background) in Model 3. The most pronounced reduction takes place in Model 4 where school type is also adjusted for. Still, in the fully adjusted model, the estimates remain statistically significant, indicating a robust association between school leadership and perceived teacher caring. The intra-class correlation (ICC) of the empty model shows that 7.8 percent of the variation in perceived teacher caring occurs at the school level. In Model 1, the ICC decreases to 6.5 percent, indicating that about 17 percent of the between-school variation in perceived teacher caring is accounted for by differences in school leadership (1-(6.5/7.8) = 0.17).

Regarding teacher cooperation and consensus ( Table 3), no substantial difference in students' perceptions of teacher caring is evident between the weak and the intermediate categories. There is, however, a clear and statistically significant difference between schools with strong versus weak ratings of teacher cooperation and consensus ( b = 0.79, p = .000) (Model 1). A separate test also revealed statistically significant differences between the intermediate and the strong categories across the four models (data not shown). Controlling for individual-level conditions (Model 2) and the schools' average parental education and proportion of students with foreign background (Model 3) does not affect the initial estimate to any substantial degree. When further controlling for school type (Model 4), the estimate somewhat decreases ( b = 0.69, p =  .001). The ICC of Model 1 is 7 percent, indicating that the amount of school variation in perceived teacher caring accounted for by teacher cooperation and consensus among teachers corresponds to about 11 percent.

The results for teacher-assessed school ethos are presented in Table 4. In Model 1, a clear gradient is seen when moving from the weak to the intermediate category ( b = 0.49, p = . 024) as well as from the weak to strong category of school ethos ( b = 1.12, p = .000). A significant difference between schools with intermediate versus strong teacher ratings of school ethos was also found (data not shown). When controlling for school type (Model 4), the estimates decrease to 0.39 ( p = .065) for intermediate school ethos and to 0.93 ( p  = .000) for strong school ethos. About 18 percent of the variation in perceived teacher caring between schools is accounted for by the level of school ethos.

Discussion

The aim of this study was to examine whether three teacher-rated features of school effectiveness - school leadership, teacher cooperation and consensus, and school ethos - were related to students' perceptions of teacher caring. Similar to previous studies ( Allodi & Fischbein, 2012; Rutter, 2000; SNAE, 2006a, 2017), which have demonstrated variation between schools in how teachers perceive their work situation and work environment, we found that teachers' ratings of their school's leadership, teacher cooperation and consensus, and ethos differ substantially between schools. We also found variation in how students perceive teacher caring across schools, confirming our first hypothesis.

School leadership and teacher cooperation have previously been shown to be important predictors of the prevalence of bullying at the school level ( Ertesvåg & Roland, 2015; Låftman et al., 2017b). This study adds to these findings by showing that features of school effectiveness are also related to perceived teacher caring at the student level. In schools where teachers rate features of the school effectiveness as high, the students' rate teacher caring as significantly higher as well. This confirms our second hypothesis.

Previous research has shown that teacher caring is positively related to students' school motivation and learning outcomes as well as their social and moral development ( Velasquez et al., 2013). Earlier studies have also shown a dramatic increase of the between-school variation in learning outcomes and socioeconomic factors in Sweden since the 1990s ( Fredriksson & Vlachos, 2011; Gustafsson & Yang Hansen, 2017; OECD, 2016). This increase can partly be explained by the free school choice ( Östh et al., 2013; Yang Hansen & Gustafsson, 2016) and the increased proportion of independent schools ( Böhlmark & Holmlund, 2011). This study adds to these findings by showing that there are differences in how teachers assess features of their school's effectiveness, and how students' perceive the degree of teacher caring at their school.

Our findings underscore the importance of not only focusing on between-school variation with regard to students' background and their learning outcomes but also to look at between-school variation in teachers' assessments of organizational aspects of the school. The school's effectiveness in terms of school leadership, teacher cooperation and consensus, and school ethos has a direct association with students' perceived teacher caring, with conceivable consequences for the pursuit of a more equal education system. Since the equality of the education system must be seen as an important societal goal, not least in view of the previously presented increased differences between schools, our results indicate that creating better opportunities for a more equal school leadership, teacher cooperation and consensus, and school ethos between schools would result in a more equal education at the student level.

Our results also show that features of school effectiveness partly account for the between-school variation in perceived teacher caring as postulated by the third hypothesis. The effects are non-negligible: school leadership accounts for 17 percent of the between-school variation in perceived teacher caring, teacher cooperation and consensus for 11 percent, and school ethos for 18 percent of this variation.

The fourth hypothesis, finally, investigated whether the associations between school effectiveness and perceived teacher caring remain after control for individual students' grades and family background as well as the sociodemographic composition and accountable authority of the attended school. This hypothesis was also confirmed with the estimates of school leadership, teacher cooperation and consensus, and school ethos, all retaining their statistical significance in the fully adjusted model.

Strengths and limitations

The main advantage of this study is the design with two separate data sources linked together, which decreases the bias related to common measures variance. While the response rate among students in the SSS was reasonably high (83%), the attrition was more substantial among teachers in the STS (response rate 54%).

The difference in response rates between the students' and the teachers' survey is likely due to the fact that the students completed it during school time while the teachers conducted a web survey. A reasonable assumption is that the teachers who were most stressed and least satisfied with their work situation were less likely to participate in the survey, leading to upwardly biased ratings of the aggregate school effectiveness aspects. If anything, we believe that this leads to an underestimation of our results.

Previous studies have pointed to the limitations of using self-reported grades as we have done in this study ( Cassady, 2001). However, a comparison of our self-reported measures of grades in Swedish, English, and mathematics, with the corresponding statistics for all Stockholm ninth grade students in 2014 and 2016, showed that the distributions did not differ to any substantial degree. Furthermore, our measure of parental education was imperfect due to many missing values. Here, a separate category of 'missing/don't know' was included in the statistical analyses in order to not lose too many observations. When interpreting the results from our study, it is, therefore, important to bear in mind that we were not able to fully adjust for parental education in our analyses, since a non-negligible proportion of the students were classified into this additional category.

Finally, the generalizability of the results might be limited in scope since the data consist of information derived from ninth grade students and senior-level teachers in Stockholm. Future research should cover other grades or age groups, and other geographical populations. Further studies should also look more into implications of school effectiveness for other aspects of the schoolwork environment as perceived by students, as well as potential links to students' achievement and health.

Conclusion

This study has shown that school effectiveness, as reported by teachers in 150 senior-level school units in Stockholm municipality, is strongly associated with ninth grade students' perception of teacher caring, in the corresponding schools. School leadership stood out as an especially important predictor. In other words, promoting school effectiveness, in terms of good school leadership, a vital teacher cooperation, and a strong school ethos, is beneficial not only for teachers, but it could also affect how the students perceive their teachers, something which, in turn, most likely influences the students' academic and social development. Specific efforts aimed at schools with low-rated 'school effectiveness values' could, therefore, contribute in the pursuit of a more equal education system. A promising task for future research within the field of school effectiveness is to further investigate the link between perceived teacher caring and the academic and social outcomes of students.

References

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School effectiveness and students' perceptions of teacher caring: A multilevel study - Joacim Ramberg, Sara Brolin Låftman, Ylva B Almquist, Bitte Modin, 2019

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Abstract The effective schools literature has shown that school-contextual aspects matter for students' academic and social outcomes. A potential link here may be the quality of the relationships between teachers and students, but few studies have investigated whether features of school effectiveness are in fact associated with students' perceptions of teacher caring, which is the main purpose of this study.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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#Leadership

Ray Ackerlund Chief Marketing Officer

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In theory, school districts and their communities share the common goal of creating a safe, healthy, and educational environment for children so that they might become productive members of society as adults. In practice, however, the two entities are often at odds.

The ensuing battles - both public and private - can end up damaging the educational process and hurting the very children whose best interests both groups claim to have in mind. Here at Skyward, we have taken notice of three emerging trends that promote partnership over confrontation by enriching the symbiotic relationship between district and community.

1) Appoint a Voice
Who speaks for your district? Are district-level communications typically reactive or proactive? Is communication a full-time responsibility? These are all important questions to address while reviewing your community relations plan. The overwhelming majority of community relations activities are still performed by superintendents, as evidenced by a recent study of Wisconsin school districts, which found that only 13% of districts in the state were employing a communications specialist, with half that number in a full-time role. Though we were unable to find similar studies from throughout the country, this underwhelming percentage appears to be the norm rather than the exception.

For smaller school districts, the superintendent-as-voice model might not pose as much of an obstacle to effective and timely communication as it does in medium-large districts, but in either case it can prove beneficial to review whether or not the superintendent's time might be better allocated elsewhere. The cost of a separate communications specialist could very well be outweighed by the indirect costs that arise from not having one.

According to theNational School Public Relations Association (NSPRA), public relations in today's school districts should not be about "puffery, spin doctoring, and techniques to make [district leaders] look good." Instead, the NSPRA promotes a healthy, two-way approach to communications that can be "used as a vehicle to build trust, confidence and support for doing the best for all children in our schools." Community relations professionals can facilitate these measures by serving as a liaison and participating in face-to-face conversations that might not fit into the superintendent's busy schedule. A separate communications staffer can also help in the midst of a crisis, when superintendents need to focus their efforts on fixing the issue, rather than having to worry about keeping stakeholders informed.

2) Trumpet Positive Outcomes
Public perception is important. If all communications from the district are defensive in tone or fail to address community concerns, any trust that exists between district and community will quickly be eroded. Communities that only hear from their districts in the worst of times will assume that the system is broken, even if great things are happening every day.

The easiest way to prevent these kinds of false assumptions is to spread the good news early, often, and through as many mediums as possible. In addition to making success stories a visible and prominent part of your district's webpage, a strong community relations program will take advantage of online platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn to reach as many members of the community as possible. By developing an active social media presence, you will be able to stay in touch with your community through the mediums they are already using to consume information.

Your local media outlets will often be thrilled to feature your successful district initiatives, especially when they are aligned with the educational movements that are under way on a larger scale throughout the country. It can be beneficial to develop open, two-way relationships with local journalists. When bad things happen, it is their duty to report them, but they can be a helpful resource for spreading the word about positive outcomes as well. It never hurts for the public to learn about great results from an unbiased third party.

3) Make Decisions Together
This step is often the hardest one for districts to adopt, due to longstanding business practices and an understandable desire for professionals to control every aspect of the decision-making process. However, we have seen tremendous results in the field when districts involve their community in the early stages of any major change to school operations or technology. Parent surveys, newspaper advertisements, and open meetings can help district leaders obtain valuable discovery feedback from their stakeholders in the community and possibly uncover additional scope of work requirements that might not otherwise be considered.

Basic human psychology tells us that people who have an opportunity to participate in the decision-making process are more likely to put their weight behind a project and work toward its success. Subsequently, the process of community involvement needs to be more than just "lip service" for it to hold any merit; members of the community will be watching to make sure that their opinions are actually valued and their concerns are addressed, and it is important for districts to provide the public with a clear, logical explanation for any decision that is ultimately made.

When a change is communicated after the planning process is complete, communities are more likely to push back and additional energy must be expended by district administrators just to obtain a manageable level of buy-in. Districts will never be able to please everyone, but by providing a forum for grievances to be aired and misconceptions to be clarified, the disastrous "snowball effect" can be avoided. Failure to adequately communicate is a palpable risk for large scale projects, and the extra effort involved in bringing more parties into the fold is negligible compared to the time and resources that might otherwise be required to put out fires after the fact.

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In today's world, a productive coexistence between school district and community is a crucial element in the ongoing quest for student success. There are distressing news stories popping up every day about a growing divide between school boards, district administrators, and communities. These negative PR events are often caused by a lack of transparency that results in serious misconceptions and a lack of trust. For better or worse, the onus often falls on the school districts to prove that they have their students' best interests at heart, with no ulterior or political motives driving the agenda.

A focused community relations program can reverse the status quo and make communities feel good about their district. The concepts of "image" and "branding" in public schools carry negative connotations among district administrators throughout much of the country, but there is hidden value there that we have only recently begun to uncover. In an increasingly competitive education market, it is important for school districts to stand out for their innovation and collaboration, not their failures.

If you are considering the benefits of a dedicated community relations program in your district or just want more information on how to get started, head over to the NSPRA website today and see how school districts throughout the country are leveraging public relations to develop better partnerships with their communities.

Tools for District Communication
Are you struggling to connect with your most important stakeholders? Learn more about Skyward's Family Access here.

Ray Ackerlund Chief Marketing Officer

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3 Ways to Improve Community Relations in Your District

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School districts and their communities are too often at odds with each other despite the shared goal of helping students achieve success. Here are three emerging strategies that you can use to promote partnership over confrontation by nurturing the symbiotic relationship between district and community...

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