to the archives of School Communities that Work: A National Task Force on the Future of Urban Districts, an initiative of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University, 2000–2004.
Goals
The Annenberg Institute convened the School Communities that Work task force to examine a component of public education that had often been overlooked: the urban school district. The task force's goals were to:
- help create and sustain entire urban communities of high-achieving schools;
spark a national conversation promoting these school communities that work – for all children.
Accomplishments
The work of School Communities that Work concluded with the publication of a portfolio of frameworks, tools, and resources to help districts and their key stakeholders evolve toward a new kind of support system: a "smart district."
 Portfolio for District Redesign
More about smart districts
Legacy
Largely through the work of School Communities that Work, the Institute was among the first to bring districts into the national reform arena and is now widely recognized as a national leader on district redesign.
The Institute, mainly through its System Supports initiative, continues to advocate SCtW's ideas and products across the nation through the following avenues for action:
- introducing district redesign and providing ongoing assistance to redesign and reinvention networks
providing direct, site-based assistance for district redesign
developing knowledge, advocacy, and tools for district redesign
More about the work of the task force and how it laid the foundation for the Institute's ongoing work in district redesign.
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KEY PRODUCTS
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Assessing Patterns of Resource Distribution
This free online tool compares a district's budget allocations among schools with differing student populations, programs, and funding streams. The tool, using public data on spending and enrollment, helps pinpoint possible inequities.
Go to online tool
Bibliography
School Districts and Educational
Improvement: An Annotated Bibliography of Research, 1988 to the present
Bibliography
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