Coordinated Services for Children: Designing Arks for Storms and Seas Unknown

Abstract

Four interconnected movements--toward increased parental involvement in school governance, instructional partnerships, school-to-community "outreach," and children's service coordination--are reconfiguring school-community relations. Together, they are increasingly viewed as critical elements in the overall improvement of education, particularly in urban areas. Nationwide, community-connections experimentation is decidedly on the upswing. But, while creative experimentation and innovation are occurring, the array of organizational and administrative issues accompanying ventures in coordinated services for children is still underexplored. However, a suggestive literature attests to the powerful constraints that impede any alteration of school-community relations: Studies abound illustrating institutional "deficiencies," incentive-structure problems, attitudinal barriers to change, bureaucratic intractability, and a politics of nonresponsiveness. Whatever the ultimate promise of community-connections experimentation, the full potential is unlikely to be realized without a better theoretical and practical understanding of the organizational, administrative, and implementation issues associated with such ventures. What conditions and governance arrangements foster or impede coordination, integration, and community connections? What incentives and disincentives operate? What are the dynamics of inter-organizational collaboration? This article explores the still minimally charted waters that coordinated ventures must navigate.