Uneven Playing Field: Demographic Differences and High School 'Choice' in Philadelphia Mar 2010 Deborah Good, Eva Gold, Shani Adia Evans, Clarisse Haxton, Holly Plastaras Maluk, Cecily A. Mitchell, Elaine Simon

Every fall, eighth graders participate in the School District of Philadelphia's high school application and admissions process, vying for spots in a tiered system of public high schools across the ...

Transition to High School: School 'Choice' and Freshman Year in Philadelphia Feb 2010 Eva Gold, Shani Adia Evans, Clarisse Haxton, Holly Plastaras Maluk, Cecily A. Mitchell, Elaine Simon, Deborah Good

The School District of Philadelphia's tiered system of selective, nonselective, and charter high schools, and the process for high school choice, has created real variation in the degree to which h...

Challenges to Freshman Year Interventions in Philadelphia Feb 2010 Eva Gold, Shani Adia Evans, Clarisse Haxton, Holly Plastaras Maluk, Cecily A. Mitchell, Elaine Simon, Deborah Good

Philadelphia made early investments in reforms designed to address the challenges of large neighborhood high schools, including supports for the critical ninth grade transition year. Well over a d...

Context, Conditions, and Consequences: Freshman Year Transition in Philadelphia Jan 2010 Eva Gold, Shani Adia Evans, Clarisse Haxton, Holly Plastaras Maluk, Cecily A. Mitchell, Elaine Simon, Deborah Good

This policy brief focuses on the School District of Philadelphia's high school selection process and the ways in which it reinforces and compounds inequities that already exist among the District's...

Philadelphia Story: Building Civic Capacity for School Reform in a Privatizing System Dec 2007 Eva Gold, Elaine Simon, Maia Cucchiara, Cecily A. Mitchell, Morgan Riffer

Following the 2001 state takeover of the School District of Philadelphia, a new governance structure was established and an ambitious set of reforms went into effect, generating renewed public conf...

Philadelphia Story: Building Civic Capacity for School Reform in a Privatizing System - Executive Summary Dec 2007 Eva Gold, Elaine Simon, Maia Cucchiara, Cecily A. Mitchell, Morgan Riffer

Following the 2001 state takeover of the School District of Philadelphia, a new governance structure was established and an ambitious set of reforms went into effect, generating renewed public conf...

Public Education in Philadelphia: The Crucial Need for Civic Capacity in a Privatized Environment Mar 2007 Suzanne Blanc, Elaine Simon

This article explores the role of public engagement in Philadelphia public schools, answering the question of whether the form of private sector involvement now being pursued by the School District...

Time to Engage? Civic Participation in Philadelphia's School Reform Sep 2005 Eva Gold, Maia Cucchiara, Elaine Simon, Morgan Riffer

Philadelphia is at the forefront of a national trend towards privatization in education, making school reform in Philadelphia a topic of national and local consequence. The Philadelphia school dist...

Crafting a Civic Stage for Public Education Reform: Executive Summary Jun 2005 Elaine Simon, Jolley Bruce Christman, Tracey A. Hartmann, Diane C. Brown

Executive summary to the report offering a conceptual model for understanding the decisions that LEFs make as they go about shaping both organizational identity and an approach to their work.

Crafting a Civic Stage for Public Education Reform: Understanding the Work and Accomplishments of Local Education Funds Jun 2005 Elaine Simon, Jolley Bruce Christman, Tracey A. Hartmann, Diane C. Brown

This report is based on research focusing on understanding and assessing how Local Education Funds (LEFs)carryout their mission and demonstrate success. It offers a conceptual model for understand...

Cultural Leaders' Reflections on Cultural Participation and Preliminary Research May 2005 Elaine Simon, Gretchen E. L. Suess

This report was prepared for the Philadelphia Cultural Benchmark Project, a collaborative project between Research for Action, Audience Insight LLC, and the University of Pennsylvania's Social Impa...

Reframing Accountability for Urban Schools: Efforts from the Ground Up to Improve Public Education Apr 2005 Elaine Simon, Eva Gold

This paper, presented at the 2005 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) discusses the contributions of community organizing to current conceptions of accountability...

Getting Real About What it Takes to Conduct Evaluation Research: What Do You Need to Know? 2005 Elaine Simon, Jolley Bruce Christman

Anthropology prepares researchers for many aspects of evaluation work, but academic training provides insufficient preparation for four roles expected in evaluation research: organizational consult...

New Conception of Parent Engagement: Community Organizing for School Reform Oct 2004 Eva Gold, Elaine Simon, Chris Brown

This chapter provides an indicators framework for understanding the contributions of community organization to school reform and a theory of change model that shows the link between school improvem...

Bringing Community Organizing into the School Reform Picture Sep 2004 Eva Gold, Elaine Simon, Leah M. Mundell, Chris Brown

Community organizing is growing in importance as a means of achieving and sustaining urban school reform. The authors identify eight distinct areas in which community organizing groups are connecti...

Meanings of Cultural Participation at the Neighborhood Level: A Focus Group Analysis Apr 2004 Leah M. Mundell, Eva Gold, Elaine Simon, Gretchen E. L. Suess

This report was prepared for the Philadelphia Cultural Benchmark Project, a collaborative project between Research for Action, Audience Insight LLC, and the University of Pennsylvania's Social Impa...

Civic Leadership & State Takeover in Public Education: Conflict or Convergence Mar 2004 Elaine Simon, Eva Gold, Leah M. Mundell, Morgan Riffer, Maia Cucchiara

This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Urban Affairs Association. In this paper, the authors explore the transition from the previous reform era in Philadelphia to a radically differ...