City Education Snapshots Available on NLC Website

NLC has compiled a series of “education snapshots” that highlight ways in which municipal leaders in 30 cities are partnering with local school districts to improve education.  The city profiles, available on the Institute for Youth, Education, and Families (YEF Institute) part of the NLC website at www.nlc.org/iyef, were developed based on a survey of the Mayors’ Education Policy Advisors Network (EPAN).

EPAN is a national network of senior municipal officials from the nation’s largest 75 cities who are working with their mayors on key issues related to education reform and school improvement. The creation of the education snapshots responded to a desire among EPAN members for a resource that explains and provides examples of how different local education systems are structured, how they operate and the roles municipal officials can play in working with school districts.

Each snapshot includes a section describing city initiatives to support education, expand afterschool programs, promote school readiness and use municipal resources and agencies to improve student academic achievement. Another section outlines the partnerships formed between the city and the school district, and with nonprofits, local businesses and universities.

The snapshots also list the top three education challenges that the cities face, and describe the governance structure and demographic information for each school district. 

Initiatives and Challenges
Of the 30 cities featured in the report, the vast majority support in-school learning through afterschool programming and joint use or resource-sharing agreements.

Other common ways in which city officials are bolstering education include mentoring and tutoring programs, initiatives to reduce juvenile crime and improve safety, career development programs, public engagement strategies, and close collaboration between municipal and school district officials through regular meetings.   

Some of the most common challenges faced by cities are addressing dropout and graduation rates, obtaining adequate funding, and ensuring an equitable distribution of resources.

Other significant challenges for many of the cities surveyed include strengthening city-school district relationships, closing the achievement gap, meeting the needs of diverse populations, and boosting teacher recruitment and quality.

EPAN Meeting
The snapshots were distributed in a booklet to EPAN members during the network’s recent meeting, which took place last month in Washington, D.C. The snapshots helped facilitate a discussion during one workshop around the most commonly reported challenges, and participants broke into small groups to discuss those issues in depth.

The snapshots will also serve as a reference guide for EPAN members and other city officials who want to learn about other various education initiatives and contact members in other cities who have dealt with similar challenges.

Details: The 2007 City Education Snapshots are available at www.nlc.org/iyef. For more information on EPAN and the YEF Institute's programs to help cities improve public schools, please contact Lucinda Dugger at (202) 626-3052 or dugger@nlc.org.