New Coalition Backs Community Schools, Focus on Partnerships

The debate over whether schools ought to focus solely on raising achievement in this era of high-stakes accountability, or whether they should also find ways to tend to students’ nonacademic needs, has been simmering in this presidential-campaign season. This week, a new group of educators and leading community organizations is joining the fray to push for its set of strategies to help struggling students.

More than 100 leaders from education, youth-development, community, health and social-services, and university organizations have signed on to the effort, which calls for more partnerships between public schools and local community groups, health-care providers, and other resources that aim to improve the lives of poor families, especially in the nation’s urban core and rural pockets.

The Washington-based Coalition for Community Schools ...