K-12 Education Publications and Resources

• Education City Examples (New!) - Under the guidance of NLC's School Improvement Task Force, chaired by St. Petersburg, Fla., Mayor Rick Baker, the YEF Institute has compiled a series of city examples showcasing municipal leadership in education in cities throughout the country.
  
  These links highlight innovative local practices in the following areas: afterschool, business partnerships, career and technical education, community schools and joint use agreements, high school reform, high school to college transition, improving public schools, parent involvement, public engagement, safety and youth violence prevention, school funding, school readiness, and teacher and administrator recruitment.
  
  
• Stronger Schools, Stronger Cities - The first in a series on "Lessons Learned" from the YEF Institute's technical assistance projects, this report shows insights and strategies from the six cities that participated in the Municipal Leadership in Education (MLE) project.
  
  
• Action Kit on Improving Public Schools - This action kit outlines a wide range of ways that municipal leaders, working in partnership with school officials and the community as a whole, can help ensure that our public schools work for all children.
  
  
• Setting the Stage for New High Schools: Municipal Leadership in Supporting High School Alternatives outlines seven key policy conditions that facilitate the expansion of alternatives and options for dropouts and other students who struggle in traditional high school settings, as well as promising collaborations among mayors, school district officials, and alternative high schools program innovators.
  
  
• Special Report: Engaging Cities in Education - This report summarizes five case studies conducted by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University in cooperation with the YEF Institute, which highlight mayoral leadership in mobilizing communities to improve public schools.
  
  
• Special Report: Municipal Leadership in Education Yields Results - This report provides a summary of the MLE project and lessons learned from the six project cities.
  
  
• 2007 City Education Snapshots provide a glimpse of how 30 cities are partnering with local school districts to improve education.  The snapshots provide an overview of city initiatives to support student academic achievement, the top challenges faced by each city, partnerships with school districts, and school governance structures.  The document also includes contact information for the Education Policy Advisors Network (EPAN) member who responded to the survey on which the snapshots are based.
  
  
• National Civic Star Award & 2005 Winning Programs - School-community partnerships that benefit children, youth, and adults are the focus of the National Civic Star Award sponsored annually by the American Association of School Administrators, with Sodexho School Services.

Webcasts

• Dropout Recovery as a Local Economic Development Strategy - This webcast is of a forum co-sponsored by the YEF Institute and the American Youth Policy Forum on Sept. 8, 2006 features the efforts of Montgomery County, Ohio, and Baltimore, Md., to reconnect out-of-school youth to education and employment training.
  Forum Briefing »
  
  
• So You Don't Run the Schools - This webcast of a workshop held on Dec. 9, 2005, at NLC's Congress of Cities in Charlotte, N.C., focuses on how mayors and councilmembers can be strong partners in improving the quality of education in their communities, even if they do not have a role in the governance of public schools. 

Web Seminar Recordings

• 9/21/06 - Building Public Will: Promoting Citizen Engagement to Improve Your City's Schools

Audioconference Transcripts

• 3/22/07 - Dropout Recovery: What Cities Can Do To Get Students Back on Track
• 9/21/06 - Building Public Will: Promoting Citizen Engagement to Improve Your City's Schools
• 11/17/05 - The Numbers Tell the Story: Using Data to Build an Accountability Framework for Your Schools
• 5/13/04 - Stronger Schools, Stronger Cities Report
• 11/20/03 - The Need for Municipal Leadership in High School Reform
• 2/21/02 - Municipal Leaders' Roles in Working with Schools to Close Student Achievement Gaps
• 4/19/01 - First in Their Class: City-School Partnerships That Make the Difference