| Today's largely independent school districts and cities exist along parallel, but typically unacknowledged tracks. Nonetheless, critical points of intersection such as housing patterns, job market needs, and competition for available space, continue to influence and shape the development of schools and cities along physical, political, socioeconomic and educational lines. Despite the active interaction between cities and schools, the great majority of these institutions continue to operate within insular systems, with seldom acknowledgment of their bi-directional relationship. Furthermore, a continuous cycle of failed urban educational reforms has illuminated the pressing pattern of change and continuity within urban school systems and their host communities (Anyon, 1995; Anyon, 1997; Fullan, Rolheiser, Mascall, & Edge, 2001; Raywid & Schmerler, 2003). Thus, in an attempt to decipher the confounding factors which contribute to failed reform efforts, a growing circle of scholars are examining large-scale reforms through a multi-layered approach which consist of schools altering their core identity from isolated organizations to ones more enmeshed with their engulfing municipality (Timpane & Reich, 1997).;This qualitative case study consisted of 21 formal and 2 informal interviews with a host of stakeholders including school officials, city representatives, charter reformers, and community members. The gathered data was coupled with an overlay of Fullan's theoretical framework to help structure the three stories of reform which unraveled along the inside, inside-out, and outside-in story. When combined, the stories of reform created a web of interrelated actions by a host of actors with fluid mobility across stories and affiliations. Regardless of the emanating point (inside or outside) and the actors involved, all stories fused into a grand narrative of Los Angeles politics, reform, and community involvement. Moreover, while the central inquiry of this case study was the small school model in Los Angeles, a host of prominent themes or strands emerged from the data. These strands, which included threads like fragmentation, Latinos, space, and city-school relations, complemented the study's theoretical underpinnings of space, place, and large-scale reform, and validated this study's urgency toward synchronized and synergized efforts to uplift communities and strengthen the public school system. |
