Jeffrey M. Vincent

Public Schools as Public Infrastructure Roles for Planning Researchers

Our nation’s public schools are important elements of public social and physical infrastructure. The quality of cities depends on the quality of schools. Likewise, the quality of schools depends on the quality of cities. This article is focused on looking at our public schools as public infrastructure, particularly in the context of inner cities and older suburbs. The article argues that there is a profound and detrimental “cities and schools disconnect,” and as a field, planning has virtually ignored our public schools. City planning scholars need to increase their engagement with public schools and school facilities and think more critically about how development and redevelopment decisions ultimately impact our public schools.

Engaging Schools in Urban Revitalization: The Y-PLAN (Youth—Plan, Learn, Act, Now!)

Operating out of the University of California, Berkeley, Y-PLAN (Youth—Plan, Learn, Act, Now!) is a model for youth civic engagement in city planning that uses urban space slated for redevelopment as a catalyst for community revitalization and education reform. The program partners graduate level mentors, high school students, government agencies, private interests, and other community members who work together on a real-world planning problem. This article analyzes the data produced by Y-PLAN between 2000 and 2005 and demonstrates the models effectiveness in fostering positive community outcomes and meaningful learning experiences, as well as its theoretical implications for the planning and education fields. We have identified three central conditions on which the success of the Y-PLAN rests: 1) authentic problems engage diverse stakeholders and foster a “community of practice”; 2) adult and youth partners share decision-making; and 3) projects build sustainable individual and institutional success.

Promoting Physical Activity Through the Shared Use of School Recreational Spaces: A Policy Statement From the American Heart Association

Most Americans are not sufficiently physically active, even though regular physical activity improves health and reduces the risk of many chronic diseases. Those living in rural, non-White, and lower-income communities often have insufficient access to places to be active, which can contribute to their lower level of physical activity. The shared use of school recreational facilities can provide safe and affordable places for communities. Studies suggest that challenges to shared use include additional cost, liability protection, communication among constituencies interested in sharing space, and decision-making about scheduling and space allocation. This American Heart Association policy statement has provided recommendations for federal, state, and local decision-makers to support and expand opportunities for physical activity in communities through the shared use of school spaces.

Building schools, rethinking quality? Early lessons from Los Angeles

Purpose – Newly designed schools for centuries have projected fresh ideals regarding how children should learn and how human settlements should be organized. But under what conditions can forward‐looking architects or education reformers trump the institutionalized practices of teachers or the political‐economic constraints found within urban centers? The purpose of this paper is to ask how the designers of newly built schools in Los Angeles – midway into a

Joint Use of Public Schools A Framework for Promoting Healthy Communities

27 billion construction initiative – may help to rethink and discernibly lift educational quality. This may be accomplished via three causal pathways that may unfold in new schools: attracting a new mix of students, recruiting stronger teachers, or raising the motivation and performance of existing teachers and students.Design/methodology/approach – We track basic indicators of student movement and school quality over a five‐year period (2002‐2007) to understand whether gains do stem from new school construction. Qualitative field work and interviews ...

Putting Schools on the Map: Linking Transit-Oriented Development, Households with Children, and Schools

Despite the growing interest in expanding the joint use of K–12 public schools by public health and planning practitioners to promote healthy, sustainable communities, the topic has received little attention in the urban planning and public health scholarship. The objective of this article is to situate joint use in the academic literature focused on the links between built environments and health. I examine the “state of the field” of K–12 joint use through studying the academic and associated literature, interviews, participant observation, and case examples. I develop a joint use classification system to aid researchers and practitioners.

Book Review: Community Action for School Reform

Transit-oriented development (TOD) remains a popular strategy to achieve environmentally sustainable infill development and auto use reduction. Typically, TOD in the United States offers retail amenities and housing catering to single individuals, childless couples, and empty nesters. Municipal and regional leaders increasingly hold a vision for managing expected growth that aims to increase equity, support households with children, and create mixed-income communities and that includes TOD as a core strategy. These explicitly equity-focused and family-oriented goals call for a different TOD model than has typically been developed. This new model requires an examination of the ways that TOD might attract households with children concerned with access to high-quality schools, even when schools are outside the domain of traditional transportation and land use public agencies. This paper first reviews the TOD and transportation literature and its attention to households with children and issues of public schools for students from kindergarten to Grade 12. Given the information from the literature, a conceptual framework of 10 core connections between TOD, households with children, and schools is hypothesized. Four exploratory case studies from the San Francisco, California, Bay Area offer insights into the opportunities and tensions that practitioners face in planning and implementing TOD that might attract families. A discussion of the 10 core connections in light of the case study evidence follows. The paper concludes with policy and research recommendations.

Growth and Disparity: A Decade of U.S. Public School Construction.

This may not be the kind of therapy that Sandercock mentions, but it provides poetic punch for planners lacking sympathy for the creative powers of individual people lost in the abstractions of citizen participation. Joe Barthel works as a private investigator helping trial lawyers defend death penalty and civil rights defendants. He investigates a defendant’s family and community life, preparing a story for courtroom presentation. He starts the chapter telling his own conversion tale, how he learned that stories have the power to move and how he wanted to use this power to tell the stories of people unfairly constrained by the stories others impose. His brief stories offer tantalizing yet compelling evidence that a well-told story offers urbane solidarity in a fragmented metropolis.