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The usually astute Alexander Russo really misses the mark in a recent article criticizing initiatives such as community schools. In the most recent issue of Scholastic Administrator, he argues that such initiatives' focus on out-of-school factors like health care and family well being distract from schools' fundamental academic mission.

Russo writes that such initiatives "shift attention away from classrooms" and successful school improvement efforts. "Now is not the time to abandon these efforts," he intones, knocking down the same straw man so many others have toppled before him.

Advocates for community schools have no intention of abandoning school improvement efforts. They clearly describe student success in the classroom as a primary goal of their strategy. They also marshal solid evidence that their approach improves student learning outcomes.

Russo ventures out on a very weak limb when he implies that No Child Left Behind ushered in a golden age of school improvement--or that a community schools approach would squander the progress of the past six years since the law was enacted. After all, many community schools are among those that, in his words, "have made impressive strides" during those years. (You can read about a few of those schools on this site.)

Russo's closing argument betrays a fairly basic misunderstanding of what community school advocates actually call for. "Let schools try and do what they are supposed to do," he writes. "If more is needed-few argue that it isn't-let's address those problems separately and head-on, rather than making them something schools have to do. Schools can't fix poverty. And that's OK."

Of course schools alone can't fix poverty. Of course teachers and administrators shouldn't have to be a community's only social service providers. No one says they should. But Russo's desire to segregate the groups that attend to students' well being just doesn't make sense

Community school advocates call for robust partnerships among community organizations, families and educators. Together, these groups can offer a far more coordinated, effective and efficient response to students' academic and social needs.

Without such partnerships, schools are often left to their own devices in responding to the crises that compromise poor students' ability to learn. Especially in tough economic times, schools all too often become social service agencies of last resort. And that's not OK.