Researchers in Beaver look elsewhere for learning ideas
Researchers examining education in Beaver County have talked to hundreds of school officials, students and cross-sector stakeholders over the past several months gathering information about how the academic landscape of the region could improve and potentially foster community growth.
Now, they have turned some of their focus outside of Beaver County to learn how other communities experienced a revival as they reformed their education systems.
“We’re talking to them and studying them not for magical silver bullets that you can snap your fingers and bring what they’re doing here but for ideas on best practices,” said Steven M. Ross, a senior research scientist and professor at Johns Hopkins
University’s Center for Research and Reform in Education, who is leading the research team. “What [ideas] worked so that we can share them?”
Mr. Ross and members of the Beaver County Partnership’s Quality Education Council, which commissioned the research study, provided an update to the work Thursday at a symposium at the Community College of Beaver County in Center Township. Findings from the research will be included in a report set to be released this fall when Mr. Ross’ team completes its study.
The report is expected to include suggestions on how Beaver County’s K-12 school systems can continue to offer equitable educational opportunities for students while remaining fiscally responsible to taxpayers.
Researchers have started exploring information on community partnerships, financial records and programming of schools in York, Dauphin and Butler counties in Pennsylvania as well as Allegan County, Mich., and Cameron County, Texas.
While officials say that schools in the county largely provide a quality education and manage their finances well, the cost of education continues to rise steadily even as student enrollment drops.
The decline in student enrollment follows the pattern of overall population loss that Beaver County has experienced since the fall of the steel industry decades ago — a trend that officials are eager to reverse. An important step in starting to grow the community, officials said, is creating an abundance of opportunities for students so that families who move to southwestern Pennsylvania choose to live in Beaver County.
To help make that happen, the research team is looking at other communities in Pennsylvania and beyond with similar demographics to Beaver County that were able to grow student enrollment at their schools, their overall population and in some instances their economy.
“Why is it increasing?” Mr. Rosssaid “Is it just factors that happened to exist, that occurred naturalistically, or are theythings that you did?”
Researchers have started exploring information on community partnerships, financial records and programming of schools in York, Dauphin and Butler counties in Pennsylvania as well as Allegan County, Mich., and Cameron County, Texas — all of which have seen increases in recent years — to see if Beaver County could take away any lessons from them. They are also looking at some programming from the Pittsburgh Public Schools.
“We’ve been pulling a lot of data from those counties, seeing how population trends have been, and we’re learning a lot about their academic programming as well,” said Joe Reilly, one of the Johns Hopkins researchers. “And then we’re picking the brains of superintendents of these areas, the members of their intermediate units to see what things they did in past years that have been kind of game-changing initiatives and programs.”
Things that have helped certain communities, such as an Amazon warehouse opening and bringing new jobs to the area, cannot be replicated elsewhere. But Mr. Ross said Cameron County, Texas, has an organization similar to the Quality Education Council that has brought together stakeholders from various parts of the community that has worked to improve the schools there.
Mr. Ross said the information they get from the other counties has a role to play, but he still believes the most crucial parts of the research will be completed in Beaver County.
“I think that will be valuable, there may be some ideas. We can say, ‘This community did X and Y, does that interest you?” Mr. Ross said. “I think what really counts is whatwe learn here.”