Community Programs

Community Education Programs: Indianapolis

Amanda Cruser, Dan Royer, Dana Sharp

Ball State University

Roles:                                                                            Commented on: 
Amanda Cruser:  Case 3 and paper format                   Group 1 and 2

Dan Royer:  Case 1 and Discussion                              Group 3 and 4
Dana Sharp:  Case 2 and Introduction                           Group 1, 3, and 4

Introduction

The city of Indianapolis is a major metropolitan area.  Its population from the 2010 census is 820,442 and is much more ethnically diverse than the remainder of the state.   The population within the city is much more diverse than the remainder of the state (U.S. Census).  Due to the significant size of the population coupled with the diversity in ethnicity, education levels and age groups that led us to investigate this community.  Issues of importance which have been addressed in the City of Indianapolis through educational efforts include educational attainment, ethnic integration and education for aging community members.

The definitions of “community” and “education” together read as follows:

            “a group of people living together as a smaller social unit within a larger one, and having interests, work, etc. in common” and “the process of training and developing the knowledge, mind, character, etc., especially by formal schooling; teaching; training.” (Guralin, D. B., 1984)

Keeping these definitions in mind, we chose three programs to investigate that met both of these definitions in their own way.  The purpose of these community education programs all have the same goal, which is to formally educate the community, which in this case is Indianapolis, Indiana, to meet a specific need within the community. One program is specific to the Burmese population in Indianapolis, one is specific to adults over the age of 50, and one is specific to adults who need to complete formal education in order to further their career paths.  These investigations will show how each program benefits the citizens it is geared towards.

Practical Cases:

Community Education Programs, Projects and Initiatives:

Goodwill Excel Center

            Goodwill Excel Centers are currently located in Indianapolis and there are five different campuses in operation within Marion, County.  The campus locations are Michigan Street (Home Office), Franklin Road, Meadows Drive, and West on 34th Street.  The Goodwill Excel Centers are being operated by Goodwill Education Initiatives [GEI] as charter schools in response to the need to provide adults with Adult Basic Education (The Excel Center Network, n.d.).  GEI (2012) operates the Excel Centers in order “to provide adults the opportunity and support to earn a high school diploma and begin post-secondary education while developing career paths in sectors of local economy that offer better-than-average-employment and growth opportunities”(p iii).  GEI is a not for profit established by Goodwill Industries in order to address a growing problem with high school completion rates in the State of Indiana.  In the charter school application for the Lafayette Square location, GEI noted that more than 6,000 students per year drop out of high school per year in Indianapolis (Goodwill Education Initiatives, p iii, 2012).

            The Excel Center offers a number of different opportunities for adults to advance their learning and achieve academic success.  In an interview with Dana Powell who works at the Franklin Road location, the primary focus is on high school diploma completion for adults who are 18 and over.  Ms. Powell also stated that adults are introduced to small class sizes (10-20) built on a schedule that promotes the maximum flexibility for working students.  When I asked her about the connection with Ivy Tech Community College which was identified on the Excel Center website, she offered that another major focus of the center is to offer courses in cooperation with Ivy Tech that result in students receiving a certificate for a very specific skill to promote employability.  The certificates include Pharmacy Technician, CNA, Logistics, and in some locations Computer Technology.

            The first Excel Center, a mayor-sponsored charter school, “opened in September 2010 to 300 students and a waiting list of more than 1,200” (2010 Report to the Community, p 4).  In the same report, I learned that the Excel Center students ranged in age from 17 to 56 and that the bulk of these students were living in poverty.  The centers achieve their goals through addressing student needs strategically offering flexible class times, child care, and free transportation.  The centers also provide for the earning of college credit through dual credit courses in cooperation with Ivy Tech, these courses and books are also free of charge (College and Career Readiness at The Excel Center Franklin Rd, n.d.).

            The Excel Center also approaches academics for these students in a way that is student focused being based on what is called the three main pillars of; academic instruction that fits student needs, focus on college and career readiness, and a coaching program that works with students to identify barriers to their education and provides creative ways to keep students engaged in their learning (The Excel Center Academics, n.d.).  Early in its operation, the Excel Center experienced a high rate of dropouts, this was related to the demands and balance of maintaining the rigors of school and balancing it with the demands of home life.  In the first year of operation, the school experienced a 71% dropout rate, which caused the school to reevaluate its admission process (Goodwill Education Initiatives, p 10, 2009).  The result was the development of iExcel, which is an orientation with the purpose of aiding students to adapt to the culture of the school, as well as, assessing student’s readiness.  The iExcel program allows students to prepare an academic plan, become connected to a life coach, and understand where they are in relationship to graduation (The Excel Center Academics, n.d.).

            Among the initiatives of Goodwill Educational Initiatives and the Excel Centers are included the recent implementation of curriculum based on industry specific needs.  For example, the Logistics certificate was a cooperative development with Conexus in order to provide students with educational curriculum to address their need for highly trained workers in logistics.  The Excel Center was one of six schools which implemented this curriculum in 2012 (Inside Indiana Business, 2012).

            The Excel Centers have also entered into an initiative to develop an Excel Center Network, consisting of a group of independently operated schools, all operating under a license to use the Excel Center educational model.  The network provides communities the opportunity to employ the Excel model which includes a network of shared access to lesson plans, best practices, and resources to support teachers (The Excel Center Network, n.d.).  This was in response to increasing needs of communities beyond the major metropolitan area of Indianapolis and Marion County.

            Most recently, the Excel Network announced the opening of an Excel Center in Memphis, Tennessee.  This center will not be open until 2015, but it will utilize the same model employed in the Indianapolis centers.  In a recent story news story, the opening of the school in Memphis was the result of a process which identified many similarities between Indianapolis and Memphis, including demographics, size, and similar dropout rates (PBS Newshour, 2014).

            Significant points appear in the information I have reviewed about the Excel Center.  This includes the idea that these centers are specifically targeted to students who have dropped out of more traditional educational settings.  It also emphasizes the importance of the students, attempting to support them while at the same time challenging the students in their academic achievements.   It also focuses on the need to be flexible, adapt and focus on helping students who have been overlooked achieve success in both secondary and post-secondary education.

 

Oasis

            Oasis is an organization that has seven locations in Indianapolis, with the main office located on East Washington Street.  They also have two locations in Broad Ripple, one on Raymond Street on the East side.  The south side location is in Greenwood, while the west side locations are on High School Road.  They have locations in forty-three other cities across the United States, with the home and original office located in St. Louis, Missouri.  Oasis in an independent, not for profit organization, that depends solely on individual and cooperate donations to continue their services.  Oasis was established in 1982 and developed for people over the age of 50.  They currently serve over 59,000 people per year. (Oasis, 2011) They partner with health care providers, corporations large and small, senior centers, community organizations, libraries, universities and colleges, senior living centers, public elementary and high schools, and healthy living organizations to serve their clients. (Oasis, 2011)  Their mission is “to promote successful aging through a three-fold approach: lifelong learning, healthy living, and social engagement.” (Oasis, 2011) Oasis is an institution designed specifically for the education of adults over the age of 50.  The program was set up in response to a specific need for aging Americans to remain active and continue the life-long learning process that so many adults of this age desire.

            “By 2030, one in five Americans will be sixty-five years old.” (Reed, S. & Marieau, C., 2008) There are beginning to be more and more organizations and institutions developing to service these vibrant, yet aging citizens.  The Baby Boomers do not want to be considered old or retired. (Reed, S. & Marieau, C., 2008)  They want to remain active and use their skills to give back to their community.  Organizations, like Oasis, work with senior citizens/Baby Boomers, are answering this call. Knowles’ theorized that adults typically want to choose what they learn, when they want to learn it, and how they learn. (Boulton-Lewis, G.M., Wilss, L., & Mutch, S. , 1996)  Oasis offers this flexibility and education to aging adults.

Oasis offers many opportunities of learning, enrichment, and training for aging adults.  They offer classes in technology training, many different health programs, healthy living education, diabetes education, online education courses, training for various volunteer positions, such as teaching/tutoring school-age children and adults about childhood obesity, tutoring children in various subjects, becoming computer instructors, mentoring school-age children, and becoming entertainers through the OASIS performers group. (Oasis, 2011)

What makes this program unique and beneficial to the community of Indianapolis is its focus on a specific age of people, who are interested in continuing the life-long learning process in a more formal setting.  The amount of community agencies that Oasis partners with make the education experiences more focused and meaningful, as the clients have the opportunities to learn what they want, when they want, and how they want to learn it.

Burmese Community Center for Education

According to the Burmese American Community Institute (2009), in the past decade there have been slightly over 12,000 Burmese refuges in Indiana of those more than 8,000 reside in the Indianapolis area alone.  For this reason, the Burmese Community Center for Education (BCCE), based on the Southside of Indianapolis, provides refugee services to this population.  The services provided by BCCE cover social services, medical and health assistance, linking with community resources, and a full education program for adults focusing on “citizenship and civic education” (Burmese Community Center for Education [BCCE], 2011). 

“At the Burmese Community Center for Education (BCCE), we believe that education is the key not only to success, but also to freedom” (BCCE, 2011).

            Guided by this principle the BCCE has developed a program in order to increase awareness of citizenship and integration into the community of the many Burmese refugees coming to and settling in Indianapolis.  Many in within this population have come to the area from war torn locations where they had been offered little to no education (BCCE, 2011).  In order to address the concern of this lack of education and civic awareness the BCCE assesses “by talking and listening to individuals and families” to get an understanding of “their concerns and aspirations for their future...” (BCCE, 2011). 

The program BCCE has set to specifically address the needs of adults and young adults is known simply as “Through Education” (BCCE, 2011).  The Through Education program offers environmental education, community and public health education, self-improvement, and cultural and ethnic diversity (BCCE, 2011).  All of these aspects lend to the refugee an opportunity at a more autonomous, fully engaged life in their newfound home of Indianapolis.  The environmental education program is in conjunction with two community partnerships, Butler University and First Baptist Church, to provide lessons on sustainable living (BCCE, 2011).  Other program examples would include the lessons provided through community and public health education ranging from identification of basic illness to wider issues pertaining to social and international public health relations, self-improvement lessons on interpersonal communication, advocacy skills, and college preparation, and also through ethnic diversity in creating a safe environment to learn from each other and become more accepting of varying cultures.

            Initiatives within this program include the desire to assimilate Burmese refugees to their new location and surrounding culture through trainings and workshops, educating members on the importance of citizenship and maintaining community awareness, as well as basic adult living skills (BCCE, 2011).  The importance of assimilation to a new culture cannot be an overlooked task as the acceptance and livelihood of the refugee may depend upon one’s aptitude in meshing with their new surroundings and cultures.  The potential of this assimilation can be increased through the civic education program offered by BCCE in order to improve the individual’s understand of their new government and political climate (BCCE, 2011).  In gaining increased knowledge of local government one could potentially feel the need to become more involved in the overall welfare of their new community locale.

Adult training programs available through BCCE are comparative to that of any other adult education program offering English Language Learning (ELL), job training, and GED/ABE (BCCE, 2011).   In addition to those basic adult education topics there is also importance placed on civic and community education as seen through the BCCE workshops on home ownership, finances, and effective communication (BCCE, 2011).  The offerings of BCCE are two-fold in that the courses offer the desired educational outcome by leading to a more knowledgeable population, but also as means to empower and teach advocacy of self to these refugee community members. 

Discussion

            With the City of Indianapolis, a major urban location, as our community of choice, we have identified community education programs which address significant issues in a diverse metropolitan context.  The programs, projects and initiatives of these providers target some of the issues that arise in a large, diverse and complex population.   Goodwill Excel Centers provide an illustration of student centered learning, focused on improving the success of adult students through flexible class scheduling, small class sizes, academic coaching, providing child care, and providing a student focused learning environment.  Their programs and initiatives include curriculum based on industry needs to provide students with education and skills needed by employers, including the development of an Excel Center Network to expand the developed model beyond the current operating area.  The Oasis Center targets an aging population, providing community education services for those who are over the age of 50.  The programs and initiatives of Oasis are found in their offering of different classes from technology to becoming an entertainer (Oasis, 2011).  The BCCE serves a growing ethnic population within the city, identified as immigrant Burmese refugees.  These individuals are served through a program entitled simply “Through Education.”  This program has as a stated goal the purpose of assisting Burmese refugees with assimilation to the surrounding culture, as well as citizenship education, community awareness and basic adult living skills.

            Based on the providers and programs we have surveyed in this community, there are several items to take away from this study.  The first is in the formation of partnerships.  As Kilpatrick, Johns and Mulford (2003) commented in their study, “it is a collective process during which school and community go about developing and realizing shared visions” (p 4).  This sharing of vision is illustrated in the cooperation between the City and GEI necessary to bring about the formation of the initial Goodwill Excel Center in 2010, implementation of job specific curriculum, and partnering with Ivy Tech Community College.  The Oasis Center forges these community partnerships with health care providers, corporations large and small, senior centers, community organizations, libraries, universities and colleges, senior living centers, public elementary and high schools, and healthy living organizations to serve their clients.  The BCCE sustainable living partnership is formed in cooperation with Butler University and First Baptist Church (BCCE, 2011).

            We can learn some very important lessons from these providers.  Perhaps one of the more important ones is that community education requires a functioning partnership with the community where the program is situated.  This is true when we consider the examples above of the partnerships formed in all three of the listed providers.  This implies that the provider is listening and adapting to the people it serves.  As Crist and Escandon-Dominguez (2003) describe, “community program directions must be shaped and managed by skills and resources within the community” (p 267).

References

Boulton-Lewis, G.M., Wilss, L., & Mutch, S. (1996). Teachers as adult learners: Their knowledge of their own learning and implications for teaching. Retrieved from Higher Education: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3447898

Burmese American Community Institute. (2009). Burmese refugee population in the US. Retrieved from http://www.baci-indy.org/resources/burmese-refugee-population-in-the-us

Burmese Community Center for Education. (2011). Through education. Retrieved from http://www.bcceindy.org/through-education-programs

College and Career Readiness at the Excel Center Franklin Rd. (n.d.).  Retrieved from: http://excelcenter.org/campus/franlin-rd Accessed: 3/7/2014

Crist, J.D., Escandon-Dominguez, S. (2003).  Identifying and recruiting Mexican American partners and sustaining community partnerships.  Journal of Transcultural Nursing 14(3), 266-271.

Goodwill Educational Initiatives, Inc. (2012). Replication Application, new location in Lafayette Square area of Indianapolis; A charter proposal by Goodwill Education Initiatives, Inc.  Retrieved from: http://www.indy.gov/OEI/Schools/Applicants/2012/Documents/

Excel%20Center%20Application%20Lafayette%20Square.pdf Accessed 3/5/2014 

Goodwill Educational Initiatives, Inc. (2009). The Excel Center Application, a charter proposal by Goodwill Education Initiatives, Inc.  Retrieved from: http://www.indy.gov/OEI/

Schools/Applicants/2010/Documents/Excel%20Full%20Application.pdf  Accessed:  3/8/2014

Goodwill Industries of Central Indiana, Inc., (2010).  2010 Report to the Community.  Retrieved from:  http://media.goodwillindy.org/pdf/goodwill/2011/annualReport/ar2010.pdf   Accessed: 3/5/2014.

Guralin, D. B. (1984). Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language. New York City: Simon and Schuster.

Inside Indiana Business.  (March 1, 2012).  Conexus Chooses Schools for Pilot Program.  Retrieved from:  http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/newsitem.asp?id=52462  Accessed: 3/5/2014.

Kilpatrick, S., Johns, S. and Mulford, B., (2003).  Maturing school—community partnerships: Developing learning communities in rural Australia.  CRLRA Discussion Paper Series ISSN 1440-480X.

Merriam, S. B. (2007). The Profession and Practice of Adult Education: An Introduction. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Oasis Institute. (2011). Oasis. Retrieved from Oasis discover life after 50: http://www.oasisnet.org/Cities/Central/IndianapolisIN.aspx

PBS Newshour (producer) (2014).  Goodwill develops charter to entice dropouts back to school.  Retrieved from:  http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/extra-daily-videos-goodwill-sponsored-charters-schools-give-dropouts-second-chance-graduation/  Accessed:  3/5/2014.

Reed, S. C. (2008). Linking Adults with Community: Promothing Civic Engagement through Community Based Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

The Excel Center Academics (n.d.).  Retrieved from: http://www.excelcenter.org/academics Accessed: 3/7/2014.

The Excel Center Network (n.d.).  Retrieved from: http://www.excelcenter.org/network  Accessed: 3/7/2014.

United States Census Bureau (2010). Retrieved from: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/

states/18/1836003.html Accessed: 3/8/2014.

Table 1. Summary of the Community Education programs/projects/initiatives

	Providers	Programs (What community needs/problems do they address; whom do they serve, and what are their purposes/objectives?)	Projects (What community needs/problems do they address; whom do they serve, and what are their purposes/ objectives?)	Initiatives (What community needs/problems do they address; whom do they serve, and what are their purposes/objectives?)	Suggestions for practitioners (check Discussions)
Case 1	The Goodwill Excel Center	The need for adult high school completion Preparation for students to become job ready Teaching job specific skills Flexible classroom schedules Free childcare for working parents Dual Credit courses for both high school and college credit Certifications in partnership with Ivy Tech Community College	Opening an Excel Center in Memphis, Tennessee	Cooperatively implementing curriculum required by industries for needed job vacancies The Excel Center Network	Development of collective cooperative nature of community education work The development of materials and resources for external and rural communities The licensing of materials Support services provided to these other organizations
Case 2	Oasis Center	Providing educational services for citizens over 50 Providing access for Lifelong learning goals Identifying keys to healthy living Providing an opportunity for social engagement	Serving an increasingly aging population	Partnerships with Health care providers Corporations Senior centers Community organizations Libraries Universities and Colleges Senior living centers Public elementary and high schools Healthy living organizations	Working in the community partnerships to address a significant need Providing the participant learners with a wide variety of choices in educational opportunities
Case 3	Burmese Community Center for Education	·            Community leaders and volunteers          ·            Educators          ·            Mentors Outside community partners:          ·            Butler University          ·            First Baptist Church          ·            Tzu Chi Foundation          ·            Refugees Resource and Research Institute	Adult, Civic, and Community Education  including:          ·            ELL          ·            Job Training          ·            Community involvement          ·            Public Health          ·            Diversity          ·            Environmental Education          ·            Civic and Community          ·            Civil Rights	·            Build lasting community partnerships between like-minded community providers within Indianapolis          ·             Burmese Community Organic Farming (environmental education partnered with Butler University and First Baptist Church)          ·            Continually connecting with and linking with available community resources          ·	Connect to community resources through the utilization of community partnerships Develop advocacy and civic interest Drive community development through education Increase diversity and acceptance of both Burmese and American cultures Promote civic engagement and community interactions Reconnect with Burma and one’s cultural roots Refugee empowerment Increasing awareness of shared experiences