Reverend Jesse Jackson (standing center), Alan Blankstein (sitting left) during the Breaking the Cycle of Violence C-Span production.

In the latter part of the 20th Century, educational reform was marked successively by top-down restructuring efforts and bottom-up, site-based management approaches. Neither of these structural approaches for reform produced the desired results.

In the past decade, there has been an extraordinary coalescence among researchers and practitioners around the promise of "professional learning communities" as the best hope for cultural shifts in schools leading to enhanced student achievement (Hipp, Hord, Kruse & Louis, McLaughlin, DuFour & Eaker, Newmann & Wehlage, Darling-Hammond, Senge).

Peter Senge of MIT coined the term "learning communities" in 1990. Throughout the 1990's, numerous academics referred to the term "learning communities." In 1997, Shirley Hord published the term "professional learning communities," yet there has been relatively little connection between the term, its various definitions and actual practice in schools.

The disconnect between research and practice was initially bridged by organizations abroad and in the U.S. In 1989, the HOPE Foundation began working with the quality guru, W. Edwards Deming, and in 1992, brought him together with Peter Senge, Robert Peterkin of Harvard, Al Shanker and Linda Darling-Hammond in a PBS videoconference titled "Creating Learning Organizations: Growth through Quality." The founder of the HOPE Foundation, Alan Blankstein, later published The Seminal Works on Professional Learning Communities by Warwick, DuFour and others through the company he founded and led for 12 years: "Solution Tree."

Al Shanker (left), Alan Blankstein (center) and Hugh Price (right).

The HOPE Foundation continues to promote learning community concepts and practices through our various resources, including: Courageous Leadership for School Success Summits and Institutes, the award-winning book, Failure Is Not an Option^®, The Soul of Educational Leadership Series, including Engaging Every Learner, the Failure Is Not an Option^® DVD Collection and much more. These concepts and resources are now well-known among educational leaders, yet effective practice is relatively rare and sustaining true learning communities remains a challenge.

Since 1998, HOPE has been implementing learning community concepts in a concerted and sustained manner in schools throughout North America. We now have data confirming the efficacy of our approach, as well as high-functioning leadership teams that consistently enable schools to close gaps among students while enhancing overall achievement. These outcomes have led to new opportunities to work with leading practitioners and researchers to further explore each other's ideas and push forward the frontiers of our shared understanding and sustained, courageous actions.