MAKE IT LAST FOREVER: THE ... - National Service Resource Center

The Study
Abstract
Michael Kramer’s National Service Fellowship research focused on identifying strategies that schools, districts, and states
have used to successfully institutionalize service-learning in American K-12 schools. Kramer surveyed 20 state Learn and Serve
Coordinators and other national service-learning organizations to select 80 schools and districts that participated in interviews
detailing their progress towards sustaining service-learning as an instructional strategy. The synthesis of this information was used to
compile a conceptual model and map of the relevant institutionalization factors. This information was then used to suggest an
assessment and design process for institutionalizing service-learning at each level.
The Findings
Kramer described each category of strategies and grouped them in two ways, one according to the function they serve and one
according to their overall importance. He then created a matrix that lists who found particular success using each of the 261
approaches. He developed a three-tiered rubric for each of the 24 categories of service-learning institutionalization strategies to
illustrate what the strategy looks like in schools, districts, and states at various phases of implementation. He illustrates the specific
ways in which each strategy supports and is supported by the other approaches. Models of schools and districts making excellent
progress are profiled. Each state’s institutionalization efforts are also highlighted.
While many of the schools, districts, and states Kramer examined are on their way towards institutionalizing service-learning,
only a handful could be described as having achieved it. However, many educators are utilizing many of the featured strategies that
may eventually achieve institutionalization. There are more examples of success at the school level than at the district or state levels.
Many states are not expanding use of the practice, even after six years of Learn and Serve funding, due to limited resources and
knowledge of promotional strategies.
What It Means to You
Kramer’s research provides schools, districts, and states with the conceptual framework necessary to understanding the
complexity of the institutionalization process and some of the innovative attempts to integrate service-learning into the educational
system. By profiling the numerous strategies and sharing who is doing them, practitioners and policy makers will be able to deepen
their understanding of where they are and need to be in the institutionalization process.
For More Information
Contact Michael Kramer, P.O. Box 6498, Hilo, HI 96720, (808) 969-2035, Email: mkramer1@aloha.net.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Research Questions
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