Family and Community Engagement as Learning Infrastructure
Who We Are
Powerhouse Collective is an education strategy organization that partners with schools, districts, and education organizations to strengthen learning outcomes for children and youth by designing family and community engagement as core infrastructure for teaching and learning.
Our work is grounded in a simple belief: Every family and community is a powerhouse — full of generational wisdom, expertise, dreams, and hopes for their children.
Powerhouse Collective’s approach is informed by decades of research demonstrating that when families, educators, and community partners build trusting relationships linked to learning, the results are transformative for children and youth (Henderson et al., 2007; Mapp & Kuttner, 2013). We focus on building systems of engagement that accelerate and sustain learning and development outcomes.
Learning from History: Family and Community Leadership as the Foundation
Family and community engagement did not begin as a school-based strategy. For many Black, Indigenous, and immigrant communities across the country, mobilizing community has spanned multiple generations as a historical and cultural practice rooted in trust, wellness, and survival.
In the absence of accessible formal schooling, families and community members organized learning spaces, taught literacy across generations, and built education systems rooted in liberation, survival, and economic mobility (Anderson, 1988; Lomawaima & McCarty, 2006; Katz, 2014). These efforts did not originate as supplemental practices in service of advancement within the traditional American school system. In many cases, they were the system- strategically designed from imagination, innovation, and the urgency of hope.
Historical scholarship documents how Black communities established learning systems such as Freedom Schools, Citizenship Schools, and other community-based education networks to advance literacy, civic participation, and economic opportunity in the face of exclusion from formal schooling (Anderson, 1988; Morris, 2016). Indigenous communities organized language revitalization efforts and community-controlled schools to resist assimilationist policies and preserve sovereignty (Lomawaima & McCarty, 2006). Immigrant communities built settlement houses, mutual aid societies, and labor-based learning spaces linking literacy to economic advancement and civic navigation (Katz, 2014).
This history matters. It clarifies that families have always been deeply engaged in their children’s learning, often in ways that were instructional, strategic, and transformative, even when those efforts were ignored or devalued by dominant education systems (Mapp & Kuttner, 2013).
Family and community engagement work today must be relational to rebuild trust and invite families into shared learning and leadership with schools. At the same time, it must acknowledge and build from the ways families and communities are already, and have long been, engaged in fully realizing the hopes and dreams for their children.
Literacy as the Core Capacity for Learning and Life
At Powerhouse Collective, we center two priorities: foundational literacies and applied literacies. We understand literacy not as a single academic skill, but as the core capacity that makes all learning possible.
Foundational literacy includes reading, writing, listening, oral language, and comprehension. These skills enable children to access instruction, build knowledge, communicate ideas, and engage meaningfully with others. They are essential for early learning and school readiness and remain critical across the P–12 continuum. Recent national data show persistent literacy gaps across the lifespan, with many children entering kindergarten without early reading foundations, only about one-third of fourth graders and fewer than four in ten twelfth graders reading at or above proficiency, and more than half of U.S. adults demonstrating basic or below-basic literacy skills, with disparities by race, income, and geography remaining pronounced (NAEP, 2024; NCES, 2019; DIBELS, 2024).
When foundational literacy is weak, learning barriers compound.
Applied literacy captures how foundational skills are used across disciplines and real-world contexts. Every subject area relies on applied literacy. Mathematics requires interpreting language, symbols, and data. Science depends on reading complex texts, evaluating evidence, and constructing explanations. Humanities require analysis, argumentation, and synthesis. In today’s world, applied literacy also includes digital, media, and data literacy, which are essential for navigating information, technology, and decision-making (OECD, 2018; Wineburg & McGrew, 2017).
Research shows that students with weaker reading comprehension are significantly less able to evaluate online information, identify misinformation, or interpret data accurately (Wineburg & McGrew, 2017; OECD, 2021). Without strong foundational literacy, access to technology or content often widens opportunity gaps rather than closing them.
For Powerhouse Collective, literacy is not only academic information to be bestowed onto learners. It is communal pathway to wellbeing, critical analysis of the world, leadership, agency, and economic mobility. Literacy shapes how young people understand systems, advocate for themselves, participate in civic life, and reach their highest intellectual capacity. Family and community engagement is the catalyst for literacy to become liberating
Transformative Outcomes for Children and Communities
When family and community engagement functions as learning infrastructure, literacy development is reinforced across home, school, and community contexts. Over time, this leads to transformative outcomes, including:
Higher student engagement and attendance
Stronger wellbeing, belonging, and school culture
Increased trust between families, schools, and communities
Improved kindergarten readiness
Expanded college, career, and life readiness pathways
These outcomes are not separate from literacy. They emerge because literacy strengthens children’s ability to engage, connect, and succeed across environments (Henderson et al., 2007; OECD, 2018).
The Work ahead
Powerhouse Collective partners with families, community leaders, schools, organizations, and state agencies to build the capacity needed to design and sustain engagement systems that advance foundational and applied literacies across generations.
Our partnership approach emphasizes:
Shared leadership with youth, families and community partners
Shared learning tied directly to teaching, learning, and the emerging literacies needed in an evolving global landscape
Community care as a condition for trust, belonging, attendance, and learning outcomes
Through capacity-building programs and services, we support partners move beyond engagement as an add-on toward engagement as infrastructure and strategy.
Preparing children for the rising demands of literacy requires collective innovation and leadership. Powerhouse Collective exists to help education systems design that future, with families and communities at the center. We invite you to learn and grow with us. If you’re interested in partnership opportunities, contact Connect@Powerhouse-Collective.com to schedule a discovery call or send us a message via our Connect page.
References:
hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. Routledge.
Anderson, J. D. (1988). The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860–1935.
Henderson, A. T., Mapp, K. L., Johnson, V. R., & Davies, D. (2007). Beyond the Bake Sale.
Katz, M. B. (2014). The Price of Citizenship.
Lomawaima, K. T., & McCarty, T. L. (2006). “To Remain an Indian”.
Mapp, K. L., & Kuttner, P. J. (2013). Partners in Education.
NAEP. (2022). Reading Assessment.
OECD. (2018). Future of Education and Skills 2030.
OECD. (2021). 21st-Century Readers.
Wineburg, S., & McGrew, S. (2017). Civic Online Reasoning.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2019). Skills of U.S. unemployed, young, and older adults in sharper focus: Results from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) 2012/2014. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences.
K12 Dive. (2024). Young children are falling behind in early reading skills, new DIBELS data show.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2024). NAEP reading assessment: Grade 4 results. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2024). NAEP reading assessment: Grade 12 results. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2019). Skills of U.S. unemployed, young, and older adults in sharper focus: Results from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) 2012/2014. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences.
