Can Community Learning improve school learning?

I was surfing along looking for a PhD research problem (I had, you see, decided to work on education and not pure chemistry) when I chanced upon the term Community Learning.

Hm.

As it happens I am thinking up an ecological schooling paradigm, where community and environment directly affect schoolwork and so on...

If it takes a community to raise a child, then it follows that a learning community will raise school effectiveness.

What does it take to turn communities into communities of learning? What do communities need to learn?

I think by focusing on Basic Education we are trying to modify the fruit. Mayhap we can actually influence fruiting by focusing on the tree, the community.