A bi-monthly e-newsletter, Volume 5, Number 2 (Nov-Dec 2006)
This edition's topic: Whole
Schools For the Whole Child
Contents:
SCHOOL LEADERS BROADEN THEIR VISION
(Feature
article by Marty Blank, Director, and Amy Berg, Research Director, Coalition
for Community Schools [CCS], housed at IEL)
As our nation grapples with
how to ensure that no child is left behind, many are unaware or seem to forget
that multiple pathways must converge to reach that goal. We know that multiple
factors affect young peoples development, on multiple levels, besides a
challenging curriculum, high standards, and highly qualified teachers. By
narrowing our focus strictly on academics we are losing sight of the other
aspects of the “whole child,” i.e., factors such as health, social and personal
competencies, family involvement, a safe and supportive environment, the
availability of an adult role model, and access to early childhood programs are
known to be critical to a young person’s success.
Recognizing this reality,
school leaders are turning more often to community partners who can provide the
opportunities, resources, and supports that each young person needs, an
approach that we call “community schools.” Ultimately, a community school is
a place where school and community work together so that all students are
engaged in learning, achieve to the best of their ability, and become
productive citizens and participants in our democracy. They are the result of deliberate partnerships between schools and an array of organizations and local agencies
sharing the responsibility for preparing young people to succeed, by providing
quality health, social, family, after-school, and other supports, allowing
schools to focus on a high quality curriculum and instruction.
The most critical factor in
establishing and sustaining these partnerships is leadership—and a
growing vanguard of school leaders, local elected officials, and the larger
community are pursuing this path. The CCS’s most recent report, Community
and Family Engagement: Principals Share What Works (November 2006) (http://www.communityschools.org/CCSDocuments/CommunityAndFamilyEngagement.pdf),
examines the role of principals in a community school. One principal,
Kim Johnson of Lincoln Elementary School in Evansville, IN, said, “At first we all thought, ‘I don’t need another thing to do,’ but now
that we’ve been doing it for awhile, we wouldn’t do school any other way.” Our prior report, Growing
Community Schools: The Role of Cross-Boundary Leadership (mentioned in the
Jul-Sept issue of IELC, http://www.iel.org/news/newsletter/sept06.html#community)
shared the special leadership and lessons learned—from the grassroots to the
mayor’s office—that are necessary to move this successful school model to
scale.
These publications reveal
that community school leaders, at all levels, are working in new and innovative
ways across traditional boundaries, to build sustainable partnerships and
create a culture of collaboration. They know that building strong partnerships
and creating a climate of success means welcoming the rich differences in
language, culture, and outlook that diverse student populations bring to
schools—and refusing to evade the hard questions and challenges posed by the
issues of race, equity, and poverty.
Now, there is a growing body
of research supporting community engagement. According to a recent Public
Agenda Reality Check report, “The strong focus on standards and testing
is beginning to strike key segments of the public as a ‘Johnny-one-note’
approach (http://www.publicagenda.org/research/pdfs/rc0603.pdf).” Additionally, evidence is mounting that
this “one-note” approach is not working. Two recent reports, Achievement
Gap 2006 Study by the Northwest Evaluation Association (http://www.nwea.org/research/achievementgap.asp),
and Is the No Child Left Behind Act Working? The Reliability of How States
Track (http://pace.berkeley.edu/NCLB/WP06-01_Web.pdf)
by researchers at UC/Berkeley both indicate that NCLB is failing to meet the
needs of all young people. Moreover, a new report from America’s Promise, Every Child, Every Promise: Turning Failure Into Action (http://www.americaspromise.org/ECEP.aspx?id=208),
indicates that fewer than one in three students receive the level of support
they need. “Among American students, 90% have clear, positive hopes and
goals, yet 40 percent of them do not believe they will be able to meet those
goals,” said Nobel Laureate economist James Heckman of the University of
Chicago, who co-authored the report. “Our young people are eager to
flourish but we are not fulfilling our promises to them.”
As more and more evidence
converges around the notion that it might take more than standards to raise
achievement, the new direction these innovative community school leaders are
taking may well blaze the path for more “whole child” school reform efforts of
the future. To read more about the rationale and results of community schools,
or to learn more about the CCS see:
NEWS & RESOURCES
Leadership
- How Do We Develop the Policy
Leaders We Need? IEL proposes to
start answering this question by harvesting the lessons of its Education Policy
Fellowship Program (EPFP), a cross-boundary leadership development program in operation
since 1964. Through a two-year grant from the Lumina Foundation for
Education, an Indianapolis-based, private foundation dedicated to expanding
access and success in education beyond high school, IEL will tap its rich
network of 6,000+ alumni to identify what works in the preparation of effective
leaders. An examination of other selected leadership preparation programs will
yield additional important lessons and contribute to a set of recommendations
for the preparation of education policy and practice leaders who can meet the
new demands of the 21st century.
- NSBA and IEL Announce 2007
Danzberger Lecturer. Claude Steele,
Ph.D., the Lucie Stern Professor in the Social Sciences and past chair
of the Department of Psychology at Stanford University, has been
selected to present the 7th Annual Jacqueline P. Danzberger Memorial
Lecture, April 16, 2007. Given during the National School Boards
Associations’ annual convention, Dr. Steele will discuss the critical
role that leaders can and do play in setting the stage for the success
or failure of our students and school districts, especially in
confronting controversial issues such as race and gender gaps. Send an
e-mail to Denise Slaughter at slaughterd@iel.org to be
notified when his presentation is available on-line after the lecture.
Policy/Systems
- Building More Potent Systems. Utilizing preliminary hearings and related
reports/proposals on the reauthorization of NCLB—including the Aspen
Institute’s NCLB Commission hearings—the Center for Mental Health in Schools at
UCLA has generated a policy analysis report, Legislation in Need of
Improvement: Reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act to Better Address
Barriers to Learning. They state there has been no major
discussion of the need for a systematic focus on learning supports to address
barriers to learning and teaching. They conclude (reinforcing the Blank/Berg commentary)
that: “The mission of schools, while complex, is clearly to educate the young.
At the same time, it is evident that they can only do this if they work with
the community as a whole (e.g., families, agencies, businesses) to address
matters that interfere with students having an equal opportunity to succeed at
school....” They suggest the reauthorization provides an opportunity to
escape old ways of thinking … and contribute to efforts to move schools forward
in developing a potent system of learning supports.” They include proposed
additions and a unifying framework. Read the full report at http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/pdfdocs/nclbra.pdf.
- Marshall Plan for Teaching. AERA’s 3rd Annual Brown Lecture in Education Research, established to
commemorate the Brown v. Board of Education decision of the U.S.
Supreme Court that took scientific research into account in issuing the
court's landmark ruling, was given this fall by Stanford University
scholar Linda Darling-Hammond. Her lecture, “The Flat Earth and
Education: How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our
Future,” outlined a “Marshall Plan for Teaching” and a Webcast will
soon be available on the AERA Web site. In the meantime, you can see
Webcasts of the previous lectures, by Dr. Edmund Gordon and Dr. Claude
Steele, at: http://www.aera.net/annualmeeting/?id=1530.
- New Credential Implemented.Workforce development professionals have not always had access to the
proper training they need to help youth to succeed. But that is changing now,
thanks to innovations funded by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of
Disability Employment Policy (ODEP). ODEP and the National Collaborative on
Workforce and Disability for Youth (NCWD/Youth) announced a new credential, the “Youth Services Endorsement,”
recognizing the knowledge, skills, and abilities of youth service
practitioners. Recently approved by the National Association of Workforce
Development Professionals (NAWDP), it will be added to the association’s
Certified Workforce Development Professional program. The YSE adopts
competencies that NCWD/Youth developed and aimed at improving the workforce
development system for all youth, while focusing on policies and practices that
enhance services for youth with disabilities. For
more information on NAWDP’s credential process, please visit www.nawdp.org/certification.htm.
Community
- Principally Speaking. Principals are increasingly turning to the community
to help them engage families, share resources and meet standards. Informed by
the work of principals, this paper finds six keys to community engagement that
help school leaders engage families, staff, partners and the larger community
in the life of the school. In exploring these keys we asked principals why
community engagement matters, what makes doing this work hard and what makes it
work. To read more, go to http://www.communityschools.org/CCSDocuments/CommunityAndFamilyEngagement.pdf.
Coming out of this work, CCS is forming a network of leaders of principal
preparation programs to better understand and disseminate what the best
practices around community engagement are. We also hope to share these lessons
with preparation programs around the country. If you are aware of principal
preparation or professional development programs that emphasize community
engagement principles in their curricula, and/or you want to learn more about
this network please contact Amy Berg at berga@iel.org.
- Willing Change. Besides their aforementioned report, the CCS has just
published a transcript of a once-in-a-lifetime conversation between two
venerable giants in the field of child development: Dr. James Comer, the
Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine,
Child Study Center, New Haven, CT, and Dr. Edmund Gordon, Director, The
Institute for Urban and Minority Education, Teachers College, Columbia
University, New York, NY, at the CCS’ National Forum held in Baltimore, MD, in
summer 2006. THE WILL TO
CHANGE: A Conversation About Schools and Learning includes some thoughts and recommendations also shared
by Hugh Price, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies, The Brookings Institution and
former president of the National Urban League. It will be available for
download from the CCS’ Web site (http://www.communityschools.org)
or by sending an e-mail to ccs@iel.org requesting a hard copy.
SITE-TO-CITE
- NCWD/YOUTH’s New “KSA” Section. The Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
(KSA) Initiative and all of the National Collaborative on Workforce and
Disability for Youth’s (NCWD/YOUTH) training resources were developed to
improve the awareness, knowledge, and skills of youth service practitioners,
those individuals who work directly with youth. In addition, NCWD/YOUTH has
developed training materials in key areas, such as assessment, universal
design, and youth development and leadership. This new KSA section of their
site is part of its ongoing efforts to connect all youth, including
youth with disabilities, to better workforce development opportunities: at http://www.ncwd-youth.info/ksa/.
- Not a Moment Too Soon—NEW! On-Line Resource for Transforming High Schools
for 21st Century. Rather than recreating the whole system, we recommend using the Resource Guide for Action: Transforming High
School for All Youth, a recently launched Web-based guide from the National
High School Alliance. It provides help for policymakers and practitioners as
they work to transform high schools to ensure all students are ready for
college, careers, and active civic participation. The Resource Guide is
dedicated to helping policymakers and practitioners take actions recommended
through the HS Alliance’s framework of six principles and recommended
strategies, as outlined in last year’s A Call to Action: Transforming High School for All Youth (Feb 2005). It is designed to
guide leaders at all levels through the complex process of transforming the
traditional, comprehensive high school---directing users to the needed
expertise and providing the research, strategies, tools, and protocol for
each of the principles deemed integral to transforming high schools. The Resource
Guide is provided with support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, The
College Board, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and can be
accessed at http://hsalliance.org/call_action/index.asp.
- Regional Educational
Laboratories’ (RELs) New Site Unveiled. In
October 2006, the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional
Assistance launched its new site for the REL Program. RELs are
committed to addressing pivotal issues involved in implementing key
provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act, improving schools in
response to state and local policymaker and practitioner requests, and
working with practitioners and state and local policymakers to raise
the achievement levels of all students in reading, math, and science.
For more information, visit the Regional Educational Laboratory Program
Web site at http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/. Be
sure to check out the REL calendar of events to see what’s happening in your
region.
“MUSE” FROM IEL
(Commentary by Betty Hale, IEL President)
WholeLeaderWatch: We keep track of the “whole leader” trend by looking
for and ”bookmarking” pertinent articles, books, reports, and other items that
convey an understanding of leadership as more than just taking action. Turns
out our assertion in last fall’s IELC (Nov 2005, at http://www.iel.org/news/newsletter/nov05.html)
was on target: there is a small movement afoot. The current issue of Leading
Effectively, the Center for Creative Leadership’s (CCL) newsletter, is
based on a new book (Building Character: Strengthening the Heart of Good
Leadership) by CCL staff member, Gene Klann. He says, “Building
character is both a smart move and the right move for leaders and
organizations.” You can read this issue and subscribe at: http://www.ccl.org/leadership/enewsletter/2006/DECissue.aspx We found an article closer to our own work in a commentary in the December 13,
2006 issue of Education Week (p. 32). “The New, Improved Educational Machine (But Where Are the
Children)” asks us to come to our educational senses by putting
children first in school improvement. The author, Peter W. Cookson, Jr.
(EPFP class of 93-94) describes the new, improved “educational machine”
(read
leadership) thusly: “…charisma trumps character, political skills trump
intellectual accomplishment, and the habit of command trumps habits of the
heart.” In the waning days of 2006 you will be admonished by many to
reflect on what you have accomplished, and encouraged to set goals for the new
year. IEL hopes you will set aside some time to think about the need for whole
leaders—in education and other issue areas, as well as in all sectors. And, we
hope you will help us keep track of this small, but important leadership
movement.
Submission deadline for the next
issue: January 15, 2007
ABOUT IEL and IELeadership
Connections
For over 40 years, the
Institute for Educational Leadership (a non-profit, nonpartisan organization
based in Washington, DC) has worked to achieve better results for children. At the heart of IEL's effectiveness is a unique
ability to bring people together to identify and resolve issues across policy,
program, and sector boundaries. We
provide services in three program areas: Developing and Supporting Leaders,
Strengthening School-Family-Community Connections, and Connecting and
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