The Center for American Progress (CAP) has a long history of advocating for test-driven, market-driven school reforms. I doubt that the CAP is ready to abandon its belief that better instruction, leadership, data-driven accountability, and choice can drive systemic improvement in the highest-poverty schools, but a recent panel discussion, which was aired on CSPAN, indicates that it is open to social and cognitive science research which argues for a more holistic approach to school improvement.
The CAP’s discussion of Education and Community Development started with a keynote address by Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney. Kenney committed what the CAP’s school reform advocates would have previously condemned as heresy. Rather than “reinventing” institutions, the mayor said, we should be “coordinating” them. When asked about charter schools, the mayor said he was a friend of public education, not an enemy of charters, while stressing what the city and partners can do to make traditional public schools better.
Panelist Dale Erquiaga, President and CEO of Communities In Schools, had been a school reformer when he was a state education leader in Nevada. He owned up to having been one of those “awful” superintendents that “you live in fear of.” Erquiaga had been a “high standards guy,” who pushed “draconian” policies. The former Superintendent of Public Instruction had supported the 3rd grade reading guarantee, without additional supports, and opposed teacher tenure. But he listened and learned about the barriers that keep some kids from being school-ready. Now he praises the work of panelist Jeannie Oakes on the socio-emotional student supports that her organization, the Learning Policy Institute, will soon publish.
In Community Schools as an Effective School Improvement Strategy, Oakes, and co-authors Anna Miller and Julia Daniel, study 143 community school efforts. They show that “well-implemented community schools lead to improvement in student and school outcomes and contribute to meeting the educational needs of low-achieving students in high-poverty schools.” Moreover, they conclude “sufficient research exists to meet the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) standard for an evidence-based intervention.” This is crucial because it means that Title I funding can be used to build full-service community schools.
Oakes then offers advice from their new “playbook” on making the case for partnerships. Her new research explains there is a “return on investment of up to $15 in social value and economic benefits for every dollar spent on school-based wraparound services.” On the other hand, it was suggested that those services be renamed “integrated student supports.” And that is just one of the pieces of pragmatic wordsmithing and political advice that was offered.
Significantly, the panelists implicitly challenged the CAP’s faith that an instruction-driven approach to “teacher quality” is the key to school improvement. In answer to a question, a consensus was expressed in support for teacher education and professional development stressing the socio-emotional and relationship-building (as opposed to the unrelenting push for “High Expectations” when teaching class.) A comparable level of support for teachers unions was also expressed.
The panelists understand that meaningful interventions take years, and accountability metrics must be reported during implementation. “Doses” of school improvement treatments must be given over time. So, why not measure and report those “doses?” Would reformers want their own doctors to be so fixated on outcomes that they don’t bother to measure the doses of medicine they give? Rather than dismissing such data as the “input-driven” methods that reformers set out to replace with output-driven reforms, panelists said that community schools should compile and discuss attendance rates and surveys on students’ and patrons’ satisfaction.
Even after a generation of school reformers trying to “deputize” individuals as the agents for overcoming poverty, many schools already have volunteers in their buildings, but the key to community schools is integrating those student supports. As John Merrow says, school improvement must become a “team sport.” Learning must become a two-way, or a multiple-way, cross-generational process, of enhancing learning in communities, and with teachers learning from their patrons.
I do not believe that the CAP, with its long history of accountability-driven, competition-driven school improvement, is going to completely reverse course. There will continue to be political battles between the CAP and classroom teachers. But we do not need to agree on everything in order to move forward on high-quality early education and full-service public schools.
Finally, the CAP’s Abel McDaniels announced that its new study on the benefits of community schools in Harford, Conn., Oakland, and Tulsa Union will be released soon.
The CAP now says that we must respect local conditions and attitudes, as opposed to the one-size-fits-all mindset of the last generation. To improve our poorest schools, it was agreed, we must create an “ecosystem of collaborative leadership.” We should see “community schools are a mindset,” and the diplomatic mindset of the CAP event is a huge part of the mindset that partnership-building requires.
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