Do you know that almost one third of our
country’s children don’t meet expected levels of academic achievement (Weiss et
al. 2009)? A disproportionate number are racial and
ethnic minorities or are from low-income families and when these children reach
adulthood they won’t have the skills necessary to succeed in our global economy
(Weiss et al. 2009).
These are staggering figures and its
incumbent on us, on our society, to correct this travesty. Not only is it the right (moral) thing to do,
it’s the correct economic decision. If children, all children, receive a good education, then they will have the
knowledge and tools to become productive members of society. They will work and pay taxes, versus being
incarcerated or on public assistance. In
2007, the report, The Economic Costs of
Poverty: Subsequent Effects of Children Growing Up Poor noted that millions
of Americans, including more than 8.5 million children, live in areas of
concentrated poverty. Do you know what
the cost is of providing services needed by the poor? Yearly, it’s approximately 500 billion
dollars, nearly 4% of GDP (Holzer et al. 2007).
When we can bear the costs of supporting the poor, why not provide the
educational services that enable our children to move out of poverty?
Given that our country currently fails
to adequately educate almost a third of our children, and a disproportionate
number are low-income or racial and ethnic minorities, a clear 21st
century civil rights issue, is it reasonable or even possible for individual
schools, working in isolation from their communities, to succeed? Are they
equipped to understand, let alone meet, the diverse needs of underprivileged
children and their families? Placing un-realistic
ambitious expectations on a system that is already stretched thin is surely a
recipe for failure.
Educational accountability is
important. No Child Left Behind brought
the importance of accountability to the fore, but despite its intent to set a
high bar for all students and to protect the most vulnerable, it’s inflexible accountability
provisions have caused schools to focus inordinately on test scores, further
hampering educational improvements (Duncan, 2013).
Academic success for America’s children
requires us - the Village, our overall society and our individual communities –
civic leaders, corporate executives, higher education institutions, faith-based organizations, nonprofits, social service agencies, and individual
citizens - to take a stand and commit to
investing in the solutions. Communities
across the United States, like many that are part of the National League of
Cities, recognize the need for a systemic, holistic and collaborative approach
to meeting the educational needs of children.
Research shows that community and family collaboration with schools result
in increased academic achievement (Bryk 2010).
Recently, congressmen Steny Hoyer, a Maryland democrat and Aaron
Schock, an Illinois republican introduced the Full-Service Community
Schools Act of 2014 (Hoyer et al. August 01, 2014). There are varying models of
community schooling, but almost all use schools as a vehicle for meeting students’
academic, developmental, health and wellbeing needs. Community schools integrate services into the
school or provide a dedicated community connector (a full-time professional
staff person) within the school to facilitate schools and students and their families
accessing and benefiting from community resources.
Community schools emphasize parental
involvement at home, in the schools and within the community and utilize interagency
collaboration, programming and partnership to identify and provide
services. This collaboration and
partnership among schools, families and their communities crystalizes the
importance of shared responsibility for obtaining the best educational outcomes
for our children. Hoyer and Schock
recognize and acknowledge in their July 28, 2014 Education Week commentary,
Congress’ role and responsibility “to ensure that our nation’s children have
access to a quality education and the opportunities it brings.”
They know Investments in community
schools are investments in a competitive workforce. One that will yield dividends of graduates that
“start small businesses and launch new startups as the innovators and
entrepreneurs of tomorrow.” The next
step is to continue securing bipartisan support for passage of the Full-Service
Community Schools Act. Passage of the
act is feasible given the endorsement of educational leaders and
associations like the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education
Association, and the National Association of State Boards of Education.
Again, it’s incumbent on all of us to ensure
our nation’s children have equitable access to a quality education. It takes us, as the Village, demanding,
funding and implementing systemic, evidenced-based and scalable programs like
community schools. As the authors of
First Focus’ 2008 report, Big Ideas for
Children: Investing in Our Nation’s Future say:
If we’re going to make a fundamental
change in education, we have to declare
now and forever that failure is not an
option and do it on the national level.
We can’t allow children to fall behind
because they come from single parent
families, or neighborhoods that are
struggling, or rural regions far from our
own. We can’t allow children to fall
behind because they have the misfortune of
having parents who don’t care or who
aren’t engaged.
For generations, our schools worked
because as a society, we insisted on it. We
refused to accept failure. We can’t
accept failure now.
