School Improvement Grants

I read Jonathon Kozol's book Savage Inequalities many years ago and still wonder why we have not developed programs to turn our inner cities and their schools around.  I remember talk about enterprise zones and throughout my career people have acknowledged the sad conditions people in inner cites endure, yet nothing seems to have been done to help bring dignity and humane conditions to these areas where many of most needy children grow up.  That is why I wonder why the current reform movement is so intent upon creating conditions to punish all schools for failure when we need to marshal our resources to help those who live and go to school in intolerable conditions.

Yesterday the U.S. Department of Education news releases reported that a handful of states are receiving School Improvement Grants to turn around their persistently lowest achieving schools.  This seems like a really great thing to do.  Unfortunately the states must present one of the following plans for these schools to receive the money.

• TURNAROUND MODEL: Replace the principal, screen existing school staff, and rehire no more than half the teachers; adopt a new governance structure; and improve the school through curriculum reform, professional development, extending learning time, and other strategies.
• RESTART MODEL: Convert a school or close it and re-open it as a charter school or under an education management organization.
• SCHOOL CLOSURE: Close the school and send the students to higher-achieving schools in the district.
• TRANSFORMATION MODEL: Replace the principal and improve the school through comprehensive curriculum reform, professional development, extending learning time, and other strategies. 

These steps constitute doing more of the same old thing.  The problem is not the schools nor the teachers, it is the condition in which many of these schools operate and the despair within their communities.  These grants are another opportunity to turn America's public schools over to corporations and privatize education.

I firmly believe that any child can receive the best education in the world at almost any American public school.  It is the responsibility of the adults in the community and the governments that support those communities to provide  models and the ethics of success for their children.   This can not be done if the adults, children and the community are in states of stress and disrepair.  Let us solve the problems for our children and not pander to political whims.

Social Emotional Learning

Some Interesting Websites
Picturing the 1930s is a site from the Smithsonian Institute that not only teaches about the 1930s but allows users to create documentaries that others who visit the site can view.
ReadKiddoread.com is a web site by James Patterson dedicated to reading. There are many book lists and all types of activities about books and reading.
Kids Activities from Education.com  if you are looking for kids activities to show your child the fun side of learning, from science experiments and math games to writing projects and more, you will find it at this site

Some Interesting Videos
Selling SEL: An Interview With Daniel Goleman describes the importance of social emotional learning in our schools.
I Am What I learn shows samples from The Department of Education's top 10 finalist in this contest.  Presented by ESchoolNews.com
Program Offering Recess Coaches to Schools a segment from the Jim Lehrer New Hour on PBS reporting on a program in the Oakland Public Schools to help students learn to cooperate.

Some Articles to Read
The Heart of Learning: The Value of Cultivating Emotional Intelligence by Ken Ellis
Raise Your Student's Emotional-Intelligence Quotient by Diane Curtis

Thoughts from Yrisarririck
The Social Emotional Learning Quotient

Intrinsically, schools are social places and learning is a social process.  Students do not learn alone but rather in collaboration with their teachers, in the company of their peers, and with the support of their families. 

Building Academic Success on Social and Emotional Learning, Joseph Zins et al, editors

As the educational reform discussion takes place almost all of the emphasis is being placed on academic success for all.  We have goals that all children will be able to read, and do math.  Why don’t we have goals like, all children will learn to cooperate and all children will feel safe?  Those are some of the goals that social emotional learning promotes. Research shows that if students are taught social and emotional skills academic success will follow. 

Research finds that students who receive lessons in appropriate social and emotional behavior do better in school and life. 

Emotional Intelligence Research:  Indicators Point to the Importance of SEL, Eductopia Staff

When I ask people what they liked about school, the answer is almost something about the social emotional side of the schooling.  I liked being on the football team, the chess club, and hanging out with my friends are common answers.  My experience teaching indicated that the students who did poorly in academics had a more difficult time relating to the other students or had lives full of drama preventing them from developing the necessary social and emotional skills needed for success. We should recognize that creating goals to help all children feel secure and promoting cooperation are just as important as goals for reading. 

Social and emotional learning goals need to be an integral part of our curriculum and thinking about education .  CASEL, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning have developed a list of five core groups of social and emotional competencies that should be integrated into lessons from grades pk-8.  They are:

Self-awareness—accurately assessing one’s feelings, interests, values, and strengths; maintaining a well-grounded sense of self-confidence
Self-management—regulating one’s emotions to handle stress, control impulses, and persevere in overcoming obstacles; setting and monitoring progress toward personal and academic goals; expressing emotions appropriately
Social awareness—being able to take the perspective of and empathize with others; recognizing and appreciating individual and group similarities and differences; recognizing and using family, school, and community resources
Relationship skills—establishing and maintaining healthy and rewarding relationships based on cooperation; resisting inappropriate social pressure; preventing, managing, and resolving interpersonal conflict; seeking help when needed
Responsible decision-making—making decisions based on consideration of ethical standards, safety concerns, appropriate social norms, respect for others, and likely consequences of various actions; applying decision-making skills to academic and social situations; contributing to the well-being of one’s school and community. 

Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning

I watched  a great show on TV called,  Program Offering Recess Coaches to Schools which aired on PBS’ The Jim Lehrer News Hour.  This program demonstrates a way to integrate cooperative learning and conflict resolution into a school’s curriculum.  Instead of thinking about social and emotional learning as fragmented programs which identify problems, we need to integrate this type of learning into our way of thinking about education and make it a part of each school day for all children.