In the media

A broader, bolder approach: Schools cannot do it all
by Edward B. Fiske and Helen F. Ladd
The Durham (NC) Herald-Sun
October 19, 2008

The Durham Nativity School is a tuition-free private school that prepares boys from economically disadvantaged backgrounds for high schools and ultimately for college. Despite its innovative program, however, it experienced an unacceptably high attrition rate last year. So Joseph Moylan, the founder and president of the school, hired a social worker to visit students' homes.

"She asked whether students had a quiet place to study and a bed to sleep in," he said. "If not, we went to thrift shops or found donors to provide the necessary furniture. She helped one family move out of a dangerous neighborhood, and she helped a single mom find a new job that would give her more time to be at home with her kids."

By the end of the academic year the school's dropout rate had fallen by two-thirds.

The Nativity School's experience is a good example of how the conditions that students face outside of school can be just as important to academic success as what happens in the classroom. Whoever becomes president in January 2009 will need to keep this fact in mind as he grapples with the problem of how to improve U.S. education.

Take the obvious example of the pre-school years. Young children from middle-class families typically benefit from regular health services, home environments rich in language, and opportunities to participate in early childhood programs. As a result, they arrive at first grade well prepared socially, emotionally and intellectually to make the most of formal schooling.

Young children from low-income homes often are not so fortunate, but there are proven ways to help them acquire the knowledge and skills that middle-class children take for granted. These range from prenatal health care to quality early childhood education and parent education programs.

A wave of recent research supports the effectiveness of such interventions. James Heckman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist from the University of Chicago who has studied the long-term impact of quality programs for disadvantaged young children, described such investments as "a rare public policy initiative that promotes fairness and social justice and at the same time promotes productivity in the economy and in society at large."

Yet much of our national education policy has focused on holding schools alone accountable for student outcomes.

Earlier this year, a task force of education policy experts issued a statement calling for a "broader, bolder approach to education" in the U.S. (www.boldapproach.org). The statement, to which both of us were signatories, asserts that while it is important to keep the pressure on schools to improve teaching and learning, schools cannot do the job all by themselves. As the Nativity School discovered, we also need to address the issues that students face both before they enter first grade and, once enrolled, during their out-of-school hours.

The Broader Bolder approach lists four priorities:

1. School improvement efforts aimed at closing achievement gaps through smaller classes and assuring all students have access to good teachers.

2. Investment in developmentally appropriate and high-quality early childhood, pre-school and kindergarten education.

3. Support for children's health services during their early years and after they enter school, perhaps in the form of full-service health clinics in schools.

4. After-school and summer programs to assure that low-income students will not lose ground academically during their out of school hours.

These principles provide a lens through which to judge the educational views of the two candidates for president.

Consistent with these principles, John McCain supports the goal of having effective teachers for all students. But inconsistent with them, he puts far more emphases on the tough accountability provisions of the controversial No Child Left Behind Act and on the power of parental choice of schools, including in the form of publicly funded vouchers for private schools, to improve educational outcomes. He hopes to address our educational problems through tough accountability for public schools, merit pay for teachers, and competition among schools.

Barack Obama also understands that standards, accountability and parental choice can be useful, but only if they come with the support systems needed to make them work. He wants to provide support to low-performing schools rather than punishing them. And he would invest heavily in programs to attract more talented college graduates into the teaching profession and to provide high-quality mentoring for them once they enter the classroom. In addition, he would provide choice for parents -- but mainly in the form of high quality public charter schools.

The most important difference between the two candidates revolves around the central notion of the "broader, bolder approach" to education -- namely that attention must be paid to the context in which formal schooling takes place.

In contrast to John McCain, Barack Obama has proposed a major initiative to expand preschool education and to provide services to children ages 0-3 that will ensure parent education, health and childcare in the years when children's learning progresses most quickly. In addition, he proposes to keep at-risk youth involved in the educational system through summer and after-school programs and college outreach activities.

In short, Barack Obama understands the central lesson that the Durham Nativity School learned from its dropout problem. The quality of schooling matters, but so does the quality of the broader environment that students inhabit.

Edward B. Fiske is a former education editor of the New York Times. Helen F. Ladd is professor of public policy studies and economics at Duke University. They reside in Durham.

© 2008 by The Durham Herald Company. All rights reserved.

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