Tag Archives: whole child approach

University of Exeter study: Poor mental health ‘both cause and effect’ of school exclusion

23 Jan

The whole child approach is useful in keeping many children in school. Moi wrote in The ‘whole child’ approach to education: Many children do not have a positive education experience in the education system for a variety of reasons. Many educators are advocating for the “whole child” approach to increase the number of children who have a positive experience in the education process. https://drwilda.com/2012/02/10/the-whole-child-approach-to-education/

See, https://drwilda.com/tag/school-discipline/

Science Daily reported in Poor mental health ‘both cause and effect’ of school exclusion:

Children with mental health needs require urgent support from primary school onwards to avoid exclusion, which can be both cause and effect of poor mental health, new research concludes.

The research, led by the University of Exeter, and published in Child and Adolescent Mental Health, concluded that a swift response is needed, finding that young people with mental health difficulties were more likely to be excluded and also suffer ill-effects from exclusion. The research, which was initially funded by a doctoral studentship from the NIHR Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care South West Peninsula, found gender differences in the relationship between mental health and exclusion.
Boys who entered school with poor mental health are at high risk of exclusion in primary school, which prompt assessment and intervention may prevent. There were too few girls excluded at this early stage in their school career to be sure if they also had poor mental health prior to school entry.
Girls who were excluded in their final year of school experienced deteriorating mental health difficulties afterwards. Teenage boys excluded at this time demonstrated worse mental health than their peers, but did not seem to struggle more afterwards. Both boys and girls who were excluded between the ages of 15 and 16 years may have poor, and in the case of girls, deteriorating, mental health.
Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Tamsin Ford said: “This research provides further evidence that poor mental health may be both cause and effect of exclusion from school. These children are often facing a wide range of challenges, and need both education and mental health practitioners to act quickly and effectively to prevent exclusion and improve both educational and health outcomes in later life.”
The 2017 Mental Health of Children and Young People in England survey reported that one in eight children between five and 19 years old had at least one mental disorder. Latest government statistics also suggested that exclusions had hit an all-time high during the 2017-18 school year with 7,900 pupils excluded, equivalent to 42 per day.
Children in the current study who were excluded from school often had poor mental health and faced early family adversity, signalling the need for support for vulnerable children throughout their schooling. Researchers found gender differences in how exclusion impacted the mental health of children.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200122194655.htm

Citation:

Poor mental health ‘both cause and effect’ of school exclusion
Date: January 22, 2020
Source: University of Exeter
Summary:
Children with mental health needs require urgent support from primary school onwards to avoid exclusion, which can be both cause and effect of poor mental health, new research concludes.

Journal Reference:
María Tejerina‐Arreal, Claire Parker, Amelia Paget, William Henley, Stuart Logan, Alan Emond, Tamsin Ford. Child and adolescent mental health trajectories in relation to exclusion from school from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 2020; DOI: 10.1111/camh.12367

Here is the press release from the University of Exeter:

Research news and events

Children need support throughout their schooling to avoid poor mental health and exclusion

Poor mental health “both cause and effect” of school exclusion
Children with mental health needs require urgent support from primary school onwards to avoid exclusion, which can be both cause and effect of poor mental health, new research concludes.
The research, led by the University of Exeter and published in and published in Child and Adolescent Mental Health concluded that a swift response is needed, finding that young people with mental health difficulties were more likely to be excluded and also suffer ill-effects from exclusion. The research, which was initially funded by a doctoral studentship from the NIHR Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care South West Peninsula, found gender differences in the relationship between mental health and exclusion.
Boys who entered school with poor mental health are at high risk of exclusion in primary school, which prompt assessment and intervention may prevent. There were too few girls excluded at this early stage in their school career to be sure if they also had poor mental health prior to school entry.
Girls who were excluded in their final year of school experienced deteriorating mental health difficulties afterwards. Teenage boys excluded at this time demonstrated worse mental health than their peers, but did not seem to struggle more afterwards. Both boys and girls who were excluded between the ages of 15 and 16 years may have poor, and in the case of girls, deteriorating, mental health.
Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Tamsin Ford said: “This research provides further evidence that poor mental health may be both cause and effect of exclusion from school. These children are often facing a wide range of challenges, and need both education and mental health practitioners to act quickly and effectively to prevent exclusion and improve both educational and health outcomes in later life.”
The 2017 Mental Health of Children and Young People in England survey reported that one in eight children between five and 19 years old had at least one mental disorder. Latest government statistics also suggested that exclusions had hit an all-time high during the 2017-18 school year with 7,900 pupils excluded, equivalent to 42 per day.
Children in the current study who were excluded from school often had poor mental health and faced early family adversity, signalling the need for support for vulnerable children throughout their schooling. Researchers found gender differences in how exclusion impacted the mental health of children.
The study used data from the Chidren of the 90s study, which included assessing children’s mental health at a set range of ages from three to 16 years old. Data collection for this cohort, which has run the early 1990’s, was funded by the Wellcome and Medical Research Council. More than 8,000 parents responded to a survey asking whether their child had been excluded from school up to the age of eight, and more than 4,000 replied to a second question whether their child had been excluded between 15 and 16 years old.
The full paper entitled: ‘Child and adolescent mental health trajectories in relation to exclusion from school from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC)’ is published in Child and Adolescent Mental Health and is availableat: https://doi.org/10.1111/camh.12367
For our latest research, follow @ExeterMed and visit our news webpage.
Date: 22 January 2020

If you or your child needs help for depression or another illness, then go to a reputable medical provider. There is nothing wrong with taking the steps necessary to get well.
In order to ensure that ALL children have a basic education, we must take a comprehensive approach to learning.

A healthy child in a healthy family who attends a healthy school in a healthy neighborhood ©

Related:

Schools have to deal with depressed and troubled children
https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/schools-have-to-deal-with-depressed-and-troubled-children/

School psychologists are needed to treat troubled children
https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/school-psychologists-are-needed-to-treat-troubled-children/

Battling teen addiction: ‘Recovery high schools’
https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/battling-teen-addiction-recovery-high-schools/

Resources:

About.Com’s Depression In Young Children http://depression.about.com/od/child/Young_Children.htm

Psych Central’s Depression In Young Children http://depression.about.com/od/child/Young_Children.htm

Psychiatric News’ Study Helps Pinpoint Children With Depression http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/newsarticle.aspx?articleid=106034

Family Doctor’s What Is Depression?                http://familydoctor.org/familydoctor/en/diseases-conditions/depression.html

WebMD’s Depression In Children                 http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/depression-children

Healthline’s Is Your Child Depressed?
http://www.healthline.com/hlvideo-5min/how-to-help-your-child-through-depression-517095449

Medicine.Net’s Depression In Children http://www.onhealth.com/depression_in_children/article.htm

Related:
A strategy to reduce school suspensions: ‘School Wide Positive Behavior Support’
https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/01/a-strategy-to-reduce-school-suspensions-school-wide-positive-behavior-support/

Single-sex classrooms should be allowed in public schools
https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/22/single-sex-classrooms-should-be-allowed-in-public-schools/

Boys of color: Resources from the Boys Initiative
https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/boys-of-color-resources-from-the-boys-initiative/

U.S. Education Dept. Civil Rights Office releases report on racial disparity in school retention
https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/u-s-education-dept-civil-rights-office-releases-report-on-racial-disparity-in-school-retention/

Where information leads to Hope. © Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©
http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©
http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©
https://drwilda.com/

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Princeton University study: Baby and adult brains ‘sync up’ during play

11 Jan

Children are not “mini mes” or short adults. They are children and they should have time to play, to dream, and to use their imagination. Dan Childs of ABC News reports in the story, Recess ‘Crucial’ for Kids, Pediatricians’ Group Says:

The statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics is the latest salvo in the long-running debate over how much of a young child’s time at school should be devoted to academics — and how much should go to free, unstructured playtime.
The authors of the policy statement write that the AAP “believes that recess is a crucial and necessary component of a child’s development and, as such, it should not be withheld for punitive or academic reasons.”
“The AAP has, in recent years, tried to focus the attention of parents, school officials and policymakers on the fact that kids are losing their free play,” said the AAP’s Dr. Robert Murray, one of the lead authors of the statement. “We are overstructuring their day. … They lose that creative free play, which we think is so important.”
The statement, which cites two decades worth of scientific evidence, points to the various benefits of recess. While physical activity is among these, so too are some less obvious boons such as cognitive benefits, better attention during class, and enhanced social and emotional development. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/recess-crucial-kids-aap-policy-statement/story?id=18083935#.UOZ606zIlIq

The goal of this society should be to raise healthy and happy children who will grow into concerned and involved adults who care about their fellow citizens and environment. In order to accomplish this goal, all children must receive a good basic education and in order to achieve that goal, children must arrive at school, ready to learn.

Debbie Rhea wrote the thoughtful Education Week commentary, Give Students Time to Play:

It seems counterintuitive to think that less classroom time and more outdoor play would lead to a better education for kids. After all, what many in our country, including most recently New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, have prescribed are longer days in the classroom. But longer days on task don’t equate to better results. Instead, they translate into more burnout, lower test scores, and more of the same. All work and no play really does make dull boys and girls.
For years, educators have tried different strategies of more testing and of more time on task to reverse these trends, but they have proved to be unsuccessful. The answer is not additional in-class sitting time. What kids need is time to move and have unstructured play.
On a recent sabbatical, I spent six weeks in Finland studying how that country practices education. Reading, science, and math are important in the Finnish education system, but so are social studies, physical education, arts, music, foreign languages, and a number of practical skills. The school day in Finland looks much different from the school day in the United States.
“We should not sacrifice recess time for classroom time, and neither should be used to discipline students.”
In the United States, for example, a 1st grader attends school 35 hours a week, seven hours a day. In Finland, a 1st grader spends 22.5 hours a week in school, or 4.5 hours a day. Three hours each day are spent on content in the classroom, and another 1.5 hours are spent on recess or “unstructured outdoor play.” Some elementary schools in the United States do not have recess time built into their schedules, let alone outdoor recess.
Kids are built to move. Having more time for unstructured outdoor play is like handing them a reset button. It not only helps to break up their day, but it also allows them to blow off steam, while giving them an opportunity to move and redirect their energy to something more meaningful once they return to the classroom.
When a human sits for longer than about 20 minutes, the physiology of the brain and body changes. Gravity begins to pool blood into the hamstrings, robbing the brain of needed oxygen and glucose, or brain fuel. The brain essentially just falls asleep when we sit for too long. Moving and being active stimulates the neurons that fire in the brain. When you are sitting, those neurons don’t fire.
Getting students out of their chairs and moving outdoors is essential. A 2008 study published in JAMA Opthamology found that 42 percent of people in the United States between the ages of 12 and 54 are nearsighted. But 40 years ago, that number was only 25 percent, a change that can’t be explained by heredity. Time indoors can weaken our vision, especially if we are staring at computer screens and not looking away for long periods of time. Additional studies have also shown that when people have inadequate daylight exposure at work, particularly in areas that have poor indoor lighting, it can disrupt their circadian rhythms—the cycle that allows for healthy sleep. When these rhythms are thrown off, it can have a negative impact on academic performance.
I’m such a believer in more unstructured outdoor play and recess throughout the day that I’ve launched a pilot program called Project ISIS—Innovating Strategies, Inspiring Students—that is being implemented in two Texas private schools, with an additional three public elementary schools in that state coming on board by the fall. While the program doesn’t reduce the number of hours spent at school, it does build in more outside recess time. Students get two 15-minute unstructured outdoor-play breaks in the morning (one is right before lunch, the other is a full lunch with a short recess afterward), and then two more 15-minute recess breaks in the afternoon. These schools will continue to have physical education as a content area.
We should not sacrifice recess time for classroom time, and neither should be used to discipline students. The more movement children have throughout the day, the better they will be with attentional focus, behavioral issues, and academic performance…. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/02/26/22rhea.h33.html?tkn=VRYFMBKESIDvZIGHetFWpKk1lBN%2FPqxFrjSh&intc=es
We must not so over-schedule children that they have no time to play and to dream.

Related:

The ‘whole child’ approach to education
https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/the-whole-child-approach-to-education/

Science Daily reported in Baby and adult brains ‘sync up’ during play: It’s not your imagination — you and your baby really are on the same wavelength:

Have you ever played with a baby and felt a sense of connection, even though they couldn’t yet talk to you? New research suggests that you might quite literally be “on the same wavelength,” experiencing similar brain activity in the same brain regions.
A team of Princeton researchers has conducted the first study of how baby and adult brains interact during natural play, and they found measurable similarities in their neural activity. In other words, baby and adult brain activity rose and fell together as they shared toys and eye contact. The research was conducted at the Princeton Baby Lab, where University researchers study how babies learn to see, talk and understand the world.
“Previous research has shown that adults’ brains sync up when they watch movies and listen to stories, but little is known about how this ‘neural synchrony’ develops in the first years of life,” said Elise Piazza, an associate research scholar in the Princeton Neuroscience Institute (PNI) and the first author on a paper published Dec. 17, 2019, in Psychological Science.
Piazza and her co-authors — Liat Hasenfratz, an associate research scholar in PNI; Uri Hasson, a professor of psychology and neuroscience; and Casey Lew-Williams, an associate professor of psychology — posited that neural synchrony has important implications for social development and language learning.
Studying real-life, face-to-face communication between babies and adults is quite difficult. Most past studies of neural coupling, many of which were conducted in Hasson’s lab, involved scanning adults’ brains with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), in separate sessions, while the adults lay down and watched movies or listened to stories….https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200109163956.htm

Here is the press release from Princeton:

Baby and adult brains ‘sync up’ during play, finds Princeton Baby Lab
Liz Fuller-Wright, Office of Communications
Jan. 9, 2020 12:44 p.m.
Have you ever played with a baby and felt a sense of connection, even though they couldn’t yet talk to you? New research suggests that you might quite literally be “on the same wavelength,” experiencing similar brain activity in the same brain regions.
A team of Princeton researchers has conducted the first study of how baby and adult brains interact during natural play, and they found measurable similarities in their neural activity. In other words, baby and adult brain activity rose and fell together as they shared toys and eye contact. The research was conducted at the Princeton Baby Lab, where University researchers study how babies learn to see, talk and understand the world.
“Previous research has shown that adults’ brains sync up when they watch movies and listen to stories, but little is known about how this ‘neural synchrony’ develops in the first years of life,” said Elise Piazza, an associate research scholar in the Princeton Neuroscience Institute (PNI) and the first author on a paper published Dec. 17, 2019, in Psychological Science.
Piazza and her co-authors — Liat Hasenfratz, an associate research scholar in PNI; Uri Hasson, a professor of psychology and neuroscience; and Casey Lew-Williams, an associate professor of psychology — posited that neural synchrony has important implications for social development and language learning.
Studying real-life, face-to-face communication between babies and adults is quite difficult. Most past studies of neural coupling, many of which were conducted in Hasson’s lab, involved scanning adults’ brains with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), in separate sessions, while the adults lay down and watched movies or listened to stories.
But to study real-time communication, the researchers needed to create a child-friendly method of recording brain activity simultaneously from baby and adult brains. With funding from the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Transformative Technology Grant, the researchers developed a new dual-brain neuroimaging system that uses functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), which is highly safe and records oxygenation in the blood as a proxy for neural activity. The setup allowed the researchers to record the neural coordination between babies and an adult while they played with toys, sang songs and read a book.
The same adult interacted with all 42 infants and toddlers who participated in the study. Of those, 21 had to be excluded because they “squirmed excessively,” and three others flat-out refused to wear the cap, leaving 18 children, ranging in age from 9 months to 15 months.
The experiment had two portions. In one, the adult experimenter spent five minutes interacting directly with a child — playing with toys, singing nursery rhymes or reading Goodnight Moon — while the child sat on their parent’s lap. In the other, the experimenter turned to the side and told a story to another adult while the child played quietly with their parent.
The caps collected data from 57 channels of the brain known to be involved in prediction, language processing and understanding other people’s perspectives.
When they looked at the data, the researchers found that during the face-to-face sessions, the babies’ brains were synchronized with the adult’s brain in several areas known to be involved in high-level understanding of the world — perhaps helping the children decode the overall meaning of a story or analyze the motives of the adult reading to them.
When the adult and infant were turned away from each other and engaging with other people, the coupling between them disappeared.
That fit with researchers’ expectations, but the data also had surprises in store. For example, the strongest coupling occurred in the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in learning, planning and executive functioning and was previously thought to be quite underdeveloped during infancy.
“We were also surprised to find that the infant brain was often ‘leading’ the adult brain by a few seconds, suggesting that babies do not just passively receive input but may guide adults toward the next thing they’re going to focus on: which toy to pick up, which words to say,” said Lew-Williams, who is a co-director of the Princeton Baby Lab.
“While communicating, the adult and child seem to form a feedback loop,” Piazza added. “That is, the adult’s brain seemed to predict when the infants would smile, the infants’ brains anticipated when the adult would use more ‘baby talk,’ and both brains tracked joint eye contact and joint attention to toys. So, when a baby and adult play together, their brains influence each other in dynamic ways.”
This two-brain approach to neuroscience could open doors to understanding how coupling with caregivers breaks down in atypical development — such as in children diagnosed with autism — as well as how educators can optimize their teaching approaches to accommodate children’s diverse brains.
The researchers are continuing to investigate how this neural coupling relates to preschoolers’ early language learning.
“Infant and adult brains are coupled to the dynamics of natural communication,” by Elise A. Piazza, Liat Hasenfratz, Uri Hasson and Casey Lew-Williams, was published Dec. 17, 2019, in Psychological Science. This work was supported by the Princeton University C. V. Starr Fellowship to E. A. Piazza; the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Transformative Technology Award to E. A. Piazza, U. Hasson and C. Lew-Williams; National Institutes of Health Grant 5DP1HD091948 to U. Hasson; and NIH Grants R01HD095912 and R03HD079779 to C. Lew-Williams.

Citation:

Baby and adult brains ‘sync up’ during play
It’s not your imagination — you and your baby really are on the same wavelength
Date: January 9, 2020
Source: Princeton University
Summary:
A team of researchers has conducted the first study of how baby and adult brains interact during natural play, and they found measurable connections in their neural activity. In other words, baby and adult brain activity rose and fell together as they shared toys and eye contact.

Journal Reference:
Elise A. Piazza, Liat Hasenfratz, Uri Hasson, Casey Lew-Williams. Infant and Adult Brains Are Coupled to the Dynamics of Natural Communication. Psychological Science, 2019; 095679761987869 DOI: 10.1177/0956797619878698

Our goal as a society should be:

A healthy child in a healthy family who attends a healthy school in a healthy neighborhood ©

Related:

The ‘whole child’ approach to education https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/the-whole-child-approach-to-education/

Childhood obesity: Recess is being cut in low-income schools https://drwilda.com/2011/12/15/childhood-obesity-recess-is-being-cut-in-low-income-schools/

Louisiana study: Fit children score higher on standardized tests https://drwilda.com/2012/05/08/louisiana-study-fit-children-score-higher-on-standardized-tests/

Seattle Research Institute study about outside play https://drwilda.wordpress.com/tag/childrens-physical-activity/

Where information leads to Hope. © Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©
http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©
http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©
https://drwilda.com/

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Soft skills are crucial for college and life success

23 May

Whether or not students choose college or vocational training at the end of their high school career, our goal as a society should be that children should be “college ready.” David T. Conley writes in the ASCD article, What Makes a Student College Ready? http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct08/vol66/num02/What-Makes-a-Student-College-Ready%C2%A2.aspxhttps://drwilda.com/2012/10/06/many-not-ready-for-higher-education/

Caralee J. Adams reports in the Education Week article, ‘Soft Skills’ Pushed as Part of College Readiness:

To make it in college, students need to be up for the academic rigor. But that’s not all. They also must be able to manage their own time, get along with roommates, and deal with setbacks. Resiliency and grit, along with the ability to communicate and advocate, are all crucial life skills. Yet, experts say, many teenagers lack them, and that’s hurting college-completion rates.
“Millennials have had helicopter parents who have protected them,” said Dan Jones, the president of the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors and the director of counseling and psychological services at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C. “They haven’t had the opportunity to struggle. When they come to college and bad things happen, they haven’t developed resiliency and self-soothing skills….”
“The expectations are not in alignment with reality,” said Harlan Cohen, the author of The Naked Roommate and 107 Other Issues You Might Run Into In College, published last year. “Students do not have the communication skills to navigate through adversity that is part of the normal transition to college….”
A holistic approach to college readiness that integrates academic content, college knowledge, and psychology may be what’s needed to help more students complete college, said Andrea Venezia, a project director at WestEd, a research organization based in San Francisco. Rather than compartmentalization of college-readiness efforts, she advocates early training that includes noncognitive strategies and habits of mind that give students internal strength to persist….http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/11/14/12softskills_ep.h32.html?tkn=WQRFgl%2Bkfw2CUbzDpa48iaX0xbRF0HCUXIpI&cmp=clp-edweek&intc=es

Soft skills are skills associated with “emotional intelligence.”

Jeanne Segal, Ph.D., and Melinda Smith, M.A. have written the excellent article, Emotional Intelligence (EQ) for HELPGUIDE.Org.

What is emotional intelligence?
Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to identify, use, understand, and manage emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges, and diffuse conflict. Emotional intelligence impacts many different aspects of your daily life, such as the way you behave and the way you interact with others.
If you have a high emotional intelligence you are able to recognize your own emotional state and the emotional states of others and engage with people in a way that draws them to you. You can use this understanding of emotions to relate better to other people, form healthier relationships, achieve greater success at work, and lead a more fulfilling life.
Emotional intelligence consists of four attributes:
• Self-awareness – You recognize your own emotions and how they affect your thoughts and behavior, know your strengths and weaknesses, and have self-confidence.
• Self-management – You’re able to control impulsive feelings and behaviors, manage your emotions in healthy ways, take initiative, follow through on commitments, and adapt to changing circumstances.
• Social awareness – You can understand the emotions, needs, and concerns of other people, pick up on emotional cues, feel comfortable socially, and recognize the power dynamics in a group or organization.
• Relationship management – You know how to develop and maintain good relationships, communicate clearly, inspire and influence others, work well in a team, and manage conflict.
Why is emotional intelligence (EQ) so important?
As we know, it’s not the smartest people that are the most successful or the most fulfilled in life. You probably know people who are academically brilliant and yet are socially inept and unsuccessful at work or in their personal relationships. Intellectual intelligence or IQ isn’t enough on its own to be successful in life. IQ can help you get into college but it’s EQ that will help you manage the stress and emotions of sitting your final exams.
Emotional intelligence affects:
• Your performance at work. Emotional intelligence can help you navigate the social complexities of the workplace, lead and motivate others, and excel in your career. In fact, when it comes to gauging job candidates, many companies now view emotional intelligence as being as important as technical ability and require EQ testing before hiring.
• Your physical health. If you’re unable to manage your stress levels, it can lead to serious health problems. Uncontrolled stress can raise blood pressure, suppress the immune system, increase the risk of heart attack and stroke, contribute to infertility, and speed up the aging process. The first step to improving emotional intelligence is to learn how to relieve stress.
• Your mental health. Uncontrolled stress can also impact your mental health, making you vulnerable to anxiety and depression. If you are unable to understand and manage your emotions, you’ll also be open to mood swings, while an inability to form strong relationships can leave you feeling lonely and isolated.
• Your relationships. By understanding your emotions and how to control them, you’re better able to express how you feel and understand how others are feeling. This allows you to communicate more effectively and forge stronger relationships, both at work and in your personal life. http://www.helpguide.org/mental/eq5_raising_emotional_intelligence.htm

Whether one calls success traits “emotional intelligence” or “soft skills” is really not important. The traits associated are those more likely to result in a successful outcome for the student.

Bradford Holmes of Varsity Tutors wrote in the U.S. News article, Hone the Top 5 Soft Skills Every College Student Needs about soft skills a college ready individual should possess:

1. Collaboration: It is imperative for college-bound students to function efficiently and appropriately in groups, collaborate on projects and accept constructive criticism when working with others. People who succeed only when working alone will struggle in college and beyond, as the majority of careers require collaboration.
Students can develop the skills necessary to effectively work with others in numerous ways, including participating in athletics and extracurricular activities. They can also opt to complete team-based projects such as service activities during their later years in high school.
2. Communication and interpersonal skills: A common complaint among employers is that young people do not know how to effectively carry on a conversation and are unable to do things like ask questions, listen actively and maintain eye contact.
The current prevalence of electronic devices has connected young individuals to one another, but many argue it has also lessened their ability to communicate face-to-face or via telephone. These skills will again be important not only in college, where students must engage with professors to gain references and recommendations for future endeavors, but beyond as well.
An inability to employ these skills effectively translates poorly in college and job interviews, for instance. High school students can improve these traits by conversing with their teachers in one-to-one settings. This is also excellent training for speaking with college professors. Obtaining an internship in a professional setting is also a wonderful method to enhance communication and interpersonal skills.
3. Problem-solving: Students will be faced with a number of unexpected challenges in life and receive little or no aid in overcoming them. They must be able to solve problems in creative ways and to determine solutions to issues with no prescribed formula.
Students who are accustomed to learned processes, and who cannot occasionally veer off-course, will struggle to handle unanticipated setbacks. Students can improve problem-solving abilities by enrolling in classes that use experiential learning rather than rote memorization. Students should also try new pursuits that place them in unfamiliar and even uncomfortable situations, such as debate club or Science Olympiad.
4. Time management: Whatever structure students may have had in high school to organize their work and complete assignments in a timely manner will be largely absent in college. It is imperative that they be fully self-sufficient in managing their time and prioritizing actions.
The ability to track multiple projects in an organized and efficient manner, as well as intelligently prioritize tasks, is also extremely important for students long after graduation.
Students can improve this skill by assuming responsibility in multiple areas during high school – nothing develops an ability to prioritize faster than necessity – or gaining professional employment experience through internships, volunteer work or other opportunities.
5. Leadership: While it is important to be able to function in a group, it is also important to demonstrate leadership skills when necessary. Both in college and within the workforce, the ability to assume the lead when the situation calls for it is a necessity for anyone who hopes to draw upon their knowledge and “hard” skills in a position of influence.
Companies wish to hire leaders, not followers. The best way for students to develop this skill as they prepare for college is to search for leadership opportunities in high school. This could mean, among other things, acting as captain of an athletic team, becoming involved in student government or leading an extracurricular group. http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/college-admissions-playbook/2014/05/12/hone-the-top-5-soft-skills-every-college-student-needs?src=usn_tw

Moi wrote in The ‘whole child’ approach to education: Many children do not have a positive education experience in the education system for a variety of reasons. Many educators are advocating for the “whole child” approach to increase the number of children who have a positive experience in the education process. https://drwilda.com/2012/02/10/the-whole-child-approach-to-education/

In order to ensure that ALL children have a basic education, we must take a comprehensive approach to learning.

A healthy child in a healthy family who attends a healthy school in a healthy neighborhood ©

Resources:

Linking Social Development and Behavior to School Readiness http://childdevelopmentinfo.com/child-development/erickson/

Social and Emotional Learning
http://www.edutopia.org/social-emotional-learning

Related:
College readiness: What are ‘soft skills’ https://drwilda.com/2012/11/14/college-readiness-what-are-soft-skills/

Many NOT ready for higher education https://drwilda.com/2012/10/06/many-not-ready-for-higher-education/

Study: What skills are needed for ’21st-century learning?’ https://drwilda.com/2012/07/11/study-what-skills-are-needed-for-21st-century-learning/

Where information leads to Hope. © Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART© http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews © http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda © https://drwilda.com/

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Social and emotional learning: What is ‘Open Circle.’

6 Dec

Moi wrote in College readiness: What are ‘soft skills’: Whether one calls success traits “emotional intelligence” or “soft skills” is really not important. The traits associated are those more likely to result in a successful outcome for the student.
Margaret Rouse defines “soft skills” in the post, Soft Skills:

Soft skills are personal attributes that enhance an individual’s interactions, job performance and career prospects. Unlike hard skills, which are about a person’s skill set and ability to perform a certain type of task or activity, soft skills are interpersonal and broadly applicable.
Soft skills are often described by using terms often associated with personality traits, such as:
o optimism
o common sense
o responsibility
o a sense of humor
o integrity
and abilities that can be practiced (but require the individual to genuinely like other people) such as:
o empathy
o teamwork
o leadership
o communication
o good manners
o negotiation
o sociability
o the ability to teach.
It’s often said that hard skills will get you an interview but you need soft skills to get (and keep) the job.
http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/soft-skills

https://drwilda.com/2012/11/14/college-readiness-what-are-soft-skills/

K-12 education must not only prepare students by teaching basic skills, but they must prepare students for training after high school, either college or vocational. There should not only be a solid education foundation established in K-12, but there must be more accurate evaluation of whether individual students are “college ready.”

Nicole Leonard reported in the Boston.com article, Boston schools open doors to ‘Open Circle’:

So far, there are indications that Open Circle is making an impact. A program description by the Massachusetts Department of Education shows that teachers report an improved ability to identify students’ social and emotional needs; that students demonstrate improved social skills; and that the program has engendered an improvement in overall school climate.
“The beauty of Open Circle is that there is a consistent program, curriculum and language. Students get consistent messages,” said Efrain Toledano, principal at Tobin. “I think it’s phenomenal. It’s exactly what the students need,” he said.
Toledano, who came to Tobin this year from Dever-McCormack K-8 School, said he’s handled very few disciplinary referrals from Tobin’s elementary classrooms.
“People forget that these are children who learn through observation,” Toledano said. Having a positive emotional climate at school can help students who may have tumultuous home lives, he said.
“(Open Circle) gets students comfortable in a low-stakes atmosphere,” he said. “It lets them think about the kind of person they want to be.”
That comfort and consistency is key for a school like Tobin, which has one of the highest rates (93 percent) of low-income students eligible for free or reduced lunches.
“Open Circle’s a safe place for dialogue,” said Fizer, whose third-glass class is designated as a Sheltered English Instruction classroom, which focuses on providing bilingual support for English language learners. “It lets students lower their affective filter and relax . . . Everyone is comfortable emotionally, which opens the door to academic (success).”
While building students’ social skills may seem like a secondary priority in an environment focused on academics, the two are tied closely together, said Miranda. “Without the social piece, our academics falter,” she said.
Research indicates that a focus on social and emotional learning leads to increased academic performance. In a 2011 study involving over 270,000 kindergarten through high school students, students who participated in social and emotional learning programs such as Open Circle showed an 11 percentile-point increase in academic achievement, as well as improved social and emotional skills.
Open Circle’s success in Tobin’s K-5 classrooms has educators hoping to move the program into middle-school grade levels.
“I want to see it go all the way through,” said Toledano. “They have math and ELA (English and Language Arts). I want Open Circle to be another subject . . . (so) that we not just teach academics, but teach the whole child.”
This article was reported and written under the supervision of Northeastern University journalism instructor Lisa Chedekel, as part of a collaboration with The Boston Globe.
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/roxbury/2013/12/boston_schools_open_doors_to_open_circle.html

Here is Open Circle’s description of their program:

What is Open Circle?
Open Circle is a leading provider of evidence-based curricula and professional development for social and emotional learning (SEL) in Kindergarten through Grade 5. Open Circle’s programming focuses on two goals: strengthening students’ SEL skills related to self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, interpersonal relationships and problem-solving; and fostering safe, caring and highly-engaging classroom and school communities. Since its inception in 1987, Open Circle has reached over two million children and trained over 13,000 educators.
View the history of Open Circle here: Open Circle Milestones (PDF) http://www.open-circle.org/files/OC_Milestones.pdf
Also, you can download a printable version of Open Circle’s Fact Sheet (PDF) http://www.open-circle.org/files/OC_FactSheet.pdf and our Video List (PDF) for a sampling of our YouTube videos. http://www.open-circle.org/files/OC_VideoList.pdf
Mission
Our mission is to work with school communities to help children become ethical people, contributing citizens and successful learners. By helping schools implement Open Circle, we foster the development of relationships that support safe, caring and respectful learning communities of children and adults.
Vision
We envision a world where social and emotional learning is universally embraced and integrated into all educational communities serving youth.
Core Values
We are dedicated to the following values as cornerstones of our organization and we endeavor to exemplify and act in accordance with these values at all times.
Social and Emotional Learning and Development
Learning through Relationships
Identity and Inclusion
Safe and Caring Environments
Youth Leadership and Development
Growth and Innovation
Integration of Research, Theory and Practice
Collaboration and Shared Leadership
Benefits
Unites schools with a common vocabulary, strategies and expectations for student behavior
Improves school safety, school climate and student and family engagement
Increases students’ ability to listen, speak up, calm down, show empathy, express anger appropriately, cooperate and solve problems
Reduces students peer exclusion, teasing, bullying and fighting
Improves educators’ classroom management, dialogue facilitation and ability to address students’ social and emotional needs
Strengthens educators’ own SEL skills, collaboration and trust
Buys back time for academics by proactively addressing behavior problems
Evidence-Based and Nationally-Recognized
Research has shown that Open Circle increases students’ demonstration of pro-social skills, decreases violence and other problem behaviors, and supports an easier transition to middle school. Open Circle is listed in the U.S. Department of Education’s Exemplary and Promising Safe, Disciplined, and Drug-Free Schools Programs Guidebook; the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Services Administration’s National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices; and the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning’s 2013 CASEL Guide to Effective Social and Emotional Learning Programs. http://www.open-circle.org/about_us/

Moi wrote in The ‘whole child’ approach to education: Many children do not have a positive education experience in the education system for a variety of reasons. Many educators are advocating for the “whole child” approach to increase the number of children who have a positive experience in the education process. https://drwilda.com/2012/02/10/the-whole-child-approach-to-education/

In order to ensure that ALL children have a basic education, we must take a comprehensive approach to learning.

A healthy child in a healthy family who attends a healthy school in a healthy neighborhood ©

Resources:

Linking Social Development and Behavior to School Readiness
http://childdevelopmentinfo.com/child-development/erickson/

Social and Emotional Learning
http://www.edutopia.org/social-emotional-learning

Related:

College readiness: What are ‘soft skills’
https://drwilda.com/2012/11/14/college-readiness-what-are-soft-skills/

Many NOT ready for higher education
https://drwilda.com/2012/10/06/many-not-ready-for-higher-education/

Study: What skills are needed for ’21st-century learning?’
https://drwilda.com/2012/07/11/study-what-skills-are-needed-for-21st-century-learning/

Where information leads to Hope. © Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©
http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©
http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©
https://drwilda.com/

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

School districts looking at ‘zero tolerance’ policies

2 Dec

In 2010 Council of State Governments Justice Center wrote a policy brief, Zero Tolerance Policies:
What are zero tolerance policies?

• Zero tolerance policies, which began as a way to approach drug enforcement, were widely adopted by schools in the 1990s. They mandate certain punishments for infractions regardless of the circumstances.1
• The most common reason for suspensions are fights, yet the majority of infractions are nonviolent, including:
•• Abusive language;
•• Attendance issues, such as tardiness;
•• Disobedience or disrespect; and
•• General classroom disruptions.2
Research is beginning to show there may be disparities in how zero tolerance policies are applied.
• Suspensions for students in kindergarten through the 12th grade have at least doubled since the 1970s for minority students.3
• Black students are more than three times more likely to be suspended than white students.4
• Looking at suspension data from 18 of the largest urban middle schools in 2002 and 2006, the greatest increase was among black females, which increased by more than 5 percent.
•• Black male suspensions increased by 1.7 percent.
•• Suspensions among white and Hispanic males and females either increased by less than half a percent or decreased.5
• In one study, 47 percent of elementary and middle school students, and 73 percent of high school students with emotional disabilities were suspended or expelled from school.6
• A Kansas study found that students with emotional disabilities were 12 times more likely to be suspended or expelled than all other students, including those
with and without disabilities.7
Whether zero tolerance policies improve the school environment and allow increased academic achievement is debatable.
• Studies show there is no evidence that connects student suspensions, which are perceived to improve the learning environment for other students by removing troublemakers, to improved academic outcomes for the school as a whole.8
• Students suspended in the sixth grade are more likely to receive suspensions in the eighth grade, indicating that suspensions are not a deterrent for future behavioral problems.
• A suspension is one of four indicators that point to an increased likelihood a student will not graduate from high school.9 The Council of State governments 1
1Rausch, M. Karega, and Skiba, Russell J. “Discipline, Disability, and Race: Disproportionality in Indiana Schools.” Center for Evaluation & Education Policy. Volume 4, Number 10, Fall 2006.
2Losen, Daniel J. and Skiba, Russell. “Suspended Education: Urban Middle Schools in Crisis.” http://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/downloads/publication/Suspended_Education.pdf
3Ibid.
4Ibid.
5Ibid.
6 Center for Evaluation & Education Policy.
7Ibid.
8Rausch, M. Karega, and Skiba, Russell J. “The Academic Cost of Discipline: The Relationship Between Suspension/Expulsion and School Achievement.” Center for Evaluation & Education Policy.
9 American Youth Policy Forum. “Improving the Transition from Middle Grades to High Schools: The Role of Early Warning Indicators.” Jan. 25, 2008. http://www.aypf.org/forumbriefs/2008/fb012508.htm
http://knowledgecenter.csg.org/kc/system/files/CR_FF_Zero_Tolerance_0.pdf

Moi wrote in Inappropriate discipline: The first step on the road to education failure:

Joan Gausted of the University of Oregon has an excellent article in Eric Digest 78, School Discipline:

School discipline has two main goals: (1) ensure the safety of staff and students, and (2) create an environment conducive to learning. Serious student misconduct involving violent or criminal behavior defeats these goals and often makes headlines in the process. However, the commonest discipline problems involve noncriminal student behavior (Moles 1989).

The issue for schools is how to maintain order, yet deal with noncriminal student behavior and keep children in school.

Alan Schwartz wrote a provocative article in the New York Times about a longitudinal study of discipline conducted in Texas. In School Discipline Study Raises Fresh Questions Schwartz reports:

Raising new questions about the effectiveness of school discipline, a report scheduled for release on Tuesday found that 31 percent of Texas students were suspended off campus or expelled at least once during their years in middle and high school — at an average of almost four times apiece. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/education/19discipline.html?_r=1&hpw

Donna St. George wrote a Washington Post article which elaborates on the Texas study.

In the article, Study shows wide varieties in discipline methods among very similar schools, St. George reports:

The report, released Tuesday, challenges a common misperception that the only way schools can manage behavior is through suspension, said Michael D. Thompson, a co-author of the report, done by the Council of State Governments Justice Center and Texas A&M University’s Public Policy Research Institute. “The bottom line is that schools can get different outcomes with very similar student bodies,” he said. “School administrators and school superintendents and teachers can have a dramatic impact….”
The results showed that suspension or expulsion greatly increased a student’s risk of being held back a grade, dropping out or landing in the juvenile justice system. Such ideas have been probed in other research, but not with such a large population and across a lengthy period, experts said. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/study-exposes-some-some-myths-about-school-discipline/2011/07/18/gIQAV0sZMI_story.html?wpisrc=emailtoafriend

Family First Aid has a good discussion about the types of behavior problems that result in suspension or expulsion. Dore Francis has a guide, which lists what parents should do if their child is suspended. The guide gives detailed instructions to these steps and other steps. Francis also lists what questions to ask after meeting with school officials. https://drwilda.com/2011/12/13/inappropriate-discipline-the-first-step-on-the-road-to-education-failure/

Lizette Alvarez reported in the New York Times article, Seeing the Toll, Schools Revise Zero Tolerance:

Rather than push children out of school, districts like Broward are now doing the opposite: choosing to keep lawbreaking students in school, away from trouble on the streets, and offering them counseling and other assistance aimed at changing behavior.
These alternative efforts are increasingly supported, sometimes even led, by state juvenile justice directors, judges and police officers.
In Broward, which had more than 1,000 arrests in the 2011 school year, the school district entered into a wide-ranging agreement last month with local law enforcement, the juvenile justice department and civil rights groups like the N.A.A.C.P. to overhaul its disciplinary policies and de-emphasize punishment.
Some states, prodded by parents and student groups, are similarly moving to change the laws; in 2009, Florida amended its laws to allow school administrators greater discretion in disciplining students.
“A knee-jerk reaction for minor offenses, suspending and expelling students, this is not the business we should be in,” said Robert W. Runcie, the Broward County Schools superintendent, who took the job in late 2011. “We are not accepting that we need to have hundreds of students getting arrested and getting records that impact their lifelong chances to get a job, go into the military, get financial aid.”
Nationwide, more than 70 percent of students involved in arrests or referrals to court are black or Hispanic, according to federal data.
“What you see is the beginning of a national trend here,” said Michael Thompson, the director of the Council of State Governments Justice Center. “Everybody recognizes right now that if we want to really find ways to close the achievement gap, we are really going to need to look at the huge number of kids being removed from school campuses who are not receiving any classroom time.”
Pressure to change has come from the Obama administration, too. Beginning in 2009, the Department of Justice and the Department of Education aggressively began to encourage schools to think twice before arresting and pushing children out of school. In some cases, as in Meridian, Miss., the federal government has sued to force change in schools.
Some view the shift as politically driven and worry that the pendulum may swing too far in the other direction. Ken Trump, a school security consultant, said that while existing policies are at times misused by school staffs and officers, the policies mostly work well, offering schools the right amount of discretion.
“It’s a political movement by civil rights organizations that have targeted school police,” Mr. Trump said. “If you politicize this on either side, it’s not going to help on the front lines.”
Supporters, though, emphasize the flexibility in these new policies and stress that they do not apply to students who commit felonies or pose a danger….
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/03/education/seeing-the-toll-schools-revisit-zero-tolerance.html?ref=education&_r=0

The whole child approach is useful in keeping many children in school.

Moi wrote in The ‘whole child’ approach to education: Many children do not have a positive education experience in the education system for a variety of reasons. Many educators are advocating for the “whole child” approach to increase the number of children who have a positive experience in the education process. https://drwilda.com/2012/02/10/the-whole-child-approach-to-education/

In order to ensure that ALL children have a basic education, we must take a comprehensive approach to learning.

A healthy child in a healthy family who attends a healthy school in a healthy neighborhood ©

See:

Education Law Center http://www.edlawcenter.org/ELCPublic/StudentRights/StudentDiscipline.htm

Discipline In Schools: What Works and What Doesn’t? http://www.eduguide.org/article/discipline-in-school-what-works-and-what-doesnt

Justice for Children and Youth has a pamphlet -I’m being expelled from school – what are my rights? http://www.jfcy.org/pamphlets.html

Related:

Report: Black students more likely to be suspended https://drwilda.com/2012/08/07/report-black-students-more-likely-to-be-suspended/

Johns Hopkins study finds ‘Positive Behavior Intervention’ improves student behavior https://drwilda.com/2012/10/22/johns-hopkins-study-finds-positive-behavior-intervention-improves-student-behavior/

Pre-kindergarten programs help at-risk students prepare for school https://drwilda.com/2012/07/16/pre-kindergarten-programs-help-at-risk-students-prepare-for-school/

A strategy to reduce school suspensions: ‘School Wide Positive Behavior Support’ https://drwilda.com/2012/07/01/a-strategy-to-reduce-school-suspensions-school-wide-positive-behavior-support/

Where information leads to Hope. © Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©
http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©
http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©
https://drwilda.com/

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

School choice: Community schools

23 Oct

Moi wrote in Improving education: Community schools:
There is no magic bullet or “Holy Grail” in education. There is only what works to produce academic achievement in each population of children. That is why school choice is so important. For some communities and for some children, “community schools” might improve education achievement. The Coalition for Community Schools is a great resource for those interested in “community schools.”

A community school is both a place and a set of partnerships between the school and other community resources. Its integrated focus on academics, health and social services, youth and community development and community engagement leads to improved student learning, stronger families and healthier communities. Schools become centers of the community and are open to everyone – all day, every day, evenings and weekends.
Using public schools as hubs, community schools bring together many partners to offer a range of supports and opportunities to children, youth, families and communities. Partners work to achieve these results:
o Children are ready to learn when they enter school and every day thereafter. All students learn and achieve to high standards.
o Young people are well prepared for adult roles in the workplace, as parents and as citizens.
o Families and neighborhoods are safe, supportive and engaged.
o Parents and community members are involved with the school and their own life-long learning.
To learn more about the Coalition’s vision of a community school, read the section An Enduring Vision in the Coalition’s report, Making the Difference: Research and Practice in Community Schools. Also, watch as the U.S. Secretary of Education speak of the importance of community schools on Charlie Rose.
For more information on what it means to be a community school, read Community Schools: Partnerships for Excellence (PDF, 426k).
http://www.communityschools.org/aboutschools/what_is_a_community_school.aspx

Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post wrote an interesting article about “community schools.”

In Why community schools are part of the answer, Strauss wrote:

Community schools, by directly dealing with many of the out-of-school issues that affect how students do in school — such as violence, family mobility, etc. — help to create the conditions that allow young people to actually concentrate on academics. Community schools seek to create conditions for learning that include:
*Fostering early childhood development through high-quality comprehensive programs.
*Providing students qualified teachers, challenging curriculum and high standards and expectations.
*Addressing the basic physical, mental and emotional health needs of families.
*Creating safe, supportive school climates through community engagement.
There is not a single model of community school initiatives but rather a number of different ones that share common principles, according to the Coalition for Community Schools. The coalition is an alliance of elementary, secondary and post-secondary organizations at the state, local and national level that are involved with education, youth development, community planning and development, family support, health and human services and more.
One of the many models of community schools, which serve millions of children around the country, is called “Schools of the 21st Century,” which provides school-based child care and family support services.
Created by Edward Ziegler, a professor at Yale University who was an architect of the Head Start program, this model is now being used in 1,300 schools across the country and turns regular public schools into year-round centers where different services are provided to families the before, during and after school hours. You can learn about other models here.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/why-community-schools-are-part-of-the-answer/2011/12/15/gIQAdu9T4O_blog.html

Strauss has updated here report with a piece by Brock Cohen.

In the Washington Post article, Why community schools are a no-brainer, Cohen wrote:

The community schools framework rejects this notion. This is because each of its foundational principles reveals the imperative of addressing low achievement through a holistic course of action. Such a transition represents a radical departure from past school initiatives because it has the audacity to shine a light on gaps carved out by social inequity. As importantly, the movement’s current champions (Sen. Liu among them) refuse to shy away from naming poverty and social injustice as the primary impediments to student learning. As a call to arms, they direct us to the sprawling body of evidence that proves how futile any reform effort will become without quickly addressing 0-4 poverty-induced learning gaps, summer literacy erosion, or a failure to ensure that all children have quality physical and mental health care.
They also emphasize how community schools are as much an exercise in sober fiscal pragmatism as they are a moral call to action. The consequences of academic failure are everyone’s problem, costing the state over $58 billion each year in incarceration expenses, health care, and taxable income.
But the gaps aren’t insurmountable. They can gradually narrow by leveraging partnerships; engaging families; and re-defining schools as safe, stable, welcoming community spaces. And because the needs of children vary across demographics and geographies, the model embraces flexibility: Each school site should customize its own approach in conjunction with local agencies and civic partners that understand the primacy of nurturing the whole child. So while community schools seek to address all domains of student need, some may allocate more resources toward specific services or strategies. For example:
• Pasadena’s Madison Elementary has teamed with Healthy Start to provide comprehensive on-site health, wellness, and social, and parent education to all of its students and families
• Four Redwood City Schools have formed a consortium with civic partners to make 0-5 education and enrichment a regional imperative.
• Behind the support of the Community Heath & Adolescent Mentoring Program for Success (CHAMPS), Oakland Tech High has detailed programs in place to boost student engagement and youth leadership.
• Joining forces with Inner City Struggle (ICS), East L.A.’s Esteban E. Torres High School offers primary healthcare, mental health, reproductive services, and dental care to all of its students.
Past school reform initiatives focused on channeling limited fiscal and human resource inputs to schools and districts. What makes the community schools framework more substantive and sustainable is that it establishes inputs as the process by which each of a child’s needs domains are fulfilled. If community partners and resources (as inputs) are actively engaged in addressing these needs (health, wellness, literacy and cognitive growth) the outcomes will take care of themselves.
The past decade-plus of school reform has been as notable for its soaring rhetoric as for its inaction on the issues that truly hinder learning and achievement. But as an educator who’s fresh from the classroom, I cannot stress how gratifying it is to see evidence of collective and intentional action springing up in schools throughout the state. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that each of the schools on the Pathways to Partnerships bus tour has shown seismic improvements in campus-wide learning, health, and wellness since fully committing to the community schools framework. But scores of others throughout California have followed the same pattern.
Still, it goes without saying that community schools are not a cure for soaring child poverty (afflicting 1 in 4 children statewide). And an even bigger nemesis may be the “not my kid” mindset that seems to afflict a vast number of citizens who remain undeterred by California’s nationwide ranking of 49 in per-pupil expenditures…. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/23/why-community-schools-are-a-no-brainer/

Moi wrote in The ‘whole child’ approach to education:
Many children do not have a positive education experience in the education system for a variety of reasons. Many educators are advocating for the “whole child” approach to increase the number of children who have a positive experience in the education process.
The National Education Association (NEA) describes the “whole child” approach to learning in the paper, Meeting the Needs of the Whole Child.

Meeting the needs of the whole child requires:

• Addressing multiple dimensions, including students’ physical, social and emotional health and well-being.
• Ensuring equity, adequacy and sustainability in resources and quality among public schools and districts.
• Ensuring that students are actively engaged in a wide variety of experiences and settings within—and outside—the classroom.
• Providing students with mentors and counselors as necessary to make them feel safe and secure.
• Ensuring that the condition of schools is modern and up-to-date, and that schools provide access to a broad array of resources.
• Reducing class size so that students receive the individualized attention they need to succeed.
• Encouraging parental and community involvement. http://www.educationvotes.nea.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/WholeChildBackgrounder.pdf

ASCD, (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) along with the NEA is leading in the adoption of the “whole child” approach.

Sean Slade, director of Healthy School Communities, a program of the ASCD, an education leadership organization wrote the Washington Post article, Taking a stand for ‘the whole child’ approach to school reform.

A whole child approach to education enhances learning by addressing each student’s social, emotional, physical, and academic needs through the shared contributions of schools, families, communities, and policymakers. It is a move away from education policy that far too narrowly focuses on student standardized test scores as the key school accountability measure and that has resulted in the narrowing of curriculum as well as rigid teaching and learning environments.
The true measure of student success is much more than a test score, and ensuring that young people achieve in and out of school requires support well beyond effective academic instruction. The demands of the 21st century require a new approach to education to fully prepare our nation’s youth for college, career, and citizenship.
Our last two Vision in Action Award Winners, Price Laboratory School (PLS) in Iowa and Quest Early College High School in Texas, exemplify what we mean. Both of these schools work to ensure that each child is healthy, safe, supported, engaged and challenged, whether it is through foundation of daily physical education for all grades K-12; or the weekly health programs promoting empowerment, fresh and organic foods, as is the case at Price Lab; or yearlong personal wellness plans, and a focus on social/emotional as well as physical health at Quest
Lessons and projects extend outside the classroom walls and into the local community. They are adapted to engage students and reworked to provide for personal learning styles and interest. Advisory groups – or “families” as they are called at Quest – abound and are a crucial part in making each teacher, student and family feel respected. And in both schools all are expected to achieve and are provided the mechanisms to do so. They don’t just set the bar high. They provide the steps and supports to get over that bar.
Both schools have gone beyond just a vision for educating the whole child to actions that result in learners who are knowledgeable, emotionally and physically healthy, civically active, artistically engaged, prepared for economic self-sufficiency, and ready for the world beyond formal schooling.
But this ideal should not be found only in the the occasional school. It should be found in all schools….
If you think a child’s worth is more than a test score, sign ASCD’s petition to create a President’s Council on the Whole Child.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/taking-a-stand-for-the-whole-child-approach-to-school-reform/2012/02/05/gIQARBcM0Q_blog.html

Many of the schools and neighborhoods facing challenges are where there are pockets of high unemployment and underemployment with high levels of family instability. Children in these neighborhoods face a myriad of challenges which require an more comprehensive approach to education. See, Christina Silva’s Huffington Post article, 1 in 5 U.S. Children Lives in Poverty http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/17/1-in-5-us-children-live-i_n_929424.html

ASCD is promoting the Whole Child Initiative:

Explore resources and opportunities for action here and on http://www.wholechildeducation.org, and together we’ll change the face of education policy and practice. Find sets of indicators related to each tenet below. Taken together across all five tenets and the central necessities of collaboration, coordination, and integration, these indicators may serve as a needs assessment, set of strategic goals and outcomes, framework for decision making, or the definition of what a whole child approach to education truly requires. Download theindicators (PDF).
Whole Child Tenets
o Each student enters school healthy and learns about and practices a healthy lifestyle.
o Each student learns in an environment that is physically and emotionally safe for students and adults.
o Each student is actively engaged in learning and is connected to the school and broader community.
o Each student has access to personalized learning and is supported by qualified, caring adults.
o Each student is challenged academically and prepared for success in college or further study and for employment and participation in a global environment.
http://www.ascd.org/whole-child.aspx

In order to ensure that ALL children have a basic education, we must take a comprehensive approach to learning.

A healthy child in a healthy family who attends a healthy school in a healthy neighborhood ©

Where information leads to Hope. © Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©
http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©
http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©
https://drwilda.com/

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Important Miranda case involving schools: N.C. v. Kentucky, No. 2011-SC-000271 (Ky. Apr. 25, 2013)

4 Sep

Moi wrote in Inappropriate discipline: The first step on the road to education failure:
Joan Gausted of the University of Oregon has an excellent article in Eric Digest 78, School Discipline

School discipline has two main goals: (1) ensure the safety of staff and students, and (2) create an environment conducive to learning. Serious student misconduct involving violent or criminal behavior defeats these goals and often makes headlines in the process. However, the commonest discipline problems involve noncriminal student behavior (Moles 1989). http://www.ericdigests.org/1992-1/school.htm

The issue for schools is how to maintain order, yet deal with noncriminal student behavior and keep children in school.

Alan Schwartz has a provocative article in the New York Times about a longitudinal study of discipline conducted in Texas. In School Discipline Study Raises Fresh Questions Schwartz reports:

Raising new questions about the effectiveness of school discipline, a report scheduled for release on Tuesday found that 31 percent of Texas students were suspended off campus or expelled at least once during their years in middle and high school — at an average of almost four times apiece. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/education/19discipline.html?_r=2&hpw&

Donna St. George has written a Washington Post article which elaborates on the Texas study.

In the article, Study shows wide varieties in discipline methods among very similar schools, St. George reports:

The report, released Tuesday, challenges a common misperception that the only way schools can manage behavior is through suspension, said Michael D. Thompson, a co-author of the report, done by the Council of State Governments Justice Center and Texas A&M University’s Public Policy Research Institute. “The bottom line is that schools can get different outcomes with very similar student bodies,” he said. “School administrators and school superintendents and teachers can have a dramatic impact….”
The results showed that suspension or expulsion greatly increased a student’s risk of being held back a grade, dropping out or landing in the juvenile justice system. Such ideas have been probed in other research, but not with such a large population and across a lengthy period, experts said.http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/study-exposes-some-some-myths-about-school-discipline/2011/07/18/gIQAV0sZMI_story.html?wpisrc=emailtoafriend

Family First Aid http://www.familyfirstaid.org/expelled-teen.html has a good discussion about the types of behavior problems that result in suspension or expulsion. Dore Francis has a guide, which lists what parents should do if their child is suspended. The guide http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/education/19discipline.html?_r=2&hpw& gives detailed instructions to these steps and other steps. Francis also lists what questions to ask after meeting with school officials. https://drwilda.com/2011/12/13/inappropriate-discipline-the-first-step-on-the-road-to-education-failure/ Schools must balance the need for control and order with appropriate discipline.

Mark Walsh reported in the Education Week article, ‘Miranda’ Warning Needed in School Drug Case, Court Rules:

A high school student’s statements to an assistant principal about giving prescription pills to other students had to be suppressed in a criminal proceeding because the student had not been given a Miranda warning, Kentucky’s highest court has ruled.
The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that the student was in custody when he was questioned by the assistant principal in the presence of a sheriff’s deputy who served as the school resource officer. Thus, he should have been given the familiar warnings from the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1966 ruling in Miranda v. Arizona about the right to remain silent, the right to counsel, and that any statements he made could be used against him.
The student, a juvenile identified in court papers as N.C., made several incriminating statements to the assistant principal about possessing hydrocodone pills and giving two of them to another student. “I did something stupid,” the student said.
The assistant principal explained that the student had violated school rules and would be disciplined. (He was eventually expelled.)
The school resource officer, meanwhile, told N.C. that he had also violated state drug laws and would be charged in juvenile court. The student was charged with felony possession and dispensing of a controlled substance. After a juvenile trial court refused to suppress his statements, N.C. entered a conditional guilty plea and was sentenced to 45 days in jail.
The student’s appeal to the Kentucky Supreme Court argued that the admission of his statements to the assistant principal violated his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. In its April 25 decision in N.C. v. Commonwealth of Kentucky, the state high court agreed.
The court said that under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2011 decision in J.D.B. v. North Carolina, in which the justices ruled that a suspect’s youth was an important factor in weighing whether he was in custody for purposes of delivering a Miranda warning, it was clear that N.C. was in custody when he was questioned about the pills. He was pulled from class by the SRO, who was present during the assistant principal’s questioning. The student had no reason to believe he was free to leave. However, he was under the impression that he was only facing school discipline, and not that his statements might be used against him in a criminal proceeding, the court noted.
“No reasonable student, even the vast majority of 17-year-olds, would have believed that he was at liberty to remain silent, or to leave, or that he was even admitting to criminal responsibility under these circumstances,” Justice Mary C. Noble wrote for the majority.
The court was troubled by the fact that the assistant principal and school resource officer had worked in “tandem” before in questioning students. “Clearly, the assistant principal and the officer had a loose routine they followed for questioning students when there was suspected criminal activity,” the court said.
The court also expressed concern that the adoption of zero-tolerance policies for student possession of drugs and other contraband was leading to “a dramatic shift away from traditional in-school discipline towards greater reliance on juvenile justice interventions.”
“To the extent that school safety is involved, school officials must be able to question students to avoid potential harm to that student and other students and school personnel,” Noble said. “But when that questioning is done in the presence of law enforcement, for the additional purpose of obtaining evidence against the student to use in placing a criminal charge, the student’s personal rights must be recognized.”
“A proper balance is struck,” Noble added, “if school officials may question freely for school discipline and safety purposes, but any statement obtained may not be used against a student as a basis for a criminal charge when law enforcement is involved or if the principal is working in concert with law enforcement in obtaining incriminating statements, unless the student is given the Miranda warnings and makes a knowing, voluntary statement after the warnings have been given.”
A concurring justice stressed the availability of the “public safety exception” to the Miranda requirement, a lesson many in the country have learned in the last week in the case of the suspected Boston Marathon bomber. Justice Lisabeth Hughes Abramson noted a 2007 Massachusetts state court ruling that the public safety exception applied in a case in which a 13-year-old found in possession of bullets was questioned about whether he had a gun without being given a Miranda warning.
Writing in dissent, Justice Bill Cunningham said the majority’s decision will tie the hands of school administrators. He said students “are always in custody” when they are in public schools and that school resource officers are more like school personnel than traditional police officers.
“In this day and age, we should not be impairing school safety by the enlargement of rights of the students,” Cunningham said.
In a separate dissent, Justice Daniel J. Venters said he did not think the “exclusionary rule,” in which evidence obtained in violation of a suspect’s rights may not be admitted in court, should apply to most juvenile proceedings.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/school_law/2013/04/student_merited_miranda_warnin.html

Here is the case brief from Legal Clips:

Kentucky Supreme Court rules student was entitled to Miranda warnings before questioning by assistant principal in the presence of school resource officer
N.C. v. Kentucky, No. 2011-SC-000271 (Ky. Apr. 25, 2013)
Abstract: The Kentucky Supreme Court, in a 4-3 split, rules that a high school student, who was detained in the school office for questioning by an assistant principal regarding giving prescription drugs to a classmate in the presence of a school resource officer, was entitled to Miranda warnings before the school official began the questioning. The court’s majority held “that any incriminating statements elicited under the circumstances of this case, with a school official working with the police on a case involving a criminal offense, the police failing to give Miranda warnings, and the juvenile being in custody, are subject to suppression under the Unified Juvenile Code and the Fifth Amendment.” It concluded that the student was in custody at the time of questioning and any statements made must be suppressed.
Facts: Issues: A teacher at Nelson County High School (NCHS) found an empty prescription pill bottle for hydrocodone with student N.C.’s name on it on the floor in the boy’s bathroom. An investigation was conducted before N.C. was questioned. Assistant Principal Michael Glass, having ascertained that N.C. had given some pills to a classmate, went with Steven D. Campbell, a Nelson County deputy sheriff assigned to NCHS as the School Resource Officer (SRO), to remove N.C. from class for questioning.
N.C. was taken to a room in the school office where he was subjected to closed door questioning by Glass in the presence of the SRO. After Glass informed N.C. that he had recovered the bottle, N.C. admitted to having given two of the pills to a classmate. N.C. explained that the medication had been prescribed after he had his wisdom teeth removed.
A.P. Glass told N.C. that he was subject to school discipline (in fact he was subsequently expelled). He then left to check on the other student while the SRO told N.C. that he would be charged with a crime and explained the criminal consequences. N.C. was charged with possessing and dispensing a controlled substance, a Class D felony, in a juvenile petition.
The SRO testified that he was present throughout the questioning, and participated in the discussion. He was either wearing his uniform or a shirt that said “Sheriff’s Office,” and was armed with a gun. He was assigned to the high school from the sheriff’s office, and had been there daily for the last four years. It was the SRO’s decision to file charges against N.C. At no time did the SRO tell N.C. that he was free to leave or give him any version of the Miranda warnings, though the officer obviously understood that the hydrocodone was a scheduled narcotic, as evidenced by the charges he filed in juvenile court. The charges read that N.C. “has admitted to the affiant to giving two (2) of his prescription pills (Hydrocodone, Schedule II drug for pain relief) to another student at Nelson County High School.”
The assistant principal testified that he knew how the SRO operated in criminal investigations, since this was not their “first go around” interrogating juveniles together. Clearly, the assistant principal and the officer had a loose routine they followed for questioning students when there was suspected criminal activity.
N.C. filed a motion to suppress the statements he made to A.P. Glass. The juvenile court denied N.C.’s motion to suppress. N.C. entered a conditional guilty plea to the charge, reserving the right to appeal the denial of his motion. He appealed to the Nelson Circuit Court, which affirmed the lower court decision. A motion for discretionary review was filed at the Kentucky Court of Appeals, which denied review. In February 2012, the Kentucky Supreme Court granted review.
Ruling/Rationale: A four justice majority of the Kentucky Supreme Court framed the issue as “whether a student is entitled to the benefit of the Miranda warnings before being questioned by a school official in conjunction with a law enforcement officer, the SRO, when he is subject to criminal charges.” The majority held that the statements N.C. made to the assistant principal should be suppressed under the Kentucky Unified Juvenile Code and the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In addition to the majority opinion, there was one concurring opinion and two dissenting opinions.
According to the majority, the question “presents a nexus between the rights of a juvenile accused of a crime and the needs of school officials to maintain order in the schools and protection for the other children in their care on the school premises or during school activities.” Beginning with a discussion of whether Miranda applies, it looked to the two-part threshold that must be satisfied before the warnings are required. The two-step threshold requires both questioning by law enforcement and being held in custody.
The majority noted that when it is the police or other law enforcement officer who is doing the questioning, the first threshold is obviously met. Further, it pointed out that since Miranda, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that in some situations persons who are not law enforcement will be treated as such for Miranda purposes. The Supreme Court has noted that the law enforcement requirement in Miranda may be contextual. Kentucky followed this line of reasoning in Buster v. Commonwealth, 364 S.W.3d 157 (Ky. 2012), where the Kentucky Supreme Court held that a non-law enforcement person was acting on behalf of or in concert with police to obtain a confession and thus Miranda warnings were required. In Buster, police could not obtain a statement from a mentally challenged suspect, so they engaged a social worker, whom the suspect knew well and trusted, to question the suspect and turn the information over to police. This made the questioning “indistinguishable from the police investigation,” and therefore the social
http://legalclips.nsba.org/?p=20039

The National Association of school Boards has urged the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case as reported in the article, School Boards urge U.S. Supreme Court to review Kentucky student “Miranda” case:

The National School Boards Association (NSBA) and the Kentucky School Boards Association (KSBA) are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Kentucky state supreme court decision that would force schools to issue Miranda warnings to students when questioned by school officials in the presence of school resource officers.
NSBA and KSBA are joined by 15 other education groups, including the American Association of School Administrators and the National Association of School Resource Officers, and local educational cooperatives in an amicus brief to the high court in Commonwealth of Kentucky v. N.C. The brief maintains a recent ruling by the Kentucky Supreme Court is too rigid and restricts school administrators’ ability to react quickly to dangerous situations. The ruling also mischaracterized the role of school resource officers, who perform numerous duties such as student counseling, instruction, and public safety and law enforcement functions, and it limits their abilities to keep schools secure.
“School officials must be allowed to use their professional judgment to handle student disciplinary matters and maintain safety in the unique and often complex school environment,” said NSBA Executive Director Thomas J. Gentzel. “School boards must be vigilant about protecting all students’ safety, and this decision by the Kentucky Supreme Court undermines their abilities.”
The case involves a student who had confessed to a school principal, with a school resource officer present, that he had given a banned substance to another student. Ignoring a lengthy list of other decisions regarding the role of school officials and the use of Miranda rights in the context of a K-12 school environment, the Kentucky high court ruled that the student was not read his Miranda rights and thus his confession could be suppressed.
It is particularly important for school administrators and school resource officers to build lines of communications with their students, who are usually their primary source of information about issues that impact school safety, such as drugs or weapons, so that they can preserve a safe school climate. By forcing school resource officers to read Miranda rights, this ruling would intimidate students and chill these important sources of information.
“School resource officers have become integral preventive safety tools in hundreds of Kentucky schools. They interact every day with administrators and students alike,” said David Baird, Interim Executive Director of KSBA. “Our members feel the court ruling unjustly drives a wedge in this process that could keep critical safety information from being shared by students with principals or security officers.”
http://schoolboardnews.nsba.org/2013/08/miranda-case/

The whole child approach is useful in keeping many children in school.

Moi wrote in The ‘whole child’ approach to education: Many children do not have a positive education experience in the education system for a variety of reasons. Many educators are advocating for the “whole child” approach to increase the number of children who have a positive experience in the education process. https://drwilda.com/2012/02/10/the-whole-child-approach-to-education/
In order to ensure that ALL children have a basic education, we must take a comprehensive approach to learning.

A healthy child in a healthy family who attends a healthy school in a healthy neighborhood ©

See:

Education Law Center
http://www.edlawcenter.org/ELCPublic/StudentRights/StudentDiscipline.htm

Discipline In Schools: What Works and What Doesn’t?
http://www.eduguide.org/article/discipline-in-school-what-works-and-what-doesnt

Related:

Report: Black students more likely to be suspended
https://drwilda.com/2012/08/07/report-black-students-more-likely-to-be-suspended/

Johns Hopkins study finds ‘Positive Behavior Intervention’ improves student behavior
https://drwilda.com/2012/10/22/johns-hopkins-study-finds-positive-behavior-intervention-improves-student-behavior/

Pre-kindergarten programs help at-risk students prepare for school
https://drwilda.com/2012/07/16/pre-kindergarten-programs-help-at-risk-students-prepare-for-school/

A strategy to reduce school suspensions: ‘School Wide Positive Behavior Support’
https://drwilda.com/2012/07/01/a-strategy-to-reduce-school-suspensions-school-wide-positive-behavior-support/

Alternative discipline: Helping disruptive children stay in school
https://drwilda.com/2012/11/12/alternative-discipline-helping-disruptive-children-stay-in-school/

Where information leads to Hope. © Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©
http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©
http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©
https://drwilda.com/

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Wisconsin study: Disruptive students disrupt the education process

10 Apr

Moi wrote in Alternative discipline: Helping disruptive children stay in school:

Moi wrote in Inappropriate discipline: The first step on the road to education failure:

Joan Gausted of the University of Oregon has an excellent article in Eric Digest 78, School Discipline

School discipline has two main goals: (1) ensure the safety of staff and students, and (2) create an environment conducive to learning. Serious student misconduct involving violent or criminal behavior defeats these goals and often makes headlines in the process. However, the commonest discipline problems involve noncriminal student behavior (Moles 1989).

The issue for schools is how to maintain order, yet deal with noncriminal student behavior and keep children in school. https://drwilda.com/2012/11/12/alternative-discipline-helping-disruptive-children-stay-in-school/

Julia Lawrence writes in the Education News article, Study Quantifies Cost of Disruptive Students, Recs Online Schools:

A study from the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute has finally quantified the impact that disruptive students have on their classmates’ academic achievement. By looking at differences in grades on standardized test scores between districts that high suspension rates and low ones, the study was able to conclude that lowering the suspension rates by just 5% would translate to a 3.5% gain in the number of students proficient in reading and a full 5% in rates of proficiency on mathematics.

WPRI Research Director Mike Ford called the gains statistically significant and said that the study is only one of a number that shows what schools can achieve by removing disruptive elements from the classroom. http://www.educationnews.org/online-schools/study-quantifies-cost-of-disruptive-students-recs-online-schools/

Here is the press release:

Wisconsin Policy Research Institute: Classroom disruption significantly hurting student achievement
4/9/2013

P.O. Box 382 Hartland, WI
(262) 367-9940
E-mail: wpri@wpri.org • Internet: http://www.wpri.org

CONTACT: WPRI Research Director Mike Ford, 414-803-2162

WPRI study: Classroom disruption significantly hurting student achievement Study recommends increased use of virtual schools and character education

A new study by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute has, for the first time, quantified the extent to which disruptive students are hindering reading and math achievement in many Wisconsin classrooms.

Over 48,000 students were suspended from Wisconsin public schools in 2011 alone, and many of them were suspended more than once. Four districts in the state – Bayfield, Beloit, Racine and Milwaukee – had suspension rates above 12 percent in 2011.

Half of the 424 districts in Wisconsin, meanwhile, had suspension rates over 1.7 percent. In those districts, decreasing the suspension rates – and the disruptive behavior that drives them – by just five percent would increase the number of students proficient in reading by 3.5 percentage points and the number of students proficient in math by almost five percentage points, according to the study conducted by WPRI Research Director Mike Ford.

“These gains are both statistically and substantively significant,” said Ford. “There is strong evidence that removing disruptive students from the classroom is a viable strategy for raising academic achievement.”

Disruptive students, like other children, have a right to a public education. But, Ford points out, a building that is plagued with disorderly students forces teachers to devote time to activities unrelated to learning and distracts classmates.

“Policymakers often focus on reforms with big pricetags, like small class sizes. We overlook another, less expensive route to higher achievement: creating more hospitable teaching and learning environments by better addressing disruptive behavior and/or removing students causing it,” said Ford.

The study, The Impact of Disruptive Students in Wisconsin School Districts, recommends that chronically disruptive students be removed from classrooms and enrolled in a statewide virtual school created specifically for them. The virtual school could be hosted by a district or districts willing to enroll pupils via the state’s open-enrollment program. Students enrolled in such a school could be provided with both a computer and an Internet connection. They would continue to have the opportunity to learn, but would no longer be a detriment to the education of their classmates.

The study also recommends that Wisconsin schools increase the use of character education, which encourages the development of traits and values such as respect, responsibility, honesty, fairness and caring.

A copy of the study is available at http://www.wpri.org . The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, established in 1987, is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit think tank working to engage Wisconsinites in discussions and timely action on key public policy issues critical to the state’s future.

Here is a portion of the executive summary:

WPRI Report
Volume 26, No. 5 April, 2013

Executive Summary

In 2010-2011, more than 48,000 Wisconsin students were suspended.  The disruptive behavior leading to these suspensions is detrimental to teachers, school cultures, and ultimately, student learning.  Reducing suspension rates in Wisconsin school districts with high numbers of disruptive pupils can substantially increase achievement levels in those districts.  An analysis of suspension rates in Wisconsin shows that decreasing those rates by five percentage points would yield an almost five percentage point increase in math proficiency, and a three and one-half percentage point increase in reading proficiency on the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Exam.

In other words, reducing disruptive behavior can yield substantial achievement gains for Wisconsin pupils. 

This report reviews existing research on the link between student disruption and academic achievement, reviews current Wisconsin statues and practices regarding student behavior, includes comments from a discussion with teachers from the state’s largest school district, and uses data from both the Department of Public Instruction and from the National Center for Education Statistics to test several hypotheses. The finding that student behavior affects student achievement at the school district level is both intuitive and well-supported by evidence.

The findings are particularly interesting because the other factors that significantly affect achievement in Wisconsin districts, such as the socioeconomic makeup of the student population, cannot be readily addressed in the ways that student behavior can.

Ultimately, this report concludes that Wisconsin must honor its commitment to make a public education available to all of its students, but must not do so at the expense of the vast majority of pupils who do not engage in disruptive behaviors.  Similarly, teachers must be supported and allowed to teach in an environment where their focus can be on student learning, not discipline. 

The formal recommendations of this report include supporting and strengthening ongoing efforts to instruct teachers on how to deal with problem students, and state efforts to bring evidence-supported strategies for disruptive students to Wisconsin schools.  In addition, strategies should be pursued to ensure that chronically disruptive pupils are permanently removed from regular classrooms, perhaps with an increased use of virtual schools. Perhaps most important, Wisconsin must pay greater attention to this issue because doing so can improve student outcomes as well as the overall work and learning environment of teachers and students. 

Disruptive students in Wisconsin classrooms make it difficult for other students to learn and difficult for teachers to teach.  Addressing this problem can have a very real and positive effect on student performance…. http://www.wpri.org/Reports/Volume26/Vol26No5/Vol26No5.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheWisconsinPolicyResearchInstitute+%28The+Wisconsin+Policy+Research+Institute%29

Moi wrote in The ‘whole child’ approach to education: Many children do not have a positive education experience in the education system for a variety of reasons. Many educators are advocating for the “whole child” approach to increase the number of children who have a positive experience in the education process. https://drwilda.com/2012/02/10/the-whole-child-approach-to-education/

In order to ensure that ALL children have a basic education, we must take a comprehensive approach to learning.

A healthy child in a healthy family who attends a healthy school in a healthy neighborhood ©

See:

Education Law Center

Discipline In Schools: What Works and What Doesn’t?

Justice for Children and Youth has a pamphlet                                       I’m being expelled from school – what are my rights?

Related:

Report: Black students more likely to be suspended               https://drwilda.com/2012/08/07/report-black-students-more-likely-to-be-suspended/

Johns Hopkins study finds ‘Positive Behavior Intervention’ improves student behavior                                                                          https://drwilda.com/2012/10/22/johns-hopkins-study-finds-positive-behavior-intervention-improves-student-behavior/

Pre-kindergarten programs help at-risk students prepare for school  https://drwilda.com/2012/07/16/pre-kindergarten-programs-help-at-risk-students-prepare-for-school/

A strategy to reduce school suspensions: ‘School Wide Positive Behavior Support’                                                                         https://drwilda.com/2012/07/01/a-strategy-to-reduce-school-suspensions-school-wide-positive-behavior-support/

Where information leads to Hope. ©                  Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©                      http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                                             http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©                                                                                                    https://drwilda.com/

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Alternative discipline: Helping disruptive children stay in school

12 Nov

Moi wrote in Inappropriate discipline: The first step on the road to education failure:

Joan Gausted of the University of Oregon has an excellent article in Eric Digest 78, School Discipline

School discipline has two main goals: (1) ensure the safety of staff and students, and (2) create an environment conducive to learning. Serious student misconduct involving violent or criminal behavior defeats these goals and often makes headlines in the process. However, the commonest discipline problems involve noncriminal student behavior (Moles 1989).

The issue for schools is how to maintain order, yet deal with noncriminal student behavior and keep children in school.

Alan Schwartz has a provocative article in the New York Times about a longitudinal study of discipline conducted in Texas. In School Discipline Study Raises Fresh Questions  Schwartz reports:

Raising new questions about the effectiveness of school discipline, a report scheduled for release on Tuesday found that 31 percent of Texas students were suspended off campus or expelled at least once during their years in middle and high school — at an average of almost four times apiece.

Donna St. George has written a Washington Post article which elaborates on the Texas study.

In the article, Study shows wide varieties in discipline methods among very similar schools, St. George reports:

The report, released Tuesday, challenges a common misperception that the only way schools can manage behavior is through suspension, said Michael D. Thompson, a co-author of the report, done by the Council of State Governments Justice Center and Texas A&M University’s Public Policy Research Institute. “The bottom line is that schools can get different outcomes with very similar student bodies,” he said. “School administrators and school superintendents and teachers can have a dramatic impact….”

The results showed that suspension or expulsion greatly increased a student’s risk of being held back a grade, dropping out or landing in the juvenile justice system. Such ideas have been probed in other research, but not with such a large population and across a lengthy period, experts said. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/study-exposes-some-some-myths-about-school-discipline/2011/07/18/gIQAV0sZMI_story.html?wpisrc=emailtoafriend

Family First Aid has a good discussion about the types of behavior problems that result in suspension or expulsion.  Dore Francis has a guide, which lists what parents should do if their child is suspended. The guide gives detailed instructions to these steps and other steps. Francis also lists what questions to ask after meeting with school officials. https://drwilda.com/2011/12/13/inappropriate-discipline-the-first-step-on-the-road-to-education-failure/

Nirvi Shah has written the interesting Education Week report, Suspended in School: Punished But Still Learning about alternative discipline methods:

Some of the students at Success Academy here are doing International Baccalaureate-level work. Most of the classes have just five or six students. And every nine weeks, groups of students are required to make major presentations to their classmates and hand in thick binders full of even more- detailed reports.

But this Baltimore public high school isn’t for elite students. Admission depends on whether students have done something so serious a regular district school won’t have them anymore: assaulting classmates or staff members, possessing or distributing drugs, or wielding weapons.

The school, serving as many as 100 students at a time, costs more than $1.2 million a year to run, but the district, which houses the program at its headquarters, says keeping students learning and in school—somewhere—while they are serving out a suspension or have been kicked out of their own schools is far less expensive than the alternative.

“The idea of children being out of school makes no sense,” said Karen Webber-Ndour, Baltimore’s executive director of the office of student support and safety. But at the same time, the district acknowledges that students may have to leave their home school for some offenses.

School-based discipline options like this one are being tried in schools nationwide as a substitute for punishments that force students out of school, which have been shown to disproportionately affect black, Latino, and male students and those with disabilities.

While in-school suspension may be an old standby, schools seem to be putting their own stamp on it. Whether those spaces are staffed by certified teachers or aides varies, and some schools don’t have classroom space to spare for something that might be heavily used one day and not at all the next. Other disciplinary configurations include Saturday classes, evening programs, and lunchtime interventions. In some cases, behavioral-health specialists are available on demand to work with students, keeping them in school rather than suspending them. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/11/07/11inschool_ep.h32.html?tkn=OQXF4T7wRzd%2BfDTAENRdHmICQyIk7%2FNisjS1&cmp=clp-edweek&intc=es

The whole child approach is useful in keeping many children in school.

Moi wrote in The ‘whole child’ approach to education: Many children do not have a positive education experience in the education system for a variety of reasons. Many educators are advocating for the “whole child” approach to increase the number of children who have a positive experience in the education process. https://drwilda.com/2012/02/10/the-whole-child-approach-to-education/

In order to ensure that ALL children have a basic education, we must take a comprehensive approach to learning.

A healthy child in a healthy family who attends a healthy school in a healthy neighborhood ©

See:

Education Law Center

Discipline In Schools: What Works and What Doesn’t?

Justice for Children and Youth has a pamphlet I’m being expelled from school – what are my rights?

Related:

Report: Black students more likely to be suspended https://drwilda.com/2012/08/07/report-black-students-more-likely-to-be-suspended/

Johns Hopkins study finds ‘Positive Behavior Intervention’ improves student behavior                                                   https://drwilda.com/2012/10/22/johns-hopkins-study-finds-positive-behavior-intervention-improves-student-behavior/

Pre-kindergarten programs help at-risk students prepare for school                                                                                    http://drwilda.com/2012/07/16/pre-kindergarten-programs-help-at-risk-students-prepare-for-school/

A strategy to reduce school suspensions: ‘School Wide Positive Behavior Support’                                                     https://drwilda.com/2012/07/01/a-strategy-to-reduce-school-suspensions-school-wide-positive-behavior-support/

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Helping troubled children: The ‘Reconnecting Youth Program’

30 Oct

Many children arrive at school with mental health and social issues. In School psychologists are needed to treat troubled children:

Mark Phillips, professor emeritus of secondary education at San Francisco State University wrote the article, School psychologists: Shortage amid increased need which discusses the need for psychological support in schools.

The adolescent suicide rate continues to rise, with each suicide a dramatic reminder that the lives of a significant number of adolescents are filled with anxiety and stress. Most schools have more than a handful of kids wrestling with significant emotional problems, and schools at all levels face an ongoing challenge related to school violence and bullying, both physical and emotional.

Yet in many schools there is inadequate professional psychological support for students.

Although statistics indicate that there is a significant variation from state to state (between 2005- and 2011 the ratio of students per school psychologist in New Mexico increased by 180%, while in the same period the ratio decreased in Utah by 34%), the overall ratio is 457:1. That is almost twice that recommended by the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP).

THE NASP noted a shortage of almost 9,000 school psychologists in 2010 and projected a cumulative shortage of close to 15,000 by 2020. Mental Health America estimates that only 1 in 5 children in need of mental health services actually receive the needed services. These gross statistics also omit the special need of under funded schools and the increased roles school psychologists are being asked to play….

Even with the psychological services that should be provided and often aren’t, schools can’t fully prevent suicides, acts of violence, bullying, or the daily stresses that weigh on kids shoulders. The malaise runs deeper and broader.

Still schools need more resources than they receive in order to provide more programs that actively identify and counsel those kids that need help. At the very least, they need to alleviate some of the stress these kids are experiencing and to help improve the quality of their daily lives. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/school-psychologists-shortage-amid-increased-need/2012/02/26/gIQAU7psdR_blog.html

It is important to deal with the psychological needs of children because untreated depression can lead to suicide. https://drwilda.com/2012/02/27/school-psychologists-are-needed-to-treat-troubled-children/ In addition to psychological programs, schools can offer other resources to help students succeed in school and in life.

Rebecca Jones of Ed News Colorado writes about the Reconnecting Youth Program in the article, Reconnecting Youth program boosts teens:

Seventeen-year-old Chris Malcolm is the first to admit he squandered a lot of his high school years because he just didn’t care.

Members of Robin Albert’s Reconnecting Youth class at Summit High School in Frisco.

“I was like, I don’t care about school, I don’t care if I’m here, it’s so boring I can’t deal with it,” said Malcolm, a senior at Summit High School in Frisco. “But now, I can tell myself the day’s gonna be fine, I’m fine, and I’m capable of doing school.”

Malcolm will graduate in the spring and intends to enroll in Colorado Mountain College. He hopes to become either a distiller or a meteorologist, and eventually he wants to live in New York City. Whatever, he’s got a plan, and he’s working to make it happen.

He credits the turnaround in his life to one class, which he’s taking this year. It meets second period, three days a week.

It’s called Reconnecting Youth, and it’s a special class for at-risk youth. In Summit County it’s offered in partnership between the school district and county Department of Youth and Family Services. Elsewhere around the state a handful of schools also partner with social service agencies to offer the class…

The program has been shown to improve more than just grades, though that and a decrease in absenteeism are the easiest markers to quantify. Nationwide, students enrolled in the class have exhibited a 50 percent decrease in hard drug use, a 75 percent reduction in depression, an 80 percent reduction in suicidal behaviors, a 32 percent decline in perceived stress and a 23 percent increase in “self-efficacy” or a sense of personal control. Since its creation in the 1990s, Reconnecting Youth has been touted as one of the strongest evidence-based programs for decreasing teen suicide, drug involvement and poor school performance.

As Malcolm describes it, the class has taught him how to talk himself out of helplessness. “I just tell myself that things aren’t ever as bad as they look,” he said. “They’re only as bad as I let them be. I have control….”

Program focuses on decision making, personal control

The curriculum can be taught in a semester or over a whole year. It focuses on self-esteem, decision-making, personal control and interpersonal communications. Strategies for establishing drug-free activities and friendships outside of class are also stressed.

The program was developed at the University of Washington over the course of three federal grants spanning seven years in the 1990s. Since then, training in the program has been repeatedly offered around the country in almost every state, said Beth McNamara, director of program and training for Reconnecting Youth. http://www.ednewscolorado.org/2012/10/30/51106-reconnecting-youth-program-boosts-teens

Here is what Reconnecting Youth says about their program:

About

Reconnecting Youth Inc. is dedicated to researching, developing, testing and disseminating prevention programs for youth at risk and to training those who use our programs to implement them with fidelity. Our award-winning programs have been recognized for over a decade as models for evidence-based prevention and are included on SAMHSA’s National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices (NREPP).

Our company has received generous support to develop and test our programs and the effectiveness of our training from the National Institutes of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute of Nursing Research, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the US Department of Education.

We are confident that together we can make significant gains in assisting youth to succeed in school and in life.

Research

We have numerous publications documenting the efficacy of the Reconnecting Youth (RY) and Coping and Support Training (CAST) Programs.

Read about the participants, prevention mechanisms and theory behind the numerous RY Studies and CAST Studies. Review the outcomes for the youth involved in our efficacy trials by viewing the RY Findings and the CAST Findings. http://www.reconnectingyouth.com/about/

In order for schools to help many children succeed, they will have to look at the “whole child approach.”

In The ‘whole child’ approach to education, moi said:

Many children do not have a positive education experience in the education system for a variety of reasons. Many educators are advocating for the “whole child” approach to increase the number of children who have a positive experience in the education process.

The National Education Association (NEA) describes the “whole child” approach to learning in the paper, Meeting the Needs of the Whole Child:

Meeting the needs of the whole child requires:

• Addressing multiple dimensions, including students’ physical, social and emotional health and well-being.

• Ensuring equity, adequacy and sustainability in resources and quality among public schools and districts.

• Ensuring that students are actively engaged in a wide variety of experiences and settings within—and outside—the classroom.

• Providing students with mentors and counselors as necessary to make them feel safe and secure.

• Ensuring that the condition of schools is modern and up-to-date, and that schools provide access to a broad array of resources.

• Reducing class size so that students receive the individualized attention they need to succeed.

• Encouraging parental and community involvement. http://www.educationvotes.nea.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/WholeChildBackgrounder.pdf

ASCD, (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) along with the NEA is leading in the adoption of the “whole child” approach. https://drwilda.com/2012/02/10/the-whole-child-approach-to-education/

In order to ensure that ALL children have a basic education, we must take a comprehensive approach to learning.

A healthy child in a healthy family who attends a healthy school in a healthy neighborhood ©

Related:

Johns Hopkins study finds ‘Positive Behavior Intervention’ improves student behavior                                                  https://drwilda.com/2012/10/22/johns-hopkins-study-finds-positive-behavior-intervention-improves-student-behavior/

Pre-kindergarten programs help at-risk students prepare for school                                                                                   http://drwilda.com/2012/07/16/pre-kindergarten-programs-help-at-risk-students-prepare-for-school/

A strategy to reduce school suspensions: ‘School Wide Positive Behavior Support’                                                 https://drwilda.com/2012/07/01/a-strategy-to-reduce-school-suspensions-school-wide-positive-behavior-support/

U.S. Education Dept. Civil Rights Office releases report on racial disparity in school retention                                     https://drwilda.com/2012/03/07/u-s-education-dept-civil-rights-office-releases-report-on-racial-disparity-in-school-retention/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART © http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                                http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

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