MNPS is Finally Implementing Full Service Community Schools!

This morning I attended a meeting on full service community schools organized by a group in MNPS called Community Achieves.  I have heard of them prior to the meeting but I was not familiar with the function of this group.  So many new programs have come and gone since I began keeping up with MNPS, researching this was not on my agenda.

I almost missed learning about Community Achieves at this meeting and that would have been a shame! This program is everything I have been asking for since I began researching poverty affects on scores and wrote this article http://teachersandcompany.blogspot.com/2015/01/map-comparison-level-of-poverty-to.html.  It is still my most popular post with almost 11.000 hits and visitors from around the world.  If you haven't read it yet go ahead and pop over and give it a look.  Don't worry, we'll wait.

The Community Achieves program is based on the research and work of Dr. Bob Kronick.  He developed full service community schools program at the University of Tennessee.. He began his work at the Brushy Mountain State Prison. It was a maximum security institution. His greatest take away from his work there was he knew he did not want children to end up in this prison.  So he began his life work on breaking the prison pipeline.

Kronick states, "There is a systematic destruction when you lose black men to the prison system." This loss destroys families and communities.  This loss is a direct result of the effects of generational poverty.  The main focus of his program is to keep people out of prison.

Dr Bob Kronick then said, "American loves victim blaming." But victim blaming is not addressing the issues.  We need to switch to systems thinking.  Poverty does not happen in a vacuum. There is an entire system that creates the issues around poverty and it's effects.  We will have to treat the whole system.  

He told us system thinking is difficult.  It requires collaboration and listening to the people in the community. Boiler plate does not work in these situations.  Every community is different and each program is tailored to the needs of the community.

In order to gain funding for any program you have to show the program is effective.  This program is the single most effective program I have ever seen for improving scores and outcomes for children in poverty. I was most impressed by his data on behavior referrals.  Behavior referrals are zero! That is unheard of in this population.  This behavioral change creates teachable moments in the school day which helps to fuel the students success.  Truancy rates are down. Math scores are up. Spanish boys are top in math but reading scores were down.

Why were reading scores low? "Because the test is on computers and none of our students had computers."  That changed. The students were given computers and then the scores began to go up.

He recognizes Human Services are fractured and difficult to figure out. It(Human Services) is a system and you have to figure out how to enter the system.

 They help families get into the system so they can get the help they need.  They also bring laundry facilities, counseling, GED programs, what ever is needed is provided in after school programs at Pond Gap School.

Why should these services be provided in schools? "You want to deliver services at schools because that is where the families are."

The program in Knox County has become so effective Pond Gap has become a destination school with families moving into the district.  These families are getting out of poverty at Pond Gap but are choosing to stay in this community.

If you would like to read more about his work, I found his book on Amazon:. Just click this blue link and it should open in another window for you : http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0398072949?creativeASIN=0398072949&linkCode=w00&linkId=FUIPU54CAROIUJKD&ref_=as_sl_pc_qf_sp_asin_til&tag=teachersandco-20

Because of Dr Kronick's heroic work these families and this community are forever changed.  I am so excited we are bringing a program like this to MNPS. Over the next few weeks I will tell you more about Community Achieves run by Dr Tony Majors and we will talk about Jill Speering's trip to visit Pond Gap.

I want to say a special thanks to Jill Speering, Shelley Baldwin, Amy Frogge and  Dr Tony Majors who have all fought valiantly for our schools to address poverty . Special thanks also to Bill Freeman.  Bill Freeman is running for Mayor and plans to expand full service schools programs to see that all children in poverty in MNPS have ways to get out.  Bill I hope you win your race.

Tune in next week for the next blog in the series on addressing the poverty gap.  So proud of all of our change bringers!

Some of our change bringers pictured from left to right: Amy Frogge, Dr Tony Majors, Bill Freeman, Dr Bob Kronick, and Jill Speering.

It Really is All About the Benjamins

      There are hundreds of studies  written on the effects of poverty on learning and memory.  Education scholars have replicated prior research to corroborate the findings.  The studies indicate students' education performance is most profoundly affected by the home community, home life and household income.  Students in high income families in the US out perform students from other countries on the PISA.  The issue may not be our standards, our teachers, or teacher preparation programs. There is always room for improvement and teaching is the easiest handle to grasp. However, if any teaching levers were the main issue, students with adequate resources would likely not perform as well as they have been performing.  The issue is resources.
        The top country for student testing performance is Finland.  Finland has a childhood poverty rate of 3%.  The United States has a childhood poverty rate of 22%. The Washington post wrote an article comparing our childhood poverty rate to the rates in other countries.  You can read the article here. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/04/15/map-how-35-countries-compare-on-child-poverty-the-u-s-is-ranked-34th/  We are ranked 34th in the world.  There are 33 countries with lower childhood poverty rates than the US. When we examine the national scores of students around the world the charts of performance and poverty show remarkable similarities.  The countries which out perform the US have lower rates of childhood poverty.  The greatest issue with American education is not an educational issue.  It is a broader policy issue.
      Teachers see poverty affects play out every year.  Students come to school without supplies.  They are sent to school sick or with a toothache because the caregiver cannot get time off from work without loss of income or possible loss of a job.  Students come to school in freezing weather without coats, hats or gloves.  Teacher buy supplies.  They talk a local dentist into helping a child with a cavity.  I've known teachers who have bought coats, food, clothes and glasses.  They provide for students on a meager income that on average in Tennessee draws less than a brick mason.  Teachers pick up the slack but there are limits to what they can do. 
       Lack of resources and lack of support in the community can affect student's ability to learn in school. http://www.sdkrashen.com/content/articles/protecting_students.pdf addresses the greatest factors in student academic performance. Campbell and Ramey found if the family is impoverished while the child is preschool or younger, lack of adequate nutrition can lead to sub-optimal brain development. The length of poverty can increase the issues related to the condition. This groundbreaking study examines the differences in long term and short term poverty http://www.newriver.edu/test2/images/stories/library/Stennett_Psychology_Articles/Effects%20of%20Poverty%20on%20Children.pdf.  There are hundreds of articles that correlate poverty to educational difficulties.  If poverty were a food additive the EPA would have banned it years ago
     Campbell and Ramey found the effects could be somewhat mitigated with early childhood education, nutrition. and wrap around services. Their study is here http://www.cckm.ca/ChildCare/pdf/Campbell1994.pdf  This study set up a preschool program which was geared to fill in early childhood deficits in learning and nutrition.  Part of this program was parent engagement to improve home life and to connect parents to the preschool.  The wrap around services provided diapers and iron fortified cereal.  The students were followed until age 12.  The experimental group had double the number of students with average intelligence and higher compared to the control group. 
   There are some academic interventions that can make a serious difference. One of the best academic interventions is Reading Recovery.  Reading Recovery has completed long term studies on the Reading Recovery intervention. Students in poverty are more likely to have difficulty learning to read.  When a child begins life in poverty and does not gain literacy skills he/she is at a great disadvantage.  Reading Recovery breaks this cycle.  They have multiple studies showing that children gain reading skills rapidly and maintain those gains over time.  It is likely one of the most disruptive forces of the schools to prison pipeline.  This link will open to an abstract of a study.  http://readingrecovery.org/reading-recovery/research/continued-progress/long-term-effects There are multiple studies and links on this page, all very well done.
      So there are things that we can do to manage the symptoms of this chronic disease or we could reach for a cure.  We can insist on a living wage so no one who works a full week should be impoverished.  We can provide wrap around services, preschool education and Reading Recovery for those who need it.  Poverty is a blight on our nation which is not going to improve over time without direct action.  If left without intervention the poverty rates are likely to go up. Today the US has 16 million children living in poverty.  As a civilized society we need to make sure there are clear paths out of poverty so children who are born into poverty do not have to raise their children in poverty.  That's not just compassion, it's also common sense.