It’s a term used in the state education code, referring to the responsibility schools, and other education institutions, have to act in place of their students’ parents, especially in ways that ensure their civil liberties are upheld. It’s the law, and it applies to all students. Not just the students who show up on time, do their work, act nice and stay out of trouble. But also the students who show up with tattoos on their necks, metal piercings in their faces, reeking of tobacco or are walking around with their boxers exposed. It means treating every child and youth the way you’d hope your child would be treated, every day, all day.
Well, this is not always easy to do, and some students make themselves pretty hard to love. It was this context that I used to discuss the planning and implementation of full service community schools at a VIP reception hosted by Jill Wynns, president of the California School Boards Association (CSBA), just before the holidays.
Touting the results of improved attendance, homework completion, reduced classroom incidents, less violence, and better overall school morale, I challenged the crowd to consider that any naysayer who dismisses community schools results such as these as a “distraction,” unless they also improve reading and math scores, is someone who needs to get out of education and get a new career.
I was a little tense delivering that line to a room full of 50 dignitaries, superintendents, school board members and principals. When I said it, you could have heard a pin drop. And then San Francisco Unified School District superintendent Richard Carranza exclaimed, “That’s right!” He started to clap, and suddenly the whole crowd was applauding. Applauding the truth— that we are talking about creating the necessary conditions for learning for every child, not just the “good, smart, no problem” kids.
So how does this connect with philanthropy? The nation has received a big wake-up call with the failings of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation in closing the achievement gap for the highest poverty, lowest performing students. Researchers are calling upon schools to consider all the benefits they’ve sacrificed by reducing or eliminating subjects like art, drama, music, speech and debate, and other subjects which contribute to creativity, character development, tenacity and grit, determination and innovation, but do not necessarily improve reading and math scores.
Students who love the arts and become curious about history, students who love music and learn fractions by reading music scales and beats, students who apply philosophy and logic to a debate and learn to reason as a result, these students are all learners too. They just come in through another door.
They can become the inventors of the future, as much as any literary or mathematical genius might ever be. And we will never really know who those geniuses are unless we give them every opportunity to learn.
What troubles me is, when did it become OK to only allow high performing students in middle class neighborhoods the opportunity to be creative? When did reading and math scores begin to determine which students “deserve” the more creative subjects?
When those stifled opportunities are the same pathways that would ignite authentic learning, then we have in effect sentenced our most deprived children to struggle, be bored, act out, get in trouble, get suspended, get expelled, and one day, even go to jail.
Taken together, these observations all point to the need for greater Pre-K to college pathways, greater supports and opportunities, and greater multicultural understanding of the students arriving on the doorsteps of our schools. On January 7th the Education Program at The San Francisco Foundation received hundreds of applications in the areas of Early Childhood, Equity, and Full Service Community Schools in our annual competitive cycle. We look for rising star organizations who are embracing the term en loco parentis with open arms, assessing the strengths and needs of all students, and turning their schools and school communities into thriving oases for all children and youth to thrive. We are very excited to see what our communities have been up to this fall.
Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.
~John Dewey