For Reforms to Hold, Focus on the Child

After several years of education reforms, it is more evident than ever that our Los Angeles public schools are failing. The losers are our children and ultimately our entire community.

The symptoms of this failure have been well-documented: 39% of Los Angeles students do not graduate from high school, and current test scores indicate that many who do graduate are ill-prepared for the high-tech, high-skill jobs that will be prevalent in our 21st-Century economy.

Education reformers propose a range of solutions. Some of these have been put in place: a longer school day; a larger education budget; greater teacher participation in the management of schools. Others are proposed: greater choice for parents in which school their children attend, and breaking up the district into smaller units.

All these reforms presume that something positive will happen for the child in the classroom as a result of their implementation. But it is not at all clear that these or other reforms, taken individually or together, will significantly improve the academic performance of our children. A longer school day hasn’t resulted in higher test scores. More money for teachers and administrators without accountability for performance does not ensure more effective teaching. Choice is not the optimal solution for communities where the alternatives are all below par and for parents who lack the time or interest to involve themselves in their children’s education.

In the complex debate over structural and curriculum reform, it’s easy to lose the central focus: the child. It is easy to ask if the schools are “‘ready” for our children, but it is also reasonable to ask, “Are our children ready for school?” What is their readiness when they enter kindergarten? Why aren’t the bottom 50% learning? When should the community intervene and how? What reforms in the curriculum will enhance learning? What technology? How will we know if the child is succeeding? Most important, what and how much more is each child learning?

To get a satisfactory answer to this last question, we need a new child-centered approach to education that focuses on all of the child’s needs and connects human services to curriculum reform, teaching methods and organizational change.

Approximately 600,000 children attend grades K-12 in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Approximately 80% are ethnic minorities. One-quarter of the district’s children are classified “at risk” because they lack proficiency in English. Speaking many languages and possessing a wide range of literacy skills, these children learn in classes that are among the most overcrowded in the nation. About 60% of the district’s children come from impoverished families. While some poor children do succeed, poverty is closely correlated with failure, especially for children from single-parent families, according to a recent national study. That study also notes that poor students are three times more likely than others to become dropouts.

These children who are failing swell the ranks of functionally illiterate adults (now estimated to be 20% of the population in Los Angeles County). They enter the economy at the bottom where they are likely to stay. That fact is a partial explanation for the widening gap between rich and poor in an economy that demands that workers possess more skills than ever before if they hope to advance. A focus on the whole child prompts consideration of solutions that involve increased investment in the child’s early development: prenatal care and better nutrition for expectant mothers in need; and prekindergarten programs like Head Start. Children who are better prepared when they enter school perform better once there. A focus on the “whole” child prompts consideration of classroom changes in curriculum content and teaching methods. It requires introduction of new learning tools like computers, higher expectations for the performance of all children, instructional programs that accommodate residentially mobile students as well as students who aren’t. It also calls for systems of education and human services that reach beyond the class. A focus on the whole child places high priority on supervised after-school education and activities, and on affordable child care.

The 2000 Partnership, a group of civic and business leaders who have been studying and proposing plans for how to meet Los Angeles’ quality-of-life challenges, intends to follow this line of inquiry and to build a broad base of community support for change. We believe that single-shot approaches at reform will fail. We must surround our children with incentives to stay in school and support programs that produce skilled workers and good citizens. If we want to remain a competitive economy and a caring society, we can ill afford to lose these children.