While it is not realistic to expect a district like Dallas to counter the effects of poverty on its own, a small but growing number of schools across the country are finding ways to mitigate some of the effects.
While mitigating a problem is not the same as solving it, these strategies are nonetheless important if districts such as Dallas are to become more effective at meeting children’s needs.
More schools in communities where poverty is concentrated have found ways to tackle the challenges endemic to their distressed areas.
Through a variety of school-based interventions, help from social services and a concerted effort to increase civic engagement, educators can ensure that efforts to transform learning are not undermined by environmental hardships related to poverty.
A central component of these reforms is the expansion of learning opportunities for students through quality early childhood education and extending the traditional school day. Such measures are important because they provide students with more learning time and make it possible to enrich the curriculum with science, history, art, music, physical education and foreign language.
It will be critical for educational leaders in Dallas to provide children with a balanced, well-rounded education rather than succumb to the tendency to narrowly emphasize test preparation. Creating more time for learning can be achieved without incurring increased costs through creative scheduling.
To provide essential services to children, schools in Dallas will have to build partnerships with community-based organizations that increase schools’ capacity to respond to student needs. When designed effectively, partnerships between schools and hospitals, youth centers, churches, universities and private corporations make it possible for educators to concentrate exclusively on the academic needs of children because their partners are addressing the other needs.
In New York City, for example, the community schools movement, which has been led by organizations like the Children’s Aid Society and the Harlem Children’s Zone, have shown that when services are provided to students (and often their families) in areas such as mental health, dental care, mentoring and recreation, schools are better positioned to focus on academics.
For this type of reform to work, civic leaders in Dallas — including the mayor, business and church leaders — must work with the next superintendent to support the public schools. They must recognize that if the city is to experience a sustained economic and social renaissance, it must develop new strategies for developing its human capital.
Transforming schools so that they are more effective in providing young people in Dallas with a quality education is the only way to ensure that they can participate fully in the city’s economy.
The next superintendent must be able to forge these partnerships and be knowledgeable about education. He or she must understand how to develop systems to support schools and be able to attract the best talent to the city.
Education is both a cause of many of the problems that plague Dallas and a potential solution to those problems. For this reason, fixing schools in Dallas must be based on a broad vision that links improvements in teaching and learning to support for child development.
Education professor Pedro Noguera is the executive director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education at New York University. His email address is email@example.com.