Two weeks after I first called for some evidence on the effectiveness of Broader, Bolder, I finally received a (sort-of) response from Big-Labor Fat-Cat Leo Casey.
Leo must have had a few of his underlings poring over the ERIC databases non-stop finding the requested evidence. Here is Leo's evidence. I am leaving in all the internal citations and footnotes.
Classroom teachers recognize immediately the educational value of providing a comprehensive array of services to students living in poverty. They have seen the effects of undiagnosed and untreated eye problems on a student’s ability to learn how to read, and of untreated ear infections on a student’s ability to hear what is being said in the classroom. They know that the lack of proper medical care heightens the severity of childhood illnesses and makes them last longer, leading to more absences from school for students who need every day of school they can get. They have seen asthma reach epidemic proportions among students living in poverty, and they know that the lack of preventive and prophylactic medical care leads to more frequent attacks of a more severe nature, and more absences from school. They understand that screening for lead poisoning happens least among children in poverty, even though their living conditions make them the most likely victims, with all of the negative effects on cognitive functions. They know that the stresses of life in poverty make mental health and social work services for students and their families all that more important, and yet they are least likely to receive them. They see how the transience that marks poverty disrupts the education of students again and again, as the families of students are constantly on the move. In short, teachers know that the students living in poverty lack the health and social services routinely available to middle class and upper class students, despite the fact that they need them even more. And they know that the absence of these services has a detrimental impact on the education, as well as the general well-being, of students living in poverty.
I emphasized Leo's evidentiary citations since they do not conform to the generally accepted norm. Leo's logic goes something like this: Leo knows best because Leo knows best. The circularity of this argument is surpassed only by its arrogance.
There is, of course, little actual research backing up Leo's claims. This is fortunate for Leo since in the few instances where there is research, it proves Leo wrong. Let's take a look at one of those claims.
They have seen asthma reach epidemic proportions among students living in poverty, and they know that the lack of preventive and prophylactic medical care leads to more frequent attacks of a more severe nature, and more absences from school.
As luck would have it, we actually have legitimate research on the efficacy of an asthma intervention. Here are the results.
- An asthma self-management program incorporating health education and parental involvement increased academic grades for low-income minority children but not standardized test scores. (Evans et al.)
- A subsequent study of the asthma self-management program was expanded to include health education for asthmatic children and their classmates, orientation for school principals and counselors, briefings for school custodians, school fairs including caretakers, and communication with clinicians demonstrated higher grades for science but not math or reading and fewer absences attributed to asthma as reported by parents but not fewer school-recorded absences. (Clark et al.)
Notice how the subjective measures (teachers' grades and parental reporting of grades) conflict with the objective measures (standardized test results and school-recorded absences).
Apparently, this isn't the sort of evidence that Leo is looking for. Leo isn't looking for any evidence:
Disingenuous calls for “evidence” that community schools work require a willful myopia on the effect on life in poverty on education — a blindness made possible by a complete unfamiliarity with the real world of the classroom.
If you ask Leo to provide support for his (expensive) opinions, you're being disingenuous. If you don't trust Leo that community schools work, you're being willfully myopic to poverty's effects on education. Of course, based on Leo's educational track record, if you're still foolish enough to be taking Leo at his word at this point, you'd have to be priapic.
I'll take disingenuous and myopic over priapic any day. I'm sufficiently hyperopic to know better than to take Leo at his word. Especially when that word calls for yet another bromide that gives more money and power to Leo.