April 13

I found the article titled Poverty and Potential:  Out-of-School Factors and School Success by David C. Berliner informative.  He believes these seven outlying factors that affect student success in school:  1) low birth-weight and non-genetic prenatal influences on children 2) inadequate medical, dental, and vision care, often a result of inadequate or no medical insurance 3) food insecurity 4) environmental pollutants 5 family relations and stress and 6) neighborhood characteristics 7) extended learning opportunities such as preschool, summer school and after-school learning.  Berliner also suggests that efforts be made to reduce drug and alcohol abuse, reduce pollutants in our cities and move people away from toxic sites, provide universal and free medical care for all citizens, insure that no one suffers from food insecurity, reduce the rates of family violence in low-income households, improve mental health services among the poor, more equitably distribute low -  income housing throughout communities, reduce both the mobility and absenteeism rates of children, provide high-quality preschools for all children, and provide summer programs for the poor to reduce summer losses in their academic achievement.  I did not find it a surprise that all of these factors affect student achievement in school.  I also agree with his suggestions on how to help the students achieve success.  As a teacher for over twenty years, I have seen how the outside factors have affected student performance in my own classroom.  I have met students that had problems with all of these outside factors except for possibly living near a toxic site.  And of course, some students come to school with multiple factors affecting their performance.  I think many schools (especially CPS) already try to address some of these factors.  We provide breakfast, lunch, and often dinner, depending on the length of the after school program.  We have before and after school programs for kids to help with academic achievement.  We offer a preschool program at the school for three and four year olds.  We have the local counseling service at out school during the regular school day to counsel at-risk students.  We also recommend families to these services that we feel need them, such as families with alcohol or drug problems.  As for insurance, CPS offers Kid Care to working families.  Of course, there are limitations to this program.  It is not for children that are in the country illegally and does not cover families with more than three children. So many of my students arrive at school with multiple strikes against them, there is not just one solution to help these students achieve in school.  NCLB, in theory, is a good idea but not enough is being done to make it really work.  Until the government takes into account all of these outside factors that affect student achievement and comes up with a viable solution to address these factors, there will continue to be a gap in achievement between low and high income areas.  According to Berliner, "the accountability system is fatally flawed because it makes schools accountable for achievement without regard for factors over which schools have little control".  Nothing could be truer.  Teachers can only do so much with students that arrive at our door with so much other baggage.  There is an interesting article in the following link that describes how a school with students that have to deal with many of these outside factors have been negatively affected by NCLB.  They were making strides with various programs but not enough according to NCLB standards. In my opinion, NCLB often works to the detriment of affective programs in schools because of unrealistic demands on students and teachers because it does not take into effect the outside factors that students come to school with.  
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=2&hid=108&sid=71ce68e9-5565-4645-b2d9-35ba03e1ee7d%40sessionmgr102

This next article also describes how policy makers make it difficult for schools to succeed by punishing them when they are making successful strides but just not enough according to their unrealistic standards.  
http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.nl.edu/ehost/pdf?vid=23&hid=101&sid=b2c8455d-bac3-4ba3-8f99-1bfdf82d282a%40sessionmgr103