Karen Pittman

The annual and valuable KIDS COUNT Data Book was released this week by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and it got me thinking about a challenge that confronts those who are working to help the nation's youth.

You wouldn't expect an organization of retired generals to publicly take on the issue of how well third graders read. But the group called Misson: Readiness has done just that, and all of us who carry out Ready by 21 strategies or simply care about youth should take heed.

The concept of expanded learning is gaining new traction all over the country - and that, ironically, should worry many of us who have been promoting it for years.

That's because many recent proposals would expand learning time, not necessarily expand learning opportunities. Expanding when and even where learning occurs is unlikely to produce more actual learning until we expand how we define and measure what and how students learn.

We've all experienced compassion fatigue: that feeling of growing numb when we're bombarded with images and statistics about people in need. Research tells us that this is a common human phenomenon. Show people a photo of one girl who needs their help, and they respond with generosity and compassion. Show them the photo of one boy, they respond with equal intensity. Show them both photos and their emotional response drops significantly. Tell them about the plight of thousands of children, and that response plummets even more.

Advocates for young people must often choose which issues and strategies to champion at which time, and find ourselves competing for resources and attention. Rarely do we have the opportunity to combine approaches that could fundamentally change how decision makers think about policy, practice and human potential.

That’s why what’s happening now is so notable.

On Saturday I joined more than 200 people who gathered in New York City to pay tribute to Richard Murphy – who died on Valentine’s Day, 23 years to the day after New York Mayor David Dinkins signed the agreement that launched the Beacon Schools, which Richard created.

Richard was the quiet fulcrum who leveraged a major change in thinking about the role of local government and public schools in creating hubs for youth development and community engagement.

Attendance.
Behavior.
Course performance.

Three types of data that all schools have in abundance. Three indicators so predictive of school failure that the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University urges that all schools use this ABC data to establish “early warning systems,” which monitor individual student data and trigger mandatory reviews of students who reach red flag levels.  

While the start of each school year brings renewed commitments to improve learning, I'm especially excited this year to see a growing commitment among leaders around the country to expand learning beyond the classroom and beyond the traditional school day.

The New York Times recently provided an online forum for a debate about increasing the time that students spend in school – and leaders across the youth field responded with strong opinions. One was this letter by Forum CEO Karen Pittman, which focused on rethinking where learning happens, not just when. She urged greater reliance by schools on community partners to deliver services that improve educational outcomes.