The Need for a Comprehensive Approach to Education: Children in poor communities cannot be effectively educated in isolation from the problems of poverty, ill health, illiteracy, substance abuse, violence and trauma that plague their families. In cities such as Lynn, Massachusetts, children come to school with backpacks full of the baggage of limited English, undereducated parents, refugee memories, domestic violence and abuse, and limited visions of academic, social, or economic success. For six hours each day, on the days they come to school, Lynn school teachers valiantly try to hold the attention of children who are hungry, underclothed, uncomprehending, or worried about things at home. While education is potentially an effective weapon against poverty, given the forces that compete for poor children's attention, it is no wonder that their standardized test scores are low or that their rates of truancy and grade retention are high. Yet the same parents who do not get up in the morning to get their children fed and dressed and ready for school, who cannot provide a quiet place for homework or help with it, who don't speak the language of school learning, who have little hope for their own futures, in fact worry about their children and want school to improve their lives. These same parents may have rich resources of love, culture, and talent that are too often buried beneath their own hard times. Calls for "parent involvement" in such communities ignore the possibility that parents may be fearful of schools, have no transportation, work night shifts, may not even be the child's principal caretakers, or have few resources at hand to provide educational help (Buttery & Anderson, 1997). Yet the benefits of creating family friendly schools are recognized and encouraged at federal levels of policy-making (Moles, 1996; Moles, 1997; Sanders, 1997). Perhaps the single most important factor in a family's influence on its children's education is something invisible: the extent to which the family conveys a sense of optimism and efficacy. The literature of resiliency says that among the characteristics common to resilient children are the sense that they can effectively accomplish a goal and a "realistic future-orientation," or the having of some goals (Rutter, 1987; Wolin & Wolin, 1993). If children are to move up and out of poverty, using education as an important vehicle, they must believe in their own efficacy and their own future. We contend that a crucial factor in instilling such a belief is a parents sense of his or her own possibilities. A comprehensive approach to poor children's education should consider ways to provide their parents with job-related skills and information and provide them with opportunities to recognize their ability to affect their own lives. The Education Village project not only will enroll parents in workshop series and onsite courses, but will also provide them with positions of shared power and influence. Adults will be offered onsite educational experiences accompanied by skills assessments, personal, and career counseling. Family members will participate as decision-makers in project activities and will be provided with opportunities to voice their concerns in policy and legislative arenas. "Family is the main engine of education," says John Gatto, New York City's 1990 Teacher of the Year (1991, p.59). "No large-scale reform is ever going to repair our damaged children...until we force the idea of "school" open to include family..." (idem). Research supports the idea that the academic success of urban poor children depends on a comprehensive approach to the education and welfare of their families. Any efforts at reform must include families in its scope: The potential effectiveness of a comprehensive approach to restructuring is one in which school reform is directly linked to family support and education, neighborhood social and economic development, integrated services for poor children and their families, and multiple ways that families can contribute to the development of their own children, both in school and out (Davies, 1991). Effective education for these children is inextricably linked horizontally to comprehensive health and social services to their families and vertically to school-based education services that begin with preschoolers and end with adults in full day and evening formats. It takes a village to raise a child, but the village must sometimes help the adults as well. The Need for Interprofessional Education: Typically, teachers, social workers, and nurses are trained as specialists in their fields with little opportunity for dialogue or collaboration with each other. Education texts give space to the impact of social problems on academic achievement, social work courses mention school as a central aspect of children's experience, and nursing education teaches about childhood diseases and cultural differences in health practices, for example. But the "hands-on" field training offered to preprofessionals falls within traditional roles in specialized settings. The language used, the concepts understood, the norms and rules of practice in each profession are often so different that even when teachers, social workers and nurses gather to discuss common cases and issues, they do not understand and cannot appreciate each other. Furthermore, none of these professions offer adequate strategies for engaging families in their children's education or for supporting social competency (Caplan et al, 1989; Lawson, 1992), even as they all demand family support. Overwhelmed by the myriad problems they find and lack of evidence of success, they vent their frustrations in the teacher's room, the nurse's office, the social work supervision group. The mission these professionals left school with, their well-meaning desire to fix things, seems impossible to achieve. Parents and other professionals become "the bad guys." The results are anger, sadness, and "burnout". The disconnection between education and human service professionals, between schools and social services, and between families and education/service providers, compromises the education of urban poor children. School nurses repeatedly send the same children home again and again for head lice and treat the same children again and again for stress-related stomach aches. Teachers detain the same children repeatedly for lateness, for not having done their homework, for falling asleep at their desks, for belligerent behavior. Social workers find families without health insurance and rent money, without English, with a traumatic refugee history. All these problems are interrelated and affect children's academic achievement. Moreover, the rich traditions of immigrant families, the strength of a grandfather's bond with his grandchildren, the aspirations of a young mother on welfare to further her education, may go unnoticed and unsupported when professionals do not consult with each other or understand each others perspectives. The strength of families goes untapped when families are perceived as obstacles instead of resources for their children's academic progress. Professional training for educators, social workers and nurses headed toward careers in schools should provide carefully guided, interconnected fieldwork, including interprofessional seminars and courses where they can address common issues, learn from and support each other and talk with family members. Professors and practitioners from all three fields should collaborate in designing, monitoring, and participating in these seminars and courses. Evidence is building that an interprofessional approach to the education of at-risk students results in improved attendance, academic performance, and conduct (Roth, 1997; Shepardson, 1994; Smith, 1997). The Need to Make Instruction Meaningful and Effective: Central to children's academic success and its tools of measurement is the school curriculum. Massachusetts provides us with common guidelines in the form of the Curriculum Frameworks and common measures of achievement in the form of the MCAS tests. The pedagogical practices of its teachers should be linked to these guidelines and should reflect research-based "best practices" in ways that respond to children's backgrounds and experiences. "Best practices" call for early and intensive literacy education, developmentally appropriate instruction, "hands-on" teaching of math and science concepts, multiple strategies for multiple intelligences and learning styles, and collaborative learning. While pre-service teacher training programs like Salem State's provide students with information on "best practices," opportunities to apply what they have learned in ways that are meaningful to urban schoolchildren can be limited by available resources, prevailing practices, and the special needs of these children. For example, hands-on science and math methods require particular materials; intensive literacy education for poor children requires time, personnel, and trade books that many schools don't have; teaching for different intelligences and learning styles in urban school settings is complicated by issues of linguistic diversity and special needs, as well as the need to provide basic skills. Children whose home life is disorganized may need a well-organized environment and social skills in order to develop cooperative learning skills. To ensure that research-based instructional practice is successful, and that children are prepared for the high-level thinking required of the Frameworks and the MCAS tests, teachers must know how to tailor "best practices" to the needs of their students. Professional development programs should be tailored to specific school populations and should include follow-up support. The Need to Create School-Based Models for Family Education and Self-Sufficiency: The Partnership for an Educational Village provides the Lynn Highlands community with opportunities to influence state policies and programs supporting family transitions from welfare to work. By providing adults with learning experiences, academic counseling, support groups, and leadership roles, the project not only broadens the responsibilities of one school in one troubled community, but also uses this model to advocate for organizational change statewide. The involvement of the Lynn business community and the provision of assessment and counseling services to project participants ensures that the adult education component of the project is linked to real opportunities for further education and career paths. Both print and an Internet website informs the Highlands community of pending legislation and program initiatives and ways to communicate with area legislators and policy-makers. Parents are represented on project committees as well as in regional and statewide meetings. The project provides leadership opportunities within the project's new Family Education Center and in Ford classrooms. Our hope is that this project will have long-term benefit as an example of effective organizational change and advocacy. Summation In sum, the project's aim is twofold: (1) to provide children and their families in a large culturally diverse, poor and undeserved urban elementary school with comprehensive help toward academic success and empowered lives and (2) to change the way education and human service professionals are prepared in order to provide them with the knowledge, skills, and confidence they need to work effectively with this population. Bibliography Buttery, T.J. & Anderson, P.J. (1997). Community, school, and parent dynamics: A Synthesis of literature and activities. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Teacher Educators, Washington, DC (February). Davies, D. (1991). Testing a strategy for reform. Paper presented at Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association. Chicago, IL (March). Gatto, J. (1991). Why schools don't educate. The Family therapy networker. 15:5, 54-59. Moles, O.C. (1997). Reaching all families: The Federal initiative in family school partnerships. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL (March). Sponsoring agency: Office of Educational Research and Improvement. Moles, O.C. (1996). Reaching all families: Creating family friendly schools. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Roth, J., Myers-Jennings, C., & Stowell, D.W. (1997). How integration of services facilitates family literacy. Journal for a Just and Caring Education. 3(4) (October), 418-432. Rutter, M. (1987). Psychsocial resilience and protective mechanisms. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry. 57: 316-331. Sanders, M.G. (1997). Building effective school-family-community partnerships in a large urban school district: Report No. 13 (OERI). Baltimore, MD: Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk. Shepardson, B. (1994). Assuring success in education through supporting communities and families. Family Resource Coalition (Spring/Summer): 7-14. Smith, A.J. (1997). Washington state coordinated service initiative for at-risk youth and families: Executive summary. Seattle, WA: Washington State University. Strong families, strong schools: Building community partnerships for learning (1994). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Wolin, S., & Wolin, S. (1993). The resilient self: How survivors of troubled families rise above adversity. NY: Villard. New Goals and Activities Under Development: Goal 1: To improve the alignment of Ford School curriculum and instruction with the principles, practices, and performance criteria embedded in the state's Curriculum Frameworks and the Mass Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). Objectives: a. Teachers will incorporate into their curricula instructional changes responding to children's multiple intelligences and learning styles, cooperative learning, "hands-on" math and science activities, and/or standards-based instruction. b. Teachers will demonstrate alignment between classroom lesson plans and content strands and standards of the state Curriculum Frameworks for their grade level. c. Ford children's performance on the state MCAS tests will improve as evidenced by movement of scores from “failure” to “needs improvement” categories and from “needs improvement” to “proficiency” categories, with special attention to science, the poorest area of school performance. d. Rates of school attendance will increase, and rates of detentions and retentions diminish among children of families involved in this project. Activities: 4 SSC Saltonstall Lab School teachers will present workshops and provide follow-up consultation to Ford teachers in Grades 3 through 6 in the above instructional strategies. 3 PALMS (Partnership for the Advancement of Learning in Math, Science and Technology - Massachusetts' NSF) Systemic Initiative teacher-leaders will present workshops and demonstration lessons, and provide follow-up consultation to Ford teachers in hands-on, inquiry-based, strategies for teaching math/science/technology and standards-based instruction. SSC Education faculty will provide consultation to Ford teachers working to incorporate the above strategies into their classrooms. A Family Education Center will be established in the building, staffed by a parent with consultation from project staff. The Center will assess the educational needs of Ford families, coordinate parent-to-parent workshops, recruit and participate as school volunteers , provide information and referral to other community services and resources, and participate in the design of family education mini-courses and workshops, including middle-school transition, academic and career counseling, MCAS and the Frameworks, promoting academic skills at home, and helping with homework. The new Family Education Center will conduct workshops on the content and form of the MCAS tests, as well as strategies for helping with homework and ways to reinforce skills learning in the home. Sessions will be conducted as parent-to-parent discussion groups with the support of Education faculty consultants and school staff. Goal 2: To broaden the sphere of influence of the project to include a strengthening of educational services to children and families at the Pre-Kindergarten level. Objectives: a. Two full-day Pre-Kindergarten will be established at the school, to replace and expand the current half-day class. b. 4 adult family members of Ford schoolchildren will successfully complete semester-long field experiences/internships in Pre-Kindergarten classrooms, earning college credit for their work and grades of "C" or better. c. Salem State College early childhood education students will successfully complete practicum and prepracticum field experiences in Pre-Kindergarten classrooms in this urban setting, as demonstrated by established course standards. Activities: 2 full-day Pre-Kindergarten classes for 20 children each will be established at the Ford School, staffed by professional teachers, assisted by 4 parent aides/interns who will receive training and 3 college credits for their work. 4 Salem State College early childhood education students will complete required field experiences in the Pre-Kindergarten classes: 2 at the practicum (student teaching level), and 2 at the prepracticum level. They will be supervised by college Education faculty as well as the classroom teachers, with their performance assessed through observations, self-designed lessons, portfolios, and reflective journals.