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Illinois School Board Journal
March/April 2005
Measure more than academics
To the editor:
Linda Dawson's article "If Johnny can't read, maybe he's hungry" in the July/August issue of the Journal brings an important issue to light: learning, or at least adequate learning, is not possible unless certain basic needs are met. Children come to school without breakfast (and some did not even have dinner the night before). Other children come to school emotionally unavailable to learn, for a variety of reasons.
I certainly would be hard pressed to function anywhere close to competently if I did not have dinner the day before, compounded by missing breakfast. Yet many children are expected to learn efficiently under these circumstances.
In my work as a school psychologist, in districts that ranged from the lower end of the socio-economic scale to the very highest, I saw many children come to school without breakfast. Others came with emotional issues that made learning not only difficult, but perhaps even unimportant when seen in the entire context of the child's life. Such issues have no relation to the socio-economic status of the parents.
If a child is not eating adequately on a frequent basis, shouldn't learning temporarily take a back seat until that problem is addressed? If the child has overwhelming emotional needs, shouldn't they be addressed first? I have quickly learned that a psychological evaluation is invalid if I am attempting to conduct that exam with a hungry child.
Over the years, approximately one third of the children I have been asked to evaluate have come to school without breakfast. With the help of the cafeteria staff, we have provided it even though our school did not have a breakfast program. This statistic is consistent regardless of the child's socio-economic level.
When one is admitted to an emergency room and the heart has stopped, a stubbed toe is ignored. To treat it first or even simultaneously would be malpractice. Yet in schools, we are encouraged, indeed required, to employ this type of approach. We must emphasize learning even when a child is too hungry to learn, or emotionally unavailable to learn due to some recent trauma that has occurred outside of school. Why? Those who equate testing all children with compassion and progress have decreed it, and have required it.
The need to test and test again has made it difficult to remember that some children have other needs that are more pressing. Yet the hungry child, or the child who has lost all security because parents are divorcing, must be tested. If this child does poorly on the test, the school may be punished.
For the children in these circumstances, I would like to see efforts directed toward supporting the family or toward ensuring assistance to the child as opposed to placing a priority on testing them, when they are, in essence, as untestable as I would be if I were hungry or struggling with major emotional security issues. Fortunately, I am an adult. I could correct these problems if I had them, and I do not have to be tested.
If those mandating tests are willing to punish an entire school if the scores of these children are "inadequate," and are unwilling to recognize that these types of circumstances exist and impact test scores, should there not at least be some other measurements to allow for a better picture of a school's ability to help children? Should schools not also be assessed on their ability to provide breakfast for their children? Should there be some measure of a school's ability to provide support and assistance in tapping community services?
When I first worked as a school psychologist in 1975 in rural Iowa, I can remember asking a superintendent what he felt were the most important programs in his school district, and the most effective programs in terms of money spent and results for children. Without hesitation his sole reply was the school breakfast program. His response taught me more about the real world than graduate school or any internship. This occurred 29 years ago; children's needs are still the same.
No Child Left Behind may be noble in its intent, but it does not recognize that all children present unique needs, and that some are extraordinarily needy. I have always been skeptical of anything with "No" in the title. It just seems a bit exclusionary and negative to me. Perhaps a better mindset would be "All Children Considered."
Bradley W. Rasch
Round Lake CUSD 116
Roselle, Illinois