NYLC Blog

On January 10, I had the opportunity to attend the U.S. Department of Education and the White House summit on civic learning, “For Democracy’s Future: Education Reclaims our Civic Mission;” a call to action to reverse long-term deficits in civic participation. The summit featured comprehensive reports and presentations by education leaders, including U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. They made a compelling case of the need for education reform.

These sources cited national statistics on declines in public understanding of basic government structures, a narrowing of curriculum that excludes both standard civic education coursework and ultimately looming dangers of a “citizenless democracy” unable to address the challenges of the times. The summit also addressed the need to expand access to civic learning opportunities beyond a privileged cohort of schools and students.

As a long-time advocate for improving outcomes for youth and education through service-learning, I was thrilled to have a spotlight on the need to redefine the public purpose of education and to build “both-and” solutions rather than maintain divisions within the education field. Service-learning was explicitly referenced as a “proven practice” and several specific service-learning programs were highlighted as outstanding models.

During his address, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan referenced his own experience with hands-on lessons in civics and service-learning:

This work is personal for me. My first job when I went to work for the Chicago Public Schools was to implement a service-learning requirement… I can’t tell you how many young people came to me who said ‘I hated this, I didn’t want to do it.’ They ended up doing 500, 700, 1000 hours of service because they had the opportunity, they had never had that exposure. We have this tremendous imbalance. All young people have an appetite. They are committed; they want to be engaged. Somehow systemically at the elementary level, the middle school level, the high school level, and the university level we’ve walked away from providing those opportunities.

More broadly, it is clear that the language and motivation behind civic learning is largely shared by service-learning. For example, a call for developing civic action closely parallels the “learning-and-action” process of service-learning. The outcomes sought for young people from civic learning are comprehensive, and service-learning has been documented to improve the very same areas, including specific knowledge and skills, feelings of efficacy and belonging, development of moral character, and the ability to effectively interact and problem-solve in increasingly diverse communities.

When the Department of Education described its plan of action to make civic learning a priority, I saw several opportunities to incorporate expertise from the service-learning field into this effort.

• First, the Department is open to including broader indicators of student civic learning in annual assessments like the NAEP. Assessing quality service-learning is not straight-forward, but the NAEP could include indicators from the K-12 Service-Learning Standards for Quality Practice to better capture and assess the use of such pedagogies.
• Second, the Department is encouraging further rigorous research in civic learning and democratic engagement. While the K-12 service-learning field has many strong program evaluations and promising research results, further resources are needed for the most rigorous and longitudinal research that could articulate the links between service-learning, school achievement, and success, especially with the recent and premature end to Learn and Serve America’s longitudinal study.
• Third, the Department supports a new competitive program in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) that takes advantage of engaged teaching and learning linked to real-world issues. Should this be included in a Congressional reauthorization of ESEA, this could be another opportunity to fund quality service-learning in schools.

While K-12 education was addressed, several of the reports and presentations focused much more exclusively on higher education as the place to prepare students for participation in democracy, due in part because the summit and the Crucible Moment report stemmed from the higher education offices within the Department. Higher education is a valuable setting for civic learning, but there is a huge opportunity to recognize the valuable contributions of our nation’s youngest students. A serious concern, especially when addressing the need to engage all youth in civic learning, is that reforms limited to higher education will not provide opportunities to those students least often identified as active contributors. Unfortunately, post-secondary education is simply not yet a reality for far too many young people.

Overall, the concept and definition of civic learning, the outcomes it seeks to achieve, and noted strategies as described at the summit are strongly aligned with service-learning. Ultimately, both envision major change in how students learn, how and why educators teach, and the important connection between school and community.

Today we have more than 20 years of research, compelling stories, standards, and program development in the service-learning field. Service-learning is a strategy that works across P-20 education and can help bridge barriers between K-12 and higher education. It’s time to focus on expanding what works, especially when the strategy can improve outcomes for youth, schools, communities, and our democracy. As we advance service-learning as a strategy for civic learning, we can achieve academic outcomes, engage all young people as problem solvers, and improve the civic fabric of our society. As Secretary Duncan said, we can’t continue to “walk away” from providing opportunities for young people to engage in service-learning at every level of their education.

Undeniably, those in attendance at the 2012 Children and Youth Issues Briefing on January 11th were among many of the most significant scholars, nonprofit leaders, and policy-makers aiming to improve the future for the youngest generation of Minnesotans. Aside from those with the power to make systematic changes, many nonprofit employees attended to be part of the conversation. Although important developments were discussed, I left the event wishing for more unity in next steps and clarity in vision for our state’s next few years. I left hoping that most of what was discussed not in fact new information for many already working in youth and education fields. Frankly, I left wanting more.

News about recent funding for North Minneapolis’ Northside Achievement Zone (NAZ), St. Paul’s Promise Neighborhood, and the recent developments to replicate Ohio’s STRIVE in Minnesota were informative, but by no means should have been news to any of us.  As slides describing youth health disparities, poverty levels, and Minnesota’s achievement gap were shown, I was surprised that the data drew gasps and murmurs from the tables around me.  If you consume local news media or stay up-to-date on education/youth related organizations in this area, this stuff is hard to ignore.  But maybe that’s the problem. Are we as well-informed about our peers working in youth-serving organizations as we should be?

In an effort to break down silos in state government, the Minnesota Commissioners of Education, Human Services, and Health (aka “The Children’s Cabinet”) have gathered to tackle, comprehensively, the issues that affect Minnesota’s underserved youth (including poverty, violence, health problems, parental health, nutrition, academic inequities, etc.). I still, however, find myself wondering how much actual time is devoted to this day-to-day. As the duplication of services continues to be alarmingly excessive in nonprofits, are similar discussions happening at the executive level in our nonprofits? Does the promise of our nonprofit community’s collective impact by working together (even if it means as coworkers, sharing an office) outshine the potential loss of nonprofit jobs, funding, and power that many of us associate with mergers and acquisitions? If so, we might be in the wrong line of work.  

At NYLC we believe that engaging young people in solving issues not only can lead to the best outcomes, but also inspires and rewards leadership.  We imagine young people being active parts of solutions, so the lack of youth at the event itself was disappointing. Do youth or children advise the Children’s Cabinet? How do youth have input into the planning of new nonprofit models aimed at improving their own situations? Sometimes our ideas get in the way of our methods.  Going forward, I hope that we continue to show trust in our youth by giving them the active leadership roles in reforming our systems that they deserve.

Summer school programs do not necessarily result in changes across the district or even among these teacher’s practices throughout the year. It occurs to me that if professional development opportunities better aligned with summer teaching, this organized experience could enhance teachers’ depth of practice, sustaine innovation and place their professional growth within district-wide change rather than simply as classroom change.  When teachers participate in district provided professional development they have a chance to recreate the classroom learning environment they can also reimagine district’s systems and therefore producing more sustainable change.  The bigger the system reimagined the more practices are institutionalized.  This is what I call engaging the biggest tent possible. 

I have experienced numerous facets of school systems where innovation is understood as possible in “that” setting.  Summer school, afterschool and alternative programs are famous for their sense of “we do things different here”  because its summer school, etc.  The teacher both enjoys and suffers from a  marginalized state within the system.  They are left alone for a period of time, generally hidden from the policy makers.  Marginalized aspects of systems simply do not sustain, they eventually are cut because they are seen as not essential or are altered to better align with commonly accepted practices.  Marginalized within systems is not the place to be.

Service-learning practitioners can fall into the same problem of being marginalized with systems.  They find themselves and their work isolated, perhaps placed into marginalized programs, hidden from policy makers.  These programs may sustain due to the amazing and charismatic efforts of one or a small group of teachers, too often the programs are eventually cut.  If these teachers were to organize themselves aiming to shape larger aspects of the school system the likelihood of this practice being sustained and expanding to other classrooms could grow.   

If we in the service-learning field target summer learning programs as an excellent opportunity to organize change in classroom practices, we must think, plan and engage with the biggest tent in mind.  Helping summer school teachers explore new practices in summer must also coincide with helping teachers understand how these practices can be employed throughout the year.  Help teachers engage their peers, their building and district administration.  Summer and after school programs while historically have been a common target for district cuts, have recently become a more significantly valued component of a district’s improvement plans.

Influence of the Achievement Gap

The importance of summer school at the district level is often understood as a vital component to the districts’ goals to address the needs of struggling students.  Many in school systems identify the need for more time to be given to those students who have not yet mastered basic skills, those seen as left behind in the achievement gap.  While time is indeed vital, many teachers also feel that simply doing more of what wasn’t working is a less than hopeful option.  These teachers are looking for new ways to engage their students, new ways to help their students learn academic outcomes.  This is the opportunity for service-learning and for those that would like to see more systemic changes in school districts. 

I have come to believe that the impetus for change will come from those aspects to schooling that are less inundated with the recent and still expanding tsunami of educational obligations.  Teacher’s time or choices during the standard school day is severely limited.  It is tough to institute change in what appears to be a paralyzing environment.  Summer, afterschool and alternative education programs provide an excellent way for innovation to take root into school systems. It can take root as long as we keep the big tent as our target for such change, change just might sustain.

As the year ends, we want you to know how very much the National Youth Leadership Council values the community of which we are a part.  The service-learning field has seen its share of heartache – the loss of Learn and Serve funding, as well as triumphs – the amazing youth leaders and their adult mentors tackling real issues and creating positive change around the world.

So this holiday season we say, “thank you” for allowing us to work with you, our amazing partners around the globe.  And whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Winter Solstice, Festivus, New Year’s or none of the above, we hope you find peace and happiness this season. 

Best wishes,

The Staff of NYLC