July 18, 2003
For more information about CASEL, SEL, and this listserv, including how to subscribe or unsubscribe, please see the end of this message. We encourage you to share this information with others on your e-mail list. To receive this bulletin in text format only, please send a message to Cynthia Coleman at colemanc@uic.edu with "e-news text format" in the subject line.
In This Issue
- Spotlight on Research: Children with Mental or Emotional Disorders—Beyond Punishment; Do Urban Youth Have More Behavioral Problems?
- Spotlight on Practice: National and Middle School Coordinators for Safe and Drug-Free School Programs
- Policy Perspectives: A review of SEL standards in 10 states
- CASEL Up-Close: Recent work and projects
At CASEL, summer is a particularly busy and productive time as we lay the foundation for new initiatives for the upcoming school year. I’m excited about the potential all of us, working together, have to make a real difference in young people’s lives. Children and youth today need our best work and thinking more than ever before. They need our focused efforts at providing them with the social, emotional, and academic skills that will help them succeed in school and life. CASEL staff and collaborators are now working intensively on developing new research-based tools that will help educators be more effective. Naturally, we’ll keep you informed about our progress through this electronic newsletter, our web site, and publications. CASEL focuses on advancing the science and improving the practice of social and emotional learning. We recognize, too, the importance of integrating social, emotional, and academic learning in a coherent framework relevant to diverse schools and classrooms, not just the research laboratory. One of our major goals is to create opportunities for greater personal and professional satisfaction and stimulation as educators strive to deliver “what works” for all children. We hope you’ll join us in a continuing dialog, and we welcome your responses to this monthly e-newsletter. Meanwhile, we hope you’re having a great summer!
—Roger Weissberg
This 2003 report from the Bazelon Center for Mental Health is a valuable resource for special education staff, school counselors, and others working to meet IDEA requirements related to the prevention and early intervention of problem behaviors. The report clearly articulates what schools need to be doing in the areas of functional behavioral assessment (FBA) and positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS), not just to be in compliance with the law, but to be carrying out effective practices that benefit students and teachers alike. Evidence-based social and emotional learning programs can help schools meet the IDEA requirement to consider positive behavioral interventions when a student's behavior “impedes his or her learning or that of others.” According to the report, in practice, PBIS, “is increasingly promoted as a school-wide intervention to create an environment in which all students—not just those with disabilities—understand what is expected and are taught how to conform their behavior accordingly, and the school culture recognizes and reinforces the desired behavior.” Project ACHIEVE, designated a “CASEL Select Program” in our recent publication Safe and Sound, is one of the successful school-wide PBIS practices described in this report.
Adolescent Substance Use, Sexual Behavior, and Metropolitan Status: Is “Urban” a Risk Factor?, by Sara B. Levine and Susan M. Coupey.
The authors analyzed data on substance use and sexual risk behaviors from the 1999 national school-based Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). Of the specific risk factors they examined, there were no significant differences between rural and suburban youth, and these two groups were combined as “nonurban.” In subsequent analysis of urban vs. nonurban youth, the authors found no significant differences in risk behaviors. This study suggests that metropolitan status has little if any association with youth engaging in substance use and sexual risk behaviors.
This past year CASEL has had the opportunity to work with a group of outstanding professionals in the SEL field who are wholly new to us. Their mission is to establish and support evidence-based SEL programming in schools throughout the country. We’re talking about the National and Middle School Coordinators, funded by the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools (OSDFS) in the U.S. Department of Education. The coordinators receive federal support for three years, after which their functions are to be assumed by local schools. CASEL is part of a team with three other groups (the American Institutes for Research, the Education Development Center, and the National Association of School Psychologists) hired by OSDFS to provide training and technical assistance (T&TA) to the coordinators. We are doing that both in face-to-face trainings and via a coordinator web site. Through this project, coordinators learn how to work with school leaders to bring the right stakeholders to the planning table. They learn the technical and practical ins and outs of conducting a needs assessment so it both establishes the need for SEL programming and helps to guide selection of evidence-based programs. The training also helps them tackle school staff development, evaluation, and a host of other practical concerns involved in doing this work in a high-quality way. Here’s a list of the topics that are archived and currently available on the T&TA website:
- Promoting Prevention through School-Community Partnerships
- Using Existing Data in Your Needs Assessment
- Identifying Prevention Priorities and Strategies for Success
- Selecting Research-Based Prevention Programs for Your School
- Implementing Research-Based Prevention Programs in Schools
- Sustaining Your Prevention Initiative
- Linking Violence and Substance Abuse Prevention to Academic Success
- Crisis Response: Creating Safe Schools
- Middle School Coordinators as Change Agents
Our staff has learned so much and been so inspired by the creativity and resourcefulness of the OSDFS coordinators. We’re working to be sure their ideas inform the tool kits we are now developing. Thanks, Coordinators!
Soundbites
“We know that each student's success depends on both the home and school environments in which they learn, their early learning experiences, and the social and emotional skills they bring to school—and learn in school.”
—Senator Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.), in a speech to the annual spring meeting of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, May 15, 2003.
Recently CASEL surveyed Social and Emotional Learning in state standards in 10 states: Kansas, Kentucky, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Among the highlights of CASEL’s findings:
- The states surveyed are at varying levels in terms of their focus on SEL-related matters ranging from just beginning to highly developed and focused.
- Several states are placing a high priority on SEL in connection with areas of the curriculum such as health education, character education, and service-learning.
- Many states are aware of the need for clear standards for SEL-related performance and assessment and are working on developing such standards. This is not the case, however, for all the states surveyed.
CASEL Up-Close—Work and Projects
The single most frequent request CASEL gets from principals and superintendents is for assessment tools. They want measures to help monitor the impacts of SEL programs on their students so they can be accountable to their stakeholders (school boards, parents, teachers) and maintain high standards. They also want assessments that can provide feedback at the level of the classroom and even the individual child, helping to focus on areas and topics that most need development (e.g., “Johnny is strong in his empathy skills and in managing emotions but needs more work on responsible decision-making”). They also ask for measures to help them identify their students’ needs in the first place so the responses they develop, such as selecting an evidence-based SEL program, address students’ specific needs. As one principal told us, “Part of my parent community is up in arms about drugs. But I think the real problem for the kids in our school is bullying. Do you have measures that can help me identify what the kids really need so I can pick the right programs?” Finally, some educational leaders have asked us for help in measuring their own SEL practices—“Are we doing this right? How can I help my staff to stay on track in doing this work?”
In an age of accountability, high academic standards, and school decisions that are increasingly data-driven, these requests come as no surprise. We find them to be encouraging evidence of educators’ desire to promote their students’ social, emotional, and academic development in the best possible ways. With initial funding from the Ford Foundation, CASEL is now working to identify outstanding assessment tools to address these needs and to develop new tools where none exist. We will make these measures broadly available to educators through our web site and the professional associations of educators and other practitioners. Our dream is that one day real estate agents will be just as likely to tell prospective home buyers about the local schools’ “SEL scores” on school climate and character and students’ SEL skills as they are to tell about reading scores! We’ll keep you posted as our work progresses and the measures become available.
For a wide variety of other information and resources, please visit our web site at: www.CASEL.org
What Is SEL?
Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process of developing fundamental social and emotional competencies or skills in children and creating caring and supportive school climates. A large number of school-based programs and practices are designed to do this. Many evidence-based school programs and practices that focus on positive youth development, prevention, service-learning, and character education can be considered SEL. To achieve their aims they work to develop students’ social and emotional competencies and create school atmospheres that nurture and support students. The resources in this e-newsletter cover a wide range of topics that fall under the umbrella of SEL in schools.
About This Listserv
The FCASEL listserv is intended to keep you up-to-date on some of the latest SEL research and best practices. To subscribe or unsubscribe, go to: www.CASEL.org/mail.htm, or send an e-mail to Cynthia Coleman at colemanc@uic.edu with “subscribe FCASEL or “unsubscribe FCASEL” in the subject line. To receive this bulletin in text format only, please send a message to Cynthia Coleman at colemanc@uic.edu with “e-news text format” in the subject line.
Collaborative for Academic,
Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)
Department of Psychology
(M/C 285)
University of Illinois at
Chicago
1007 West Harrison St.
Chicago, IL 60607
312-413-1008
Fax 312-355-4480
CASEL@uic.edu
www.CASEL.org
