Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress International Special Education Conference Inclusion: Celebrating Diversity? 1st - 4th August 2005. Glasgow, Scotland

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WHOLE SCHOOLING:
An Inclusive Framework for School Renewal and Professional Inquiry

Michael Peterson
Wayne State University
Detroit, Michigan USA
jmpeterson@twmi.rr.com

April, 2005

How do we create schools that are inclusive? Part of the difficulty in developing proactive answers to this question is it’s complexity and the tendency to focus primarily in dialogue in schools around two themes – curriculum and instruction, or what is taught and how. These are huge areas of endeavor. However, they ignore a huge foundation – the social and emotional underpinnings of the culture of the school as it impacts directly on the experiences and sensed welfare of children. Of course, work for inclusive schools seeks directly to address this need. However, this is imbedded in and connected to many other issues of social and emotional support that include:

• Identification and labeling of children as having disabilities, being gifted, or at risk
• Segregating such children from the larger school population
• Marginalizing students for a wide range of reasons – sexual preference, personality, social skills, race, culture, disability and more
• Intolerance and periodic cruelty by adults to children who may be struggling

To seek to address instruction of diverse students without simultaneously building a culture of support for all children is difficult if not impossible. This paper, therefore, seeks to describe an approach to envisioning a school that is effective for all children, a framework we call Whole Schooling. Towards this end, I first start with a discussion of the purpose of schooling that must provide the foundation for any consideration of how schools should be. I then discuss principles and practices for both ineffective and effective schools for all children, principles and practices which provide a foundation to build inclusive schools that manifest support and respect for all children.

THE PURPOSE OF SCHOOLING

Somehow most people think they know the purpose of schools – to help children learn and grow. All who discuss the purpose of schools affirm this goal of personal development. However, when the question is asked: “to what end?” , and, further, when you ask, “How do you know if you are successful?” very different answers emerge. Two primary opposing views exist. Some believe the purpose should center on the word citizenship, helping children develop their own capacity for success in life and becoming effective citizens for democracy -- individuals who have skills, attitudes, and knowledge to be productive community members, leaders, parents, and workers. This stands in sharp contrast to those who believe the ultimate purpose of schools is to create workers who can meet the standards of industry. The problem is that most people when asked this question will agree that we should be educating children to be citizens and to become the people that they can be. However, in practice, present systems of standardized testing work directly against these outcomes, narrowing the focus and curriculum of schools. This is particularly true

In the United States, the oft stated purpose of schools, imbedded in federal legislation and found in most mission statements of school systems, is to create thinking citizens who can make decisions and effectively engage in multiple adult roles – community leader, parent, worker. If this is so, research demonstrates clearly that classroom practice must systematically and explicitly provides students the opportunity to make choices, solve problems among a group, develop consensus, and deal with conflict. In such classrooms, students of great differences can all have an effective voice, students are motivated to learn as they develop a sense of ownership of a classroom community, and students are allowed and taught how to use power in their personal lives. Particularly for students with many life challenges who may have little control in their home lives, giving students power and control in the classroom can both prevent problematic behaviors and promote higher levels of learning.

PERSONAL BEST LEARNING

This brings us, then, to thinking about how learning is structured and how we go about deciding the question: “Was schooling effective?” Three different approaches are described in Figure 1. The traditional model of schooling posits that we teach all students the same content in the same way.   We expect some to do well and some to fail and consider this the problem of the student, not of the educator.   This approach has been problematic in that some students do not learn well and there are no expectations that it will be otherwise. This has been particularly problematic related to students of color and low income students.

More recently, throughout the world, standards-basedreform has established a new approach purportedly to address the problems of the traditional model. In this approach, all minimal standards of performance are set, typically as a score on a standardized test, which all students are expected to achieve despite their differing ability levels. In this system, a student who is considered highly gifted and a student with a cognitive disability are expected to achieve at the same level. Schools, then, are evaluated based on their ability to achieve such equal outcomes for all students.  The problems of this model, however, are substantial. Having one standard for all assures that some students, the most capable, learn beneath their capacity and that other students, even though they work hard and learn a great deal, will be considered failures.

Whole Schooling posits a more effective model than either of these: personal best learning. In this model, we expect all students to achieve at their personal best level and for ongoing instruction to recognize where students are and engage them in learning using multiple modalities, approaches, and supports to move to the next level.   In this scenario, a student would be considered successful if she were making progress and meeting learning goals.   We would have very different expectations of highly gifted students and students with cognitive disabilities in, say, American History class though they may be working on similar content in that class. In this scheme, we would evaluate schools based on (a) their ability to create instructional environments that support personal best and just right learning challenges without segregating students by ability, race, culture, language, or other variables and (b) the achievement of higher learning outcomes appropriate for each student.

Why is personal best learning important for anti-racist education? Both the traditional and standards-based reform models have distinctly negative impacts on students of various races and cultures, particularly when there is an interaction between socio-economic status and race.   The standards-based movement, with its emphasis on standardized testing in selected curriculum areas is being shown to deemphasize a focus on the whole child and the importance of building a social-emotional foundation in the culture of the school. A personalized, multileveled approach to learning has the potential to strengthen an appreciation of diversity on many dimensions, thus strengthening the celebration rather than the functional punishment of various forms of diversity.

Figure 1

Differing Approaches to Learning Goals and Evaluation of Schools

CREATING SCHOOL CULTURES THAT SUPPORT HIGH LEARNING FOR ALL

How can schools be designed to help create high levels of learning among students that increase individual opportunity? How can schools help children become citizens for democracy, providing social, business, and community leadership to develop innovations and solve important problems. We must pay very close attention to what helps, and what hurts in reaching these important ends.

Many schools, particularly those that serve working class and lower income children, use practices that assure that many children fail and are left behind. It is as if such schools systemically and explicitly developed a school deform plan, to use the language of James Kauffman. What are the principles that guide practices of such schools? They are listed in the left column in Figure 2.

These practices work together to create conditions that hamper the learning process. Once such cultures become imbedded, they are difficult to change. But change can and must occur if we are to meet the promise to our children and create future citizen leaders for our communities. What are the principles that describe a school culture that supports high levels of learning for all?

Figure 2

Contrasting Principles of Ineffective and Effective Schools For Diverse Children

After several years of work, I have worked with colleagues to develop Six Principles that represent a simple but comprehensive synthesis of scientific research on practices designed to maximize learning at high levels. Each of these principles is interactive and mutually reinforcing. These Six Principles of Whole Schooling establish a culture and set of practices in schools and classrooms that promote learning and growth. We know that for learning to occur, children must feel safe, accepted, a sense of belonging, and cared for.   Including heterogeneous students in classes together is a critical component as is the practice of democracy, systematic sharing of power within the school and classroom. Support to teachers and students and partnering with parents and the community helps fill out the picture of social, emotional, physical and cognitive support needed for high levels of achievement. While the language of school focuses primarily on instruction and the academic subjects of school – reading, writing, math, science and more, without attention to these foundation building blocks, learning will falter. These relationships are illustrated in the graphic. Following, we describe in greater detail how ineffective and effective principles play out in schools and classrooms.

BUILDING THE SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL FOUNDATION

Building Community

Too many schools have become places of competition, social sorting and ranking. Some schools actually institutionalize such dynamics by listing test scores in rank order of all students in the school. The growth of “zero tolerance” policies, particularly in low income urban schools, contributes to this dynamic. In an effort to create safe schools, such policies may become methods of expressing intolerance to and lack of concern with students who demonstrate behavioral challenges. Such school cultures minimize attention to helping students learn skills to deal with internal feelings of anger and hurt and interpersonal conflict.  

Figure 3

Whole Schooling: Pyramid of Support for Learning

What is needed instead is a school-wide focus on building a sense of community and care, using multiple strategies to assist students in providing help to one another and using positive behavioral support strategies, based on an ongoing commitment to challenging students, when difficulties occur. In his testimony to Congress, Sugai listed a number of basic features of systematic support for ensuring appropriate behavior in schools.   Two of these were integration of academic and behavioral support for all students:

• The application of evidence based behavioral practices and systems promotes academic engagement and achievement, and the use of empirically supported instructional practices and systems promotes displays of pro-social student behavior and creates safe classroom and school settings.
• All students in a school should have access to positive, preventive, structured, and on-going opportunities to learn, practice, and be acknowledged for displays of pro-social school-wide and individual social skills (p. 7).

If schools are to work for all, students must receive instruction and support in social, emotional, and behavioral learning to support academic growth. For such individual learning to occur, a true community of learners is necessary to provide a context and environment in which such learning is part of the day to day, minute to minute experience.

Brain research has clearly documented the importance for learning of a sense of emotional safety and support. As Caine and Caine state, for effective learning to occur students must experience a “relaxed state of alertness”. Alertness is promoting by instruction that is engaging and at the level of the learner while a “relaxed state” occurs when a student feels a sense of belonging in the group, caring by the teacher, acceptance by other students, and a lack of anger, tension, competition, or humiliation. Numerous concrete strategies have been documented that have shown substantial impact on a sense of community in the classroom and subsequent impacts on learning. In a classroom and school that systemically builds a community of learners many behavioral problems are prevented.

Horrocks, both an academic and a classroom teacher, stated that “classroom community is built through developing a sense of shared history by creating opportunities for shared experiences. It is about the basic things:

• Shared story time
• Collaborative writing
• Singing with your group
• Field trips
• Watching a slide show of the activities your class did this week
• Establishing routines at the beginning and end of the day and week
• Enlisting students help in the managing of the class
• Shared decision-making
• Future planning
• Initiating reflective discussions
• Celebrating accomplishments
• Three before me
• Kids helping kids before depending on service relationships
• Developing buddy systems and critical friends and learning pods
• Kids undertake the rituals of welcoming and bidding farewell”.

      In such a school, ‘behavior problems’ are much less frequent. Children feel cared for, have choices. do not feel constrained, and yet are intentionally taught responsibility in the process. However, many students with high needs continue to challenge teachers. Positive behavioral support strategies have been proven valuable in helping such students develop alternative means for having their needs met. Rather than viewing children as needing to be ‘controlled’, teachers understand that all behavior communicates a message. When a child ‘acts out’, this is his or her way of telling staff about something they need. The challenge is to help figure out what that need is and to help them learn alternative strategies for meeting it. Glasser described five needs of human beings that can provide a way to understand children: (1) survival, (2) love and belonging, (3) power, (4) fun, (5) freedom. Most often, schools ignore many of these needs and actually create behavior problems in their attempt to thwart children having these needs met.

      Schools that have successfully supported children with behavioral, emotional, and life challenges have developed numerous strategies for assisting support such students. Most critical is a several step process based on a functional assessment of behavior – discerning the underlying needs a particular behavior is expressing and developing strategies to help the child have this need met in more proactive and socially responsive ways.

School staff can do other things to deal with problematic behavior in a positive way. Some of these include:

• Dialogue and joint planning with the parents.
• Create a room where the child can go, under supervision, when he ‘needs a break’ to deal with emotional stress. This can be the library, a support room, or a more private location in the class, like under the teacher’s desk.
• Build social support for the child. Get a circle of support together of classmates who together plan with the child and teacher how to provide help and support.
• Do a “Meeting Needs Audit” of the total school to determine how well the school is meeting the five needs identified by Glasser for children in the building. Develop a range of activities that may address discrepancies.

Empowering Citizens For Democracy

      It is well documented that in too many schools that serve low income children, a culture of staff anger towards both children and parents is too often pervasive. Low expectations, difficulties with behavior management, problems with parental connections all contribute to problems in learning and effective relationships between parents, children, and school staff. In such cultures, the tendency is to use approaches that attempt to highly regulate and control the behavior of students in the school. Examples: in such schools students are expected to sit quietly at their desks and work, raise their hands to make simple movements in the class, in elementary school, students are marched in regulated lines from class to class; in high schools, security guards check students coming into school and periodically make sweeps and searches of lockers looking for prohibited items.

      The result is that in these schools democratic processes where students and staff alike have a sense of input, control, choice in their daily routines is limited or virtually non-existent. A cycle of control and challenge is born that reduces dramatically learning about responsibility and citizenship, increases anger and the need of students to challenge what they see as repressive authority, and sets in place emotions and tensions that reduce learning.

      Such schools tend to have higher referral rates for special education, as segregation and exclusion are added as a tool of control. In schools across socio-economic spectrums, however, the norm of segregated special education classes is to limit also opportunities for choice, control, and power in the classroom with similar outcomes as in low income schools. While the tone is one of beneficence and care, rather than repression, student initiative is often similarly impaired.

A school that seeks to prepare children to be citizens in a democracy must imbed the living and modeling of democracy. This occurs at the three levels of interactions and decision-making among (1) school staff; (2) parents and the local community; and (3) children and educators in classrooms. While children experience this primarily in the classroom itself, it is difficult to establish democratic classroom instruction when shared decision-making and a sense of community is not present among adult staff in the school and between educators, parents, and community members. In such a context, however, children, starting at the youngest ages, may be afforded numerous opportunities for learning the substantive skills of democracy. These include but are not limited to:

• Helping students understand their individual and collective rights and responsibilities
• Creating class meetings
• Class agreements
• Class code of conduct
• Recognize that everyone belongs to a culture group -- multicultural education is for all for diversity makes us better
• Individual responsibility for removing barriers which marginalize
• Skills of problem solving/ conflict resolution

Including All In Learning Together

            Segregation and isolation create many problems for many students in schools. Low income minority students in urban areas are at higher risk for referral for special education and alternative schools are used for an increasing number of students who are considered have behavioral problems and are socially maladjusted. The President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education found substantive problems with the segregation of students with disabilities. One key finding was stated as follows (p. 42):

…This Commission . . . is deeply concerned that many children with severe disabilities, including those children with autism or emotional disturbance, are relegated to segregated educational settings simply because of their disability.   Despite decades of successful inclusion of children with disabilities in regular schools . . . , there are children with disabilities who are still segregated simply because their disability creates difficulties in providing integrated educational experiences…

The Commission further directly stressed educating all students within general education settings, including those with severe disabilities.

Major Recommendation 3: Consider children with disabilities as general education children first:   Special education and general education are treated as separate systems, but in fact share responsibility for the child with disabilities.   In instruction, the systems must work together to provide effective teaching and ensure that those with additional needs benefit from strong teaching and instructional methods that should be offered to a child through general education.  

Overrepresentation of students of color in special education, has been relatedly recognized as a critical issue, a factor crucial in urban areas. Losen and Orfield’s recent edited book   clearly describes these patterns. As indicated in the figure, Black students are three times as likely to be labeled as having mental retardation and twice as likely to be labeled emotional disturbed than white students while far fewer such students are identified as gifted and talented than expected. Data shows that being served in special education does not lead to improved outcomes and that minority students are more likely than white students to be served in segregated educational settings .

For high levels of learning to occur for all students, developing inclusive classrooms is necessary, not optional. The literature is clear that for students with and without disabilities, integrated and inclusive classes are associated with higher levels of academic achievement. Orfield and Gordon note that for students to become effective leaders in a multi-cultural society, schooling must provide opportunities to engaging students with diverse racial, ethnic and ability characteristics. The sense of community and social safety promoted in inclusive classes, respect for diverse abilities and characteristics, provides an emotional foundation that allows brain functioning at the highest levels, preventing the downward shifts when fear and rejection are prevalent. Diversity represented in inclusive classrooms provides a stimulus and challenge to deep thinking that occurs less in segregated classes.

The school and staff together make a commitment that all students should be welcomed into the school and that teachers and other staff will work to have inclusive classes, heterogeneously grouped where students who are gifted through severely disabled learn, play, and work together.

For this to occur and become part of the culture of the school, the total staff must be committed to this as a value for children, be able to articulate the reasons for their belief, be willing to defend this practice against detractors, and be willing to struggle, learn, and seek answers when it doesn’t seem to be working for a particular child.

In most schools, this will mean a shifting special education, gifted, at risk, and other students from separate classes into general education; identifying the students who are presently in separate special education, gifted, or other schools who would typically attend our school and invite them back; and redesigning the role of specialists to provide support for inclusive teaching.

Collaboration And Support For Learning

If schools are to be successful, a professional community of support among teachers is necessary as well. Typically, teaching is an isolated and isolating profession. This is particularly problematic when teachers are dealing with children with many life challenges. If teachers do not have support in the class, forums for dialogue, communication, sharing, and problem-solving, it is all too easy for frustrations to develop and students with high needs to become targets. In many urban schools, as is the case in most schools in the Detroit area, specialized resources are used for special classes and schools or pull-out resources rooms, further isolating students and providing general education teachers little help and assistance, thus contributing to problematic dynamics discussed above.

In a school committed to high levels of learning for all students, research has shown that specialists and support staff develop an effective, collaborative, trans-disciplinary support system for teachers, students, and families.   Such schools use specialized school and community resources (special education, title I, gifted education) to strengthen the general education classroom, developing support teams to assist with academic, social, and medical needs .

Supporting teachers in working with students at multiple ability levels, who have emotional and social challenges in their lives is critical. This is particularly important as the shift towards building an inclusive culture in the school is occurring. Teachers who are used to trying to teach at only one level have difficulty figuring out how to teach at multiple levels. Even teachers who do this well sometimes don’t know that they do or what is multi-level and what is not.

A range of specialists are available to most schools to deal with special needs and problems of children – social workers, special education teachers, bilingual teachers, psychologists, nurses, occupational therapists, speech therapists, and others. In a traditional school, most of these people work on their own with limited consultation with others and pull children out of class for various services. In an effective school, however, specialists work to support the general education classroom teacher. Further they work as a team.

Special education teachers play an important role in an inclusive school. How this role develops, however, can vary dramatically depending upon philosophy and purpose. Three key roles and strategies are emerging out of research related to in-class special education support by teachers and aides.

A dapting curriculum around the needs of individual students. In this approach, curriculum or instructional practice are not questioned. The problem is assumed to reside in the child. Nevertheless, accommodations are made for individual needs collaboratively between support personnel and general education teachers. These might include different worksheets, less work, or more time to do work.

Teacher need . In this approach, a support teacher provides assistance to the teacher in strengthening or areas of relative need in the teacher’s repertoire. This might include helping the teacher to learn skills in literacy or science by developing a lesson and teaching it.

Authentic, multi-level instructional design . Here the support teacher and general education teacher work together to design lessons that engage children at multiple levels.

As schools provide effective support for learning, this would be implemented in a range of ways. Student support teams often meet weekly together to talk about children with special problems and needs and brainstorm together how to deal with the issue.   General education teachers and specialists have scheduled planning times at least every two weeks to develop plans on teaching together and address concerns of specific children. Special education teachers and other support staff, such as gifted and reading specialists, would be assigned to several rooms where they collaborate with teachers. When we observe the room we would see the teacher, paraprofessional, or other specialists, such as speech or occupational therapists, working with all the students in the class while assuring that the students with special needs were receiving the help they need. The special education and general education teacher would work together with each taking responsibility for all students.   In such a school implementing effective practices we would not see: a paraprofessional at the back of the class with a student with a disability or sitting constantly with a student with a disability clearly working only with him; students in ability groups working with the special education teacher; or a student with special needs separated from the rest of the class.

Partnership with Families and Community Resources

In too many schools serving, substantial tension and poor relationships too often exist between parents and the school. Educators blame parents for their lack of interest in their children. Parents blame teachers for not helping their children learn. Epstein and others have documented the critical importance of developing partnerships with parents. These same dynamics often play out with parents of students with disabilities across socio-economic groups. The lack of instruction at multiple levels, commitment of educators to helping students with emotional and behavioral challenges, the tendency to be critical and refer students to segregated special education programs all contribute to conflict and alienation between educators and parents of students with disabilities.

Effective schools recognize the need to develop multiple strategies to reach out to parents, bringing them into the life of the school and the classroom in meaningful ways, listening to their input regarding their children, developing collaborative instructional and support strategies. All this begins, of course, with simply welcoming all children into the class. Further partnerships are needed in an effective school that link with community resources, on the one hand, and use the resources and learning activities of the school, on the other hand, to strengthen the local community .

Parents of children with special needs have typically gone through much with their children. In traditional schools, these parents receive much negative feedback from the school. Their children are rejected and ‘sent away’ to special education classes or separate schools.

In effective schools, educators immediately invite their children into inclusive classes. They meet with and listen carefully to what parents have to tell us about their children, seeking to understand the child’s gifts, strengths, and needs, strategies that work, and interests of the child from the parent. Teachers work to welcome all children into their classes and communicate to parents that they want the input of the family to help the teacher know about the child.

AUTHENTIC, MULTI-LEVEL LEARNING FOR PERSONAL BEST LEARNING

Much instruction in schools, particularly those that serve low income students is un-engaging, rote, unauthentic with little recognition of or place for differences in abilities and learning styles. Haberman described what he called the “pedagogy of poverty” used in too many urban classrooms with low income children and contrasted this with “good teaching”, strategies that included involvement “with issues they regard as vital concerns, . . . involved with explanations of human differences, . . . helped to see major concepts, big ideas, and general principles and are not merely engaged in the pursuit of isolated facts, . . . applying ideals such as fairness, equity, or justice to their world, . . . actively involved in heterogeneous groups, . . . involved in redoing, polishing, or perfecting their work, involved in reflecting on their own lives and how they have come to believe and feel as they do”. These themes reflect the broader summary by Zemelman, Daniels & Hyde in their cross-discipline analysis of best practice standards for teaching and learning of the major national professional educational organizations. These recommendations called for less rote learning, memorization of skills, lecture, and more active involvement in authentic learning projects in heterogeneous groups in which democratic leadership was both promoted and explicitly   taught. Relatedly, the President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education found that “while recent research has begun to determine critical factors in instruction, more high-quality research is needed on instructional variables that improve achievement by students with disabilities”.

Further, in virtually every classroom, there is a broad range of abilities and learning styles among the students, ranging from a minimum of three grade levels to as many as seven to eight in school serving different socio-economic groups. Yet, instruction in the pedagogy of poverty so well described by Haberman typically insists that all students be at ‘grade level’, thus ignoring the needs of a substantial number of students functioning both below and above that level. Instruction that is multi-level, allowing all students, from those with severe mental retardation to students who are highly gifted to be challenged at their own level of ability provided proper supports and scaffolds and attention to their individualized learning styles.

Students with labels ranging from highly gifted to severely cognitively impaired bring a very wide range of abilities to classrooms. While traditional practice has promoted segregating and sorting students by presumed ability levels, the literature is clear that heterogeneous grouping within and across classes promotes higher levels of learning for all involved. For inclusive classrooms to function effectively, however, teachers must shift from monolithic, one level instruction to instruction intentionally designed for students with differing ability levels to learn together well. A growing literature is developing regarding such authentic, multi-level and differentiated instruction that documents such instructional strategies.

Schools are typically structured along grade levels and teach using standardized materials as if all children in a particular grade were at the same level. The reality, however, is that any class, whether attempting to be inclusive or not, contains children functioning at 3-6 grade levels apart.

Effective schools, and the teachers and staff within them, embrace this diversity of culture, language, and ability and make it part of the design of instruction. Rather than designing instruction around a narrow span of abilities, whole schooling teachers design their instruction intentionally pulling from the voices, culture, and experience of students and allowing them to work at their own ‘just right’ level of ability challenge. The idea, however, is not to ‘make it easier for those kids who aren’t at grade level’. Rather, effective teachers . . .

• Ground curriculum in the interaction of “personal experiences from children’s lives” and culturally grounded stories, songs, and” other “ways of expressing community values and beliefs”, community issues and needs, and the mandated curriculum of the state or school district
•  Use issues and problems to ground learning in authentic challenges using interdisciplinary themes, problem-based learning, writing for real audiences, and other strategies
• Design lessons so students may be challenged at multiple levels of ability without being separated into special classes of ability groups
• That challenge students at their own level (zone of proximal development)
• Provide support and scaffolding so children can push ahead to their own next level of learning.
• Use authentic teaching strategies that engage children in learning via activities that relate to their lives at home and in the community, that connect to the real world
• Engage the multiple intelligences and learning styles of children so that multiple pathways for learning and demonstrating achievement are available.
• Involve students in collaborative, pair or group work where they draw on each other’s

Schools in which teachers teach in this way have few children whose needs are not met. However, since staff are constantly learning, never getting it quite right all the time, there will often be children for whom teaching is not working. Staff then figure a range of adaptations to the curriculum, paying attention to what works and how this might be incorporated next time into an overall teaching strategy.

BUILDING A WHOLE SCHOOL:

HIGH LEARNING AND COMMUNITY FOR ALL

Since 1997, we have worked in numerous urban schools engaging them in using these principles to guide school improvement. Below, we describe some of the methods by which school staff can used the Six Principles of Whole Schooling to engage in dialogue and planning for meaningful school improvement.

Key Questions

Central is the agreement of the staff that the Six Principles provide a valuable and needed set of goals for the school. If this is true, then stakeholders may consider the degree to which the school as a whole,   as well as individual classrooms, are based on the Six Principles of Whole Schooling and develop strategies for improvement. Following are examples of key questions to address.

• Empowering in a democracy. To what degree are multiple constituencies involved in making significant school decisions? How are students involved? Do students have multiple opportunities for daily decision-making, choices, and involvement in resolution of conflicts?
• Including all. Are all students in general education classes Where are students who would typically come to this school who are not present? How might the school connect its students to other students with diverse characteristics (important for schools without racial or ethnic diversity)?
• Providing authentic multi-level instruction. To what degree are instructional strategies used to help students with very differing ability levels learn well together? Are there teachers who are using exemplary strategies? How might they assist other teachers? What assistance does the school staff need in learning multi-level instruction?
• Building community. Does a sense of community pervade the school among staff, parents, children? How might the school strengthen community? Is there a commitment to children with social-emotional problems? Is positive behavioral support integrated into practice?
• Supporting learning. Are staff used to support students in general education? Do they work as a team for the entire school? Do they help design of authentic, multi-level instruction, building community, and using positive behavioral supports in the classroom?
• Partnering with families and the community. To what degree do parents feel a partnership with parents, particularly parents of students with high challenges? To what degree are the talents of parents and the local community used to strengthen learning?

Team Self-Assessment and Action Planning

Several tools are available that may be used by teams or the entire school staff in conducting a self-assessment and engaging in action planning. These include:

• Whole Schooling: Strengths and Needs of Your School . An open-ended   questionnaire organized by the Six Principles of Whole Schooling, this tool asks individuals to describe strengths and needs related to each principle and suggest ideas for change and improvement strategies. When these are completed, the narrative comments can be compiled and organized by each principle.
• Whole Schooling: Self-Assessment and Action Planning Guide.   This tool lists school-wide and classroom practices that we would expect to see if a principle is being followed and those we would hope not to see for each principle. The respondent identifies practices used in the school from the total lists. The tool suggests exemplary and problematic practices that can be used as a menu of problems and possibilities.  
• Whole Schooling Self-Assessment Rating Scale . A variety of items intended to reflect exemplary practice are listed for each principle. The respondent rates the school, or individual classroom, using a 5 point Likert scale where 1 is low and 5 is high.

Assessments using these tools may focus school-wide, on individual classrooms, or clustered by teams For example, the third grade teachers, or the science department in a high school may conduct a team assessment. The school improvement team may look at this data and use it as the basis for a strategic action plan. Similarly, individual teachers and school teams may utilize the information to understand strengths, areas of need, and develop strategies for improvement.

School capacity and assets

School improvement must build on strengths of staff, parents, students, and the community. Any school possesses a wealth of resources. This simple open-ended tool is used to capture capacities and assets of the total staff and parents in the school. The tool asks individuals to list and briefly describe assets they have related to each of the Six Principles of Whole Schooling which they would be willing to share with others. This information is then compiled and put into a Resource Directory for the School. It can become a tool for person-to-person connections, a source of resources for staff development, and a way of building increased appreciation among all involved.

Study / Action Teams based on the Six Principles of Whole Schooling

As the school identifies areas of need, study / action teams may be developed. These might be organized based on the Six Principles of Whole Schooling or sub-divisions of these principles. For example, a school might be particularly concerned with both math and literacy instruction. They may organize a team designed to help improve “authentic, multi-level instruction” in each of these areas. The school should carefully consider, however, developing working groups that address the social-emotional foundations for learning – including all, building community (along with positive behavioral supports), supporting learning, and partnering with families and the community. This is particularly important since these areas often receive too little attention. Study / action teams may collect data related to the issue they are investigating, read materials together, discuss implications for practice, go to a conference or school site visits together, identify new strategies to try with students, and engage in reflective dialogue about daily practice, all aimed at creating positive change.  

CONCLUSION

We know so much now about how children learn, about how to build a community, how to help children with significant emotional and behavioral challenges. But our challenges and problems are also many. We hope that we will work together to move beyond repression, punishment, rejection, boredom, and isolation to create schools that lead to communities which are empowering, democratic, inclusive, engaging, all based on a sense of community, partnership, support, and care.  

This chapter is based on an adaptation of:

Peterson, M. (2005). Whole Schooling: Six Principles for Effective Schooling. Detroit, Michigan: Whole Schooling Consortium. www.wholeschooling.net.

Figure 1

Differing Approaches to Learning Goals and Evaluation of Schools

NOTES

Apple, M. (1995) Democratic schools. Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development; Oyler, C. (1996). Making room for all students: Sharing teacher authority in room 104. New York: Teacher’s College Press.

Kauffman, J. (2002). Education deform. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press.

Ayers, W., Dohrn, B. & Ayers, R. (2001). Zero tolerance: Resisting the drive for punishment in our schools. New York: The New Press; Lantieri, L. & Patti, J. (1996). Waging peace in our schools. Boston: Beacon Press.

Sugai, G.M. (2002)   School-wide Positive Behavior Supports: Achieving and Systaining Effective Learning Environments for All Students.   Washington, DC: Testimony submitted April 21, 2002 to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

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Horrocks, C. (March 16, 2005). Community and democracy in schools. Douglas College: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

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Losen, D.   and Orfield,   G. (Eds.) (2002) Racial Inequity in Special Education Cambridge: Harvard Education Publishing Group.

Fierros, E. & Conroy, J. (2002)   Double Jeopardy:An Exploration of Restrictiveness and Race in Special Education. In Losen, D.   and   Orfield,   G. (Eds.) Racial Inequity in Special Education Cambridge: Harvard Education Publishing Group.

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Evans, J., Lunt, I., Wedell, K. & Dyson, A. Collaborating for effectiveness: Empowering schools to be inclusive; Idol, L. Creating collaborative and inclusive schools; Walther-Thomas, C. , Korinek, L, McLuaghlin, V. & Toler Williams, B. (2000). Collaboration for inclusive education.

Peterson, M., Tamor, L., Feen, H., and Silagy, M. (2002).   Learning Well Together: Lessons about connecting inclusive education to whole school improvement.   Whole Schooling Research Project Final Report.   Detroit: Whole Schooling Consortium, Wayne State University.

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Fagnano, C.   & Werber, B. (Eds.) (1994) School, family, and community interaction: A view from the firing lines. San Francisco: Westview Press; Hildebrand, V., Phenice, L., Gray, M. & Hines, R. (2000). Knowing and serving diverse families. Columbus, Ohio: Merrill; Taylor, D. (1997). Many families; Many literacies. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

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Armstrong, T.   (1994).   Multiple intelligences in the classroom.   Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development; Peterson, M., Tamor, L., Feen, H., and Silagy, M. (2002).   Learning Well Together; Tomlinson, C. (1999). The differentiated classroom: Responding to the needs of all learners. Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Pang, V. (2005). Multicultural education: A caring-centered, reflective approach. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Peterson, M. (2003). Whole Schooling: Ways school staff can use the six principles for school improvement. Detroit, Michigan: Whole Schooling Consortium. See www.wholeschooling.net.

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