One of Michael Fullan and Joanne Quinn’s big ideas at the ISTE Leadership Forum was that we are after Whole System Reform. This is not the typical educational approach where we tinker, tightening a bolt here, putting on some oil there. We don’t get to the heart of what really needs to be done to ensure we realize Jefferson’s vision:

I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised, for the preservation of freedom and happiness…Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils [tyranny, oppression, etc.] and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.

Fullan and Quinn focused on the education system as the system to be reformed.  But, and increasing focus on poverty’s affects suggests that real school reform can only come when it looks beyond the walled garden of the school system to the neighborhood beyond.

In a guest post for Larry Cuban, John Spencer writes about the need to carefully balance accountability with a concern for student welfare.  Recognize the effects of poverty without making it an excuse. He tells the story of Marcus Foster, a Civil Rights era educator who refused to accept limitations for his students but also worked to hold everyone in the system accountable:

On one occasion, for example, he closed the Oakland schools and transported thirty busloads of Oaklanders to the state capitol to seek more support for needy urban students—resulting not only in more money but in “three-thousand folks of all persuasions saying, ‘We stand together for schools.’”

He points to the Broader, BOLDER Approach to Education as an organization trying to bridge the gap by acknowledging that a healthy child is a better learner. They also focus on the need to focus on the time students spend outside of school and call for organized learning activities that take better advantage of that time:

Successful programs do not exclusively focus on academic remediation. Rather, they provide disadvantaged children with the cultural, organizational, athletic, and academic enrichment activities that middle-class parents routinely make available to their own children.

A proposal like this emphasizes the need for a bigger view than just the school system as the approach will have to include parents and the community if it is to work effectively.  We are all accountable for having healthy children who can be successful learners and something like this can’t simply fall on the shoulders of school teachers.  This is a community rallying to the aid of its youngest,  most vulnerable members.