Schools as Systems

Abstract

The work of changing schools means acknowledging that we are, in fact, changing systems. Often, these are long-established systems enacted by multiple stakeholders invested in their preservation. Many efforts to promote educational equity attempt to tackle a single problematic aspect of the school in the hope that addressing an identified need in one area will improve the system as a whole. Some schools adopt a new math curriculum, hoping it will yield higher 4-year graduation rates. Other schools introduce computer-based learning, believing it will improve the ability of teachers to differentiate content. Still others practice mindfulness with students to reduce suspension rates. Efforts such as these are praiseworthy, but the piecemeal approach often fails to translate into meaningful change. At the other extreme, many schools choose to implement various reform efforts simultaneously—a new math curriculum, for instance, supplemented by computer-based learning and followed by a schoolwide mindfulness exercise. The result, generally, is mile-wide and inch-deep efforts that leave already overtaxed schools and principals with the challenge of running multiple initiatives at once, very likely without the resources to implement any one of them successfully (Cuban, 1990). Piecemeal or duplicative approaches to school transformation are particularly troubling as they rarely produce the systemic transformation required to reduce broadscale inequities within the system. When problems are identified in isolation, solutions tend to address symptoms rather than the underlying causes of the most acute or prevalent manifestations. More often than not, addressing the root cause requires some level of attention to the system itself. When these systems-level changes are ignored, similar problems are likely to occur again in the future. Nowhere is this more true than in the systems designed to address learning and mental health challenges in schools. Special education services rely largely on pull-out approaches to service delivery only after students have shown substantial deficits in their learning. The words mental health are often synonymous with clinicians providing closed-door therapy to specific students or supporting young people with disabilities who have been placed in specialized, segregated settings.

Implementation strategies to promote measurement-based care in schools: evidence from mental health experts across the USA

“…Although scientifically-rigorous applications of MBC in schools are new, an individualized approach to monitoring student progress and outcomes has been emphasized and studied in schools for decades [ 45 , 46 ]. There are some published demonstrations of standardized, patient-reported outcome measures being implemented in school mental health systems [ 47 , 48 ], as well as examples of psychosocial progress monitoring in schools as part of high-quality, comprehensive school mental health systems [ 49 ]. Moreover, MBC is consistent with schools’ emphasis on Response to Intervention, which is using student progress data to prevent and remediate academic and behavioral difficulties [ 50 ] and accountability requests for school-based providers to demonstrate outcomes [ 51 ].…”