"Raising achievement scores alone is not going to make a great difference in American education," James Comer, director of the School Development Program at the Yale University Child Study Center, said at a special session. "What is going to make a great difference is when we prepare young people to be problem solvers and give them the social skills to interact with other people and be good citizens and good workers." Comer made his remarks during a live satellite broadcast beamed to over 1500 sites across the country. An interactive format allowed viewers at remote sites to question Comer.
"It's not enough to manage a school; you have to change the climate," he argued. The Comer Process for School Improvement uses a School Planning and Management Team (SPMT), parent programs, and a mental health team to establish a no-fault environment built on consensus and collaboration.
SPMTs bring together teachers, administrators, parents, students (at the middle and high school levels), and business and community members to develop, carry out, and assess school plans for academic and social programs and staff development. Parent programs actively involve parents in the schools. "Representation in governance in schools makes parents feel involved," Comer said. Mental health teams enable schools to overcome fragmentation in administering social services.
"When everybody is working together rather than competing, you have ownership by everybody and an agreement about what's right, wrong, good, bad, helpful, useful," Comer said. "When you bring people together and you work out an agreement in the school in a collaborative way, you establish the kind of community and climate that is important in the development of children."
Videotapes of the Comer Satellite Broadcast are available from ASCD for $30 each. Contact Vickie Bell at (703) 549-9110, ext. 322.