This is one of the things that makes me mistrustful of Bigger, Bolder. The issue is not about whether or not healthy kids in a safe environment are better poised to learn–or whether lack of affordable housing contributes to mobility that inhibits regular school attendance, or any of those things. But, you are right, expanding the core mission of schools to take a stab at these things is not the most effective management strategy one would come up with–particularly since we in fact have public agencies already in place with those core missions.

But again, what makes me mistrustful of the whole effort, is that schools have tended in the past to want to operate in isolation from those agencies. While there has always been some friendliness, cooperation, collaboration between the social services, mental health, public health, general welfare sorts of organizations; schools have tended to view themselves as islands unto themselves–except to acknowledge that they are at times unfairly burdened by the problems of “the community.” The typical “collaborations” that I have seen have been on the order of bringing in hired guns (in the form of mental health counselors, social workers, etc) to fix problems so that the schools wouldn’t have to deal with them. Needless to say, it has not been very effective–and generally leads to spin-off satellites somewhere outside the school building (alternative schools and the like).

If schools (and teachers) genuinely want in, they are going to have to learn how to play nicely in the sandbox. They might have to listen to some of the neighborhood groups who have been working with parents for generations and accept that many of the barriers to parent involvement are school-created. They might have to listen to mental health experts and counselors about ways to change classroom practice so as NOT to aggravate the problems of students with emotional difficulties. They might have to shoulder the responsibility for making a referral for diagnosis or intervention if they believe that a family has a drug or alcohol problem (instead of using that as an excuse). They might have to start believing and understanding that not every family that the deal with is pathological, and that there really are problems in the delivery of education that exacerbate whatever deficiencies students arrive with.

But, if they are really willing and eager to go there (which I would wholeheartedly applaud), the way to get there is to start building relationships with the folks who have a history and mission to do those things that they profess to care about.

Actually, the issue isn’t even that. The issue is whether schools are the best of all possible institutions to provide these services. Even if schools were capable of expanding their mission to effectively provide these additional services and translate the provision of additional services into higher achievement, that wouldn’t justify providing the services through schools if they can be better provided in another way – say, by institutions whose core mission is to provide those services.