By Brian Guyer
Donor & Community Engagement Director
Staff members at the United Way of Salt Lake were recently given the privilege of attending a screening of the new Davis Guggenheim documentary “Waiting for Superman.” The film highlights the education reform efforts of a few educators as well as the pains of four families attempting to win the “lottery” and gain acceptance into a high performing school. The staff was deeply touched by the movie and many conversations about the state of public education in Utah were sparked after the screening.
It would be easy to assume that the challenges highlighted in the film don’t exist in Utah. In fact, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to find the kind of persistently failing schools in Utah that are shown in the film. Overall Utah’s public education system maintains a high level of achievement for a relatively small amount of public resources.
Acceptance into a high performing school should not be a matter of winning a “lottery”, whether that lottery is literal or simply the good fortune of living in a community with high quality schools. We would also be wrong to assume that the challenges faced by the families in the film are unique to Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Harlem. Low-income and minority students in Utah face exactly the same barriers – poverty, poor health, low-parental education levels, resulting in the same tragic and costly outcomes – low achievement, disengagement from school, failure to graduate or attend college. What we must recognize is that our challenges differ primarily in concentration, not in their fundamental nature. High levels of student achievement should not be a matter of income, race, or winning a lottery. Everyone deserves access to a high quality education, and a prosperous future depends on our collective ability to provide that education.
“Waiting for Superman” highlights the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) as an example of how a comprehensive, place-based approach can help turn low-income communities around. While Utah may not be able to replicate the HCZ there are several organizations that have recognized the value of schools, families and communities working together to address the various barriers impeding student success. This proven and promising approach has taken root in many Utah schools – particularly schools with high populations of low-income children. The Salt Lake City, Granite, Davis, and Ogden School Districts, in partnership with the United Ways of Salt Lake and Northern Utah, have been working for the past several years on developing and expanding the Community Learning Center (CLC) model in Utah.
CLC’s are a partnership between schools, families and community resources. These centers, located within or near an existing school, have proven to decrease behavioral issues while increasing parental engagement and academic achievement. A CLC recognizes that there are external factors such as poverty, health, and cultural differences that impact a student’s ability to succeed. The core of a CLC is a coordinator who pools together resources from the community and works to tailor services to the unique needs of the students and their families. Because a CLC is a collaboration between school districts, non-profits, and private entities, government does not bear the burden of reform alone; rather it is a shared responsibility. Past efforts to reform education have often been unsuccessful because they rely heavily on reforming schools alone, seeking improvement through standardized curriculum, testing and teacher certification while failing to address the myriad of problems that students face in their everyday lives. For example; a CLC in an area with high gang activity is likely to have anti-gang programs coupled with after school recreation to keep kids off the street. Another CLC in an area with a high population of military families would likely have programming designed to help children deal with the stress of having a family member on a tour of duty.
The goal of a CLC is to remove all barriers to a student’s education whether those barriers are social, economic, or academic and they require recognition that there is no one superhero that can save the day – but rather that the “superman” in all of us, working together, is what is needed to save our children and improve our community.
To find out more about the Community Learning Centers please visit www.uw.org.
