Psychologists have talked about it for decades, and some school systems have tried to implement the psychologists’ ideas, but California is the latest convert to the notion that promoting students’ social and emotional skills plays a critical role in improving their academic performance.

In a closely watched experiment, the state is calling for applications by public or private groups that can show ability to bring education and mental health systems in the state together for school-based early interventions, as a way of improving children’s academic skills and preventing more severe mental health problems in the future.

The request for proposals points to recent research by Joseph Durak, a Loyola University psychologist, and Roger Weissberg of Yale University, who analyzed more than 300 research studies of programs that attempt to address children’s emotional and social needs as well as their academic achievement.

Writing in the New York Times in August 2005, Weissberg and Timothy Shriver, president and chairman, respectively of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, CASEL, pointed out some of the research review’s findings, including that an average student enrolled in a social and emotional learning program ranks at least 10 percentile points higher on achievement tests than students who do not participate in such programs, has better attendance and more constructive classroom behavior, likes school more, has a better grade point average, and is less likely to be suspended or otherwise disciplined.

All of that "vindicates what has long been common sense among many teachers and parents: that children who are given clear behavioral standards and social skills, allowing them to feel safe, valued, confident, and challenged, will exhibit better school behavior and learn more to boot," Shriver and Weissberg observed. They suggested Congress should keep in mind when reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act comes up in 2007 that "The two kinds of learning [emotional and academic] are intimately connected. That means that promoting students’ social and emotional skills plays a critical role in improving their academic performance."

In California, the new Mental Health Services Act approved by voters in November 2004 is intended, according to official documents, to bring about "an unprecedented level of cooperation" between mental health agencies and schools to provide school-based emotional and social learning programs. Exactly how that is to be done will apparently depend on the responses the state receives to a request for proposals, but California is providing substantial funding for the projects, all of it from state general revenues. That may make California the first state to make such a local commitment; individual school districts in a number of other states, including Illinois, have mounted school-based mental health programs using federal funds from the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Act.

What Is ‘Social and Emotional Learning’?

In their New York Times editorial, Shriver and Weissberg offered a description of what they mean by "programs that address students’ emotional and social needs."

"Social and emotional learning is the process through which children learn to recognize and manage emotions. It allows them to understand and interact with others, to make good decisions and to behave ethically and responsibly. The best social and emotional learning programs engage not only children, but also their teachers, administrators, and parents in providing children with the information and skills that help them make ethical and sensible decisions—to avoid bullying, for instance, or to resist pressures to engage in destructive or risky behavior such as substance abuse. When they are well designed and executed, such programs have consistently achieved these goals, turning out students who are good citizens committed to serving their communities and cooperating with others."

Information about the California initiative is available at http://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fo/profile.asp?id=691.

See also:
Pediatrics Academy Urges School-Based Mental Health Services
http://www.healthinschools.org/2004/june04_alert.asp

Expanding Mental Health Services at School: Lessons from the Caring for Kids Program
http://www.healthinschools.org/comm/nasbhc6-8/sld001.htm