Teachers, families, and students themselves have long insisted that children learn best when their basic needs are met. When they are fed, rested, healthy, and well, they can show up to school ready to learn, ask questions, and engage with their peers. It’s easier for them to focus and move through challenges. Educators have known this for years. Now, researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s EdRedesign Lab and Harvard University’s Opportunity Insights have the data to back it up.
Last week, in a hybrid event hosted by the Bloomberg Center for Cities, EdRedesign Executive Director Rob Watson, EdRedesign Deputy Director and Director of the Institute for Success Planning Tauheedah Jackson, and EdRedesign postdoctoral fellow Jamie Gracie discussed research from cities across the country on how personalized supports, rooted in strong relationships, transform students’ lives.
Gracie recently co-authored a paper that focused on the efforts of a single, large nonprofit: Communities In Schools (CIS), which operates in 3,700 schools, reaching two million students across 29 states and the District of Columbia. President and CEO of CIS and EdRedesign By All Means Senior Fellow Rey Saldaña joined Watson, Jackson, and Gracie for the conversation as well.
Educators spread thin
Saldaña explained that it puts school staff under incredible stress to try and meet students’ needs without the resources, training, or time to do so well.
“Teachers cannot be the mother, father, brother, social worker, therapist, violence interrupter,” Saldaña explained. “What we need to do is actually help and support them.”
“Teachers cannot be the mother, father, brother, social worker, therapist, violence interrupter. What we need to do is actually help and support them.”
CIS works to solve that problem. They embed “navigators” in high-poverty schools, who have a deep sense of their community and place, and a deep relationship with the students who need support the most. CIS connects those students with the personalized resources they need to thrive—like tutoring, mentoring, social-emotional support, and community resources like food, healthcare, and housing.
Gracie and her co-author—Cornell Professor, Opportunity Insights principal, and EdRedesign research affiliate Benjamin Goldman—explored the impact of that support. In particular, they examined if it was a cost-effective way to fuel students’ economic mobility. They zoned in on CIS’ efforts in Texas, where the nonprofit reaches 847,000 students and provides direct case management to around 124,000.
“I think many of you in this room could trace back your trajectory to caring adults, to individuals who helped you along the way, to reach where you are now."
The power of caring adults
Watson explained to the audience why he thinks CIS’ place-based, relationship-based model is so powerful.
“I think many of you in this room could trace back your trajectory to caring adults, to individuals who helped you along the way, to reach where you are now,” he said.
“Unfortunately, especially post-COVID, a lot of young people feel isolated and don’t have necessarily a caring adult [who can] make sure that they are known, seen, heard, and supported,” added Jackson.
CIS connects young people with those caring adult “navigators.” The navigators work most closely with the roughly 20% of a school’s students with the highest needs—those who are frequently absent, who are struggling academically, and who are projected as less likely to graduate high school. These students are also projected to make less money as adults—roughly $16,000 yearly, compared to $34,000 for other students at their school.
"Unfortunately, especially post-COVID, a lot of young people feel isolated and don’t have necessarily a caring adult [who can] make sure that they are known, seen, heard, and supported."
Increased test scores and projected earnings
Gracie and her team compared the academic and economic outcomes of these higher-needs students to the outcomes of students at the same school who face lower risks.
They found the students facing more risks and challenges improved their standardized test scores by 10%—growth “essentially in line with other celebrated interventions, like shrinking class sizes or hiring high-quality teachers,” Gracie said. These students’ graduation rates improved by 3 percentage points as well.
She and her team compared the projected earnings of students in high-poverty schools with and without CIS’ supports. They looked at whether those projected earnings shifted once CIS arrived.
“Prior to when CIS programs begin in other schools, outcomes are generally trending down, getting worse year over year,” Gracie explained. “After the program begins, we see that the trend entirely reverses and outcomes start to improve. Students who got access to the program see substantial improvements in their earnings.”
The researchers estimate students with CIS’ supports for three years increase their earnings by about $1,100 each year, thanks to their higher graduation rates and likelihood of landing more stable, better-paying jobs. That becomes a $36,000 increase in lifetime earnings (in present-day value).
A wise investment
This intervention can change students’ lives. It may also change policymakers’ decisions. Gracie and her team estimate that the increased federal tax revenue from students with CIS supports add up to roughly $7,000 per child. The cost of CIS, per student, is roughly $3,000. That’s a significant difference, and one that might be convincing for governments looking to invest in their young people’s economic future.
“CIS, from the government’s perspective, might be better than cost neutral,” said Grace. “It might be cost-positive, which is relevant for policy discussions going forward.”
Jackson felt these types of proof points could drive government leaders to invest in young people.
“We think of potholes and we think of streets and public safety, but all of this is related—because when young people and families can thrive, then all of those things get solved for,” she said.
And she asks leaders to consider not just the risk of investing, but the risk of failing to.
“We know that this is time-intensive, and we think about the expense,” of investing in personalized supports, she says. “But we have to ask ourselves, what is the cost if we don’t?”
And for Saldaña, this question links communities all over the country, across lines of politics and geography.
“What everybody agrees to—whether I’m in, you know, Appalachia, or I’m in Seattle, Washington, or Chicago—is that walking the path as a young person is difficult. And each one of us falls,” he says. “The question is, do we have a safety net? And do we have a community of supports behind us when we do fall?”
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Photo by Communities In Schools