Guest Blog Post: A Moment in Time: Ready to Be Counted
This guest blog post comes from Rebecca Arnold, of Transforming Education.
We are in a moment where practice, policy, and
research have aligned to highlight the importance of developing and measuring students’
non-cognitive/social-emotional skills.
Survey data indicate that 88% of teachers are in schools that are
working to develop students’ social-emotional skills.
At the same time, under the newly enacted Every Student Succeeds Act, states must
include at least one indicator of school quality or student success in their
accountability and continuous improvement systems, which shows that the
definition of student and school success has broadened. Moreover, a compelling longitudinal research
base now shows that non-cognitive/social-emotional skills are critical for students’
academic, career, and life outcomes.
Our organization, Transforming
Education
(TransformEd), supports educators and education systems to develop and
measure students’ non-cognitive skills. In order to contribute to the knowledge
base in the field regarding the impact of non-cognitive skills on academics,
career, and life outcomes, we recently issued a paper entitled, “Ready
to be Counted: The Research Case for Education Policy Action on Non-Cognitive
Skills.”
The paper synthesizes multiple longitudinal and
well-controlled studies that have demonstrated that non-cognitive competencies
in childhood are important predictors of long-term outcomes, including high
school and college completion, employability, earnings, financial stability,
avoidance of criminality, and physical and mental health. In several cases, the data show that these
non-cognitive skills matter as much as or
even more than cognitive or academic skills in predicting positive life
outcomes. Below is a sample of the key
findings in the paper, which are from the landmark Dunedin Study.
- Academics: Even
at the first major milestone in academic attainment—completing high
school—differences among Dunedin Study subjects were large. While about 95% of
the top quintile in self-control earned a high school diploma, little more than
half (58%) of those from the lowest quintile did so.
- Career: The level
of childhood self-control was also powerfully predictive of socioeconomic
status, income, and financial stability in adulthood. For example, while 10% of
the high-self-control group was categorized as “low income” (below ~$15,000 US
per year) at age 32, more than three times as many (32%) of the
low-self-control group had low incomes.
- Well-being: Children in the lowest quintile of self-control were 2.5 times more likely (27%
versus 11%) to suffer from multiple health problems by their 30s. Low
self-control also strongly predicted recurrent depression and substance abuse.
By age 32, almost half (43%) of those in the lowest quintile of self-control
had been convicted of a crime, while barely more than one in 10 (13%) of those
in the top quintile were convicted criminals.
Supporting Districts to
Take Action on this Compelling Research
TransformEd is the lead strategic advisor on social-emotional
learning to the CORE Districts – a group of school districts that serve more than one million
students in 1,500 schools across California. Six of the CORE Districts chose to
act on the research showing the importance of students’ social-emotional skills
by systematically measuring these skills alongside academic outcomes and
school climate/culture in their federally approved accountability and
continuous improvement system.
In partnership with the CORE Districts, TransformEd has
administered common measures of four social-emotional competencies (growth
mindset, self-management, self-efficacy, and social awareness) through a field
test with nearly 500,000 students. The ultimate goal of this effort is to
provide educators with the data they need to make informed choices in
systematically adopting scalable, evidence-based approaches to develop
students’ social-emotional competencies.
The data from this field test shows that these skills are statistically significantly predictive of
students’ GPA, test scores, attendance, and suspension rates. We will be issuing a policy paper
highlighting these findings in more detail in spring 2016, as well as releasing
open source social-emotional measures, so follow us on Twitter (@Transforming_Ed) to ensure that you receive the announcements.
For more information
- Read the full “Ready
to Be Counted” paper to learn more about the impact of
social-emotional skills.
- Subscribe to our weekly newsletter,
which curates social-emotional research, practice, and popular press
articles. Check out our website, which includes resources for educators on
strategies to develop students’ social-emotional skills.
Sources
Bridgeland, Bruce & Hariharan (2013) The Missing Piece: A National Teacher Survey on How Social and Emotional Learning Can Empower Children and Transform Schools.
Moffitt, T. E., Arseneault, L., Belsky, D., Dickson, N., Hancox, R. J., Harrington, H., Houts, R., Poulton, R., Roberts, B. W., Ross, S., Sears, M. R., Thomson, W. M.,& Caspi, A. (2011). A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(7), 2693–2698.