What do schools do to address barriers to learning?
Almost all schools flirt with some forms of preventive and corrective activity focused on learning problems, substance abuse, violence, teen pregnancy, school dropouts, delinquency, and so forth. A few programs are offered in all schools in a district; others are carried out at or linked to targeted schools. Programs may be offered to all students in a school or only to those in specified grades or identified as “at risk” and/or in need of compensatory or special education. Few schools, however, come close to having enough resources to address barriers to learning in a comprehensive way — especially when a large proportion of their students are affected. The fact is that activity to support and enable learning is marginalized at most schools and is implemented in a fragmented and piecemeal manner. This contributes to poorly conceived and designed programs and unsatisfactory results. In recent years, there has been increasing interest in school-community collaborations as one way to pr
