Comer Assails "Winner-Loser" Approach to Education

Summer 1997, Volume 18, Number 2

James Comer

Noted educational reformer James Comer delivered this pointed message at an April 23 lecture at Northwestern. He urged a packed audience of more than 200 academics, teachers, and administrators to "create a school system that will prepare low-income children for the real world." The lecture was jointly sponsored by the Institute for Policy Research and the School of Education and Social Policy as part of their 1997 distinguished public lecture series.

"It is very late in the day," warned Comer, who believes "the year 2000 may be a psychological watershed for education."

James Comer addresses audience.

Comer is the Maurice Falk Professor of Psychiatry at the Yale Child Study Center and an associate dean of the Yale Medical School. He is best known as the creator of an innovative School Development Program, which has been adopted by more than 600 elementary and middle schools in 21 states and the District of Columbia.

Drawing frequently on his own life experiences, the soft-spoken child psychiatrist took both title and substance for his talk from his forthcoming book, Waiting for a Miracle: Why Schools Can't Solve Our ProblemsAnd How We Can.

"The problem in our society is the deep-seated cultural belief that outcomes in life are determined by intelligence and will," Comer said. In this winner-loser equation, he thinks educators too often ignore low-income children's limited opportunities to develop and participate in "the opportunity structure of society."

Calling for schools that cater to students' "real needs," Comer stressed that "pouring bits and pieces of information into the head of a child will not work...We cannot assume that the communities these low-income children are growing up in now will provide the natural socialization and preparation that will enable them to participate in the mainstream of society."

For nearly 30 years, Comer has attempted to improve these children's life chances by applying principles of child development to dysfunctional innercity schools. Developed at the Yale Child Study Center, the Comer Program seeks to improve a school's climate for learning by creating an atmosphere of cooperation and mutual trust. It stresses teamwork among parents, teachers, administrators, and support staff in both planning and managing school activities, with special attention to the developmental and behavioral needs of students.

School of Education and Social Policy alumna Vinita Ricks (R) makes her point. Comer school facilitator Della Allford looks on.

In his talk, Comer asserted that there is "no cheap easy fix" for a decentralized educational systemwith some 15,000 systems nationwide that has been turned over to people who are not prepared to manage or teach. He stressed the importance of improving administrator and teacher training, including a sound grounding in child development, and the need to weed out teachers with bad attitudes toward slower children.

"People who don't like children, and who can't work with children, need to be selected out of education so they can do something else," he said.

Graduate schools of education are woefully deficient in offering child development courses, said Comer. He suggested they recast themselves as "Schools of Child Development and Education," and concentrate on a whole spectrum of development issues, not just early childhood.

Among his ideas for retraining practitioners, Comer advocated professional development schools that bring young people out into the real world, making connections between schools and the university like those between hospitals and medical schools. Similarly, educational extension services, modeled after those for agriculture, could offer retooling for practitioners. And school administrators might benefit from academies that offer the kind of rigorous training -and-retraining methods perfected by the U.S.military.

IPR director Fay Lomax Cook, who led the question and answer session, congratulates Comer on his lecture.

Comer thinks all this will help create a new kind of school--a full-service school--"that will generate a new culture, a win-win culture."

In his talk, Comer cited evidence from New Haven, Connecticut, that the School Development Program has been successful in improving both the educational and social achievement of children.

An IPR team of researchers, led by Thomas Cook (IPR-Sociology), Charles Payne (IPR-African-American Studies) and Diana Slaughter-Defoe (IPR-Education and Social Policy), are currently analyzing results from a comprehensive evaluation of the Comer Program in K-8 schools in Chicago. Cook is also evaluating results from schools in Prince George's County, Maryland.

 

IPR Home | Calendar | News | Events | Publications | People | Research Programs and Centers Northwestern Home | Disclaimer | University Policies | Contact Us Institute for Policy Research • 2040 Sheridan Road • Evanston, IL, 60208-4100 T: 847-491-3395 • F: 847-491-9916 • ipr@northwestern.edu Last updated 11/29/2011