Whole-child education models are those that expand the ambit of schools beyond a traditional academic focus. While a range of whole-child models have been explored since at least the Progressive Era, use of these models has expanded greatly over the past twenty years.

Because nearly all children in the United States attend public schools, it can be a tempting place to provide near-universal access to programs and resources. However, for various reasons, some families and educators are wary of a more expansive role for schools in children鈥檚 lives beyond academic training. In the Hoover Institution鈥檚 report 鈥�,鈥� I review several examples of whole-child reforms that have become popular over the past few decades: community schools, school based health centers, wraparound service models, and social emotional learning curricula. 

While some models have proven effective at shifting child outcomes in certain settings, none have yet been proven 鈥� at large scale, using high-quality causal research methods 鈥� to be a silver bullet that can overcome the challenges many children face today in terms of improving academic outcomes. Though they may have other positive impacts on their own, without related investment in academic reforms, they are unlikely to be the panacea for the low academic performance that plagues children in the United States. Thus, at the end of my brief, I close with recommendations for policymakers to think carefully about implementation of these models in their own contexts.

• Whole-child education models are becoming better known in the United States

• Their adoption in some public schools provides an opportunity to see which models contribute to academic success.

• However, they are a part of the topic of child welfare, not the entire picture.

In the past couple of decades, there has been a renewed interest in the idea that schools should expand their ambit to address a wider range of student needs around health and well-being. Often this is described as a focus on development of the 鈥渨hole child鈥� rather than just the academic aspects of child development.

Of course, promotion of a wider ambit for schools beyond the academic sphere is at least a century old, as is the debate about whether it is optimal. The intellectual leaders of the Progressive Era, in the nineteenth century, sought to bring a broader focus to education systems than the traditional academic one. This included various ways of engaging the whole child, some of which are similar to the models covered here, particularly the social and emotional learning curricula and community school models that have skyrocketed in popularity in the past several years.

Similarly, the roots of whole-child reforms that are focused on improving children鈥檚 physical health are deeply embedded in US education history. As early as 1850, states began requiring immunizations and sometimes hosted immunization clinics in schools, where there was easy direct access to children. Also, the beginning of what we now know as the standard school nurse model began in 1902 as a pilot program aiming to insert healthcare into schools in order to improve chronic absenteeism by managing easily treatable illnesses and focusing on prevention. Each of these foreshadowed the more recent creation and rapid expansion of school-based health centers, which insert healthcare providers directly into schools with the goal of improving academic and overall well-being.

Recent decades have seen a renewal in the popularity of whole-child models. To some extent, this renewed interest is partly a backlash to what many perceived as the laser focus of the No Child Left Behind era on student test score performance. The difficult periods of the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic also contributed to this shifted focus. The recent version of this movement has also been helped by increased emphasis on the complex relationships between education, health, housing, and other social dimensions across a range of academic disciplines and policy spheres.

This whole-child movement in schools has taken many forms, some of which I describe in more detail below. Across all its forms, the theory of change driving whole-child reform has two main parts. First, many students struggle academically because their basic needs are not met. Second, supporting these basic needs directly by bringing healthcare and/or social service resources into the school itself will overcome the access barriers that some children face, particularly poor children, thereby increasing their ability to thrive academically and socially.

To some extent, this theory of change pervades the entire US education system. Almost all districts in the country provide some form of nonacademic care to students through the school nurse, school counselors, or expanded offerings like universal vision screening programs. And many provide extracurricular activities or partner with community organizations in a variety of ways. What differentiates the whole-child models of reform here from the standard public school environment is the broader range of services provided and the depth of engagement between the school and community partners.

Intuitively, the first part of this theory of change makes some sense. How can a child learn if they suffer from an ongoing undiagnosed disease or disorder that prevents them from attending school regularly, concentrating in class, or participating fully in the community around them? How can a child learn if they feel isolated in a community, are surrounded by violence, and lack strong support inside and outside of school?

There is little direct causal evidence to support this theory of change, and there are plenty of anecdotes about children thriving despite incredibly challenging experiences during childhood. Yet a majority of parents would agree that children thrive most when their basic needs are met. However, as with all aspects of childrearing, there is debate about which 鈥渘eeds鈥� require fulfillment for children to thrive. Furthermore, there is debate about whether schools are the best provider of health and social services to support children.

For decades, people have debated whether schools are the most effective places to solve the deep-rooted societal problems, like poverty, that leave many children with their basic needs unmet. Some people see schools as the great equalizer, holding them uniquely responsible for the achievement and well-being of all students, regardless of their backgrounds or the social forces determining those backgrounds. Others argue that systemic poverty, isolation, violence, poor health, and other ills have such a strong role that schools cannot be responsible for overcoming them.

Because nearly all children in the United States attend public schools, it can be a useful place to provide nearly universal access to programs and resources. However, for various reasons, some families are wary of a more expansive role for schools in children鈥檚 lives beyond academic training. Some have concerns about the differences between their own values and beliefs and those promoted in the school environment, as is the case with the recent backlash among social emotional learning programs. Others have concerns about whether school employees have the bandwidth and expertise to provide an expansive range of high-quality care; instead, they suggest that a focus on academic knowledge would allow school employees, like teachers, to be more impactful. Still others distrust the push for schools to focus on issues beyond academics because of concerns about greater intrusion into the private lives of families.

In 鈥淎 Nation At Risk +40,鈥� I review several examples of whole-child reforms that have become popular over the past few decades. After describing the general framework of each, I explore research into each model鈥檚 effectiveness. Most have been described as effective by the literature, but this assertion is generally based on research that is largely theoretical, comprises mixed methods, or is conducted either at a small scale or without the types of carefully constructed comparison groups that are essential for determining causal impacts. I focus on summarizing the subset of this literature that meets the Tier 1 or Tier 2 standard of the US Department of Education for strong or moderate evidence of effectiveness from either an experimental or a quasiexperimental design study (What Works Clearinghouse 2020).

Further, since many areas of research have shown patterns of effective programs in small studies that have limited effectiveness when taken to scale, I place particular emphasis on the relatively few studies that have analyzed the effectiveness of programs with large numbers of students across multiple school settings. 

While some have proven effective at shifting child outcomes in certain settings, none have yet been proven at scale, using high-quality causal research methods, to be a silver bullet that can overcome the challenges many children face today. Importantly, when looked at in total and given the scale of the existing research, the lack of conclusive evidence of a clear positive causal effect of these reforms on children鈥檚 academic achievement casts doubt on the theory underlying these reforms. Though they may have other positive impacts, on their own and without attention to academic reforms they are unlikely to be the panacea for low academic performance that plagues children in the United States. 

Thus, at 鈥淎 Nation At Risk +40,鈥� I close with recommendations for policymakers to think carefully about implementation of these models in their own contexts. . 

Maria D. Fitzpatrick is a professor of economics and public policy in the Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell University. She is co-director of the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect, research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and an affiliate in the CESifo Research Network. Her research focuses on child and family policy, particularly education.聽

See the full Hoover Institution initiative: .

If you鈥檙e raising your child, hypothetically speaking, to be trilingual in Spanish, English, and ; play a musical instrument; make varsity track by their freshman year in high school; secure admission to a top-flight college; and publish a peer-reviewed article by graduation 鈥� you鈥檝e got a lot to worry about. And you鈥檙e all but guaranteeing that you鈥檙e going to feel terrible about yourself 鈥� and maybe about your kid. 

But that鈥檚 the sort of insight that鈥檚 appropriate to a time of relative normalcy, a time when families can count on some basic social stability and standard functioning of things. It鈥檚 not as helpful in a moment when families are coming off a punishing global health catastrophe in a country with worsening political dysfunction. 

Families in 2023 are juggling post-pandemic about their kids鈥� academic progress and their social and emotional well-being, health and safety. That鈥檚 more than most of us can carry with easy equanimity. 

Now, instead of worrying about the various projects we鈥檝e chosen for our parenting, we鈥檙e grinding ourselves just to get our kids back on some kind of recognizable track. As author Stephanie Malia Krauss puts it in her new book, , families are asking, 鈥淲ill the kids be ok? What do they need? What can I do?鈥�

I sat down with Krauss because I need answers to all three of those questions. 

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length. 

First of all, I have three kids, which makes five kids between us, right? 

Yes!

OK. So we know what we鈥檙e talking about. I鈥檒l put it plain: It鈥檚 a really, really hard time to be raising kids. I think we 鈥� individually and collectively 鈥� need to say that out loud until more people realize it. How are you doing now, as a human in this moment, as we dig out from the worst of the pandemic?

鈥嬧赌�Parenting is extremely tricky right now, I think in large part because our kids are facing an onslaught of challenges and stresses and pressures that are either historic, but now feel intensified, or are legitimately new. 

Right now, the livability and lovability of young people鈥檚 lives are more on the line than we have seen in recent history. There is a level of volatility and uncertainty that has been building over the past 20 years in the U.S. that we really saw come to a head during the pandemic 鈥� from global health issues, but also racial violence and economic recession. I would bring in increasingly extreme weather as another thing to think about. 

Young people are living in the midst of so much unpredictability and it just feels deeply insecure, and it feels like their lives are on the line. 

So how is this parenting experiment going? I鈥檓 trying to figure out ways to protect childhood while empowering my kids to be resourceful and skilled and capable in the world as it is and also giving them the kinds of resources and opportunities where it’s possible to thrive, including being able to thrive when times are really challenging. 

I think you’re right. It鈥檚 a combination of old pressures that we’re maybe only sort of now attending to more thoroughly or noticing even 鈥� and this feeling of new challenges with heightened stakes. It drives more attention to how systems do or don鈥檛 meet kids鈥� usual 鈥� and new, in these stressful times 鈥� needs, right?

That鈥檚 also a conflict in the parenting experiment: I’m constantly aware of when I am complicit in signing my kid up for something that was designed for him to be a part of, but not designed with his learning and well-being in mind. 

Some of this is simple. For example, as kids get older, they go to sleep later, and they need to sleep longer. When the school year comes around, I’m going to be waking my middle-schooler up every day at 5:30 a.m., when I know it’s bad for his brain and it’s bad for his body. He needs more sleep.

And he’s gonna struggle to go to bed at night when I know he really needs to sleep for his mental and physical health. And I’m going to do that every single morning, knowing that’s actually not good for him, but because it’s just a part of how he needs to go to school. So I think that there are so many moments like that, and you think, 鈥極h, in an ideal world, this is what you could do to support the development and the well-being of my kid.鈥�

So it鈥檚 about figuring out how to negotiate and live in that mess.

Is that where Whole Child, Whole Life came from? 

About 10 years ago, when my younger son was born, I left school leadership, where I had a number of questions about what young people actually need to be ready for the real world versus completing high school. So I go into national work, and soon realized that there are really smart people who are talking about these questions, they鈥檙e just not including a lot of people in the field.

So I decided to write a book as my love letter back to people raising and working with kids: Here’s what readiness really requires.

at the height of the pandemic, just right in the middle. I’m doing a pandemic book tour from my basement, talking to educators, counselors, parents, social workers, anyone. I鈥檓 talking all about how the future is changing, what young people need to be ready for the world as it is, what they need to be ready for the future.

But every single time, somebody would ask the same version of this question at the end: 鈥榃e really need to know what our kids need to be ready, but they are not well, and we are afraid that they could give up or burn out before they get to this future you’re talking about. What do our kids need to be well right now?鈥�

 I felt that question in the deepest parts of my bones. It was the question I was asking myself as a mom. So I put together this concept for what became Whole Child, Whole Life: 10 Ways to Help Kids Live, Learn, and Thrive. 

Any concrete tips for staying sane? 

Whole Child, Whole Life aims to explain what we need to know about young people鈥檚 physical, mental, cognitive, social, emotional, and even spiritual development. It tries to explain the practices that promote thriving, and why they matter, and puts it together in a way that is accessible and actionable. 

There’s a set of practices that make up the bulk of the book. These 10 practices we need to practice as adults for kids. And eventually, as they get older, we need to practice it with them.

Eventually, kids internalize these 10 practices as self-care strategies, which means we, the adults, need to practice these things, too. We need to build community and belonging. We need to nurture healthy relationships. We need to attend to our past and present circumstances 鈥� all the same practices apply to us that apply to them. 

When kids are with us, regardless of our title, we have a responsibility for them. They are in our care. And I tend to think about it as like: What is lifesaving? What is life extending and what is life giving for kids? What are my responsibilities at this particular moment? 

Our kids are growing up in so many situations where danger is implicit. Imagine being a child, showing up to school every single day knowing that you might get shot, or you might get Covid and pass it to somebody vulnerable, like your grandmother, who lives in your house. And yet you just keep doing that every day and it’s normalized. It’s a part of what today鈥檚 kids are incorporating into their childhoods. So we have to think of the lifesaving techniques that kids need now.

And then there are the big questions that I think young people grapple with from a practical level all the way to an existential level. Am I going to live a long life? Is there a future for me? Can I even imagine what this world is going to look like? Are we all going to make it? Am I going to make it? Is my family going to make it?

How do we support them with life-extending techniques that help them imagine a long life and a good life. What do they need to imagine and secure that?

And then the life-giving pieces: How do we make sure that kids can actually enjoy their childhoods without constantly feeling like they’re at risk of something bad happening? A lot of them go through life with just a real and pending sense of doom that has been brought on by their lived experience and is totally reasonable to me. 

What does it look like for us structurally and systemically to help kids get back to well? 

First, we should do a very honest appraisal of what the risks and realities truly are for our kids so that we understand. We can then get about the business of figuring out: OK, so then what? Then what will it take for them to learn, to grow, to thrive? And what does that require then, of me, perhaps that I may not have been prepared to do before? 

But we also have to look bigger. Our kids have the potential to live longer than anybody else with the right resources and opportunities. Science has advanced enough that we can keep people alive for a much longer time. Some people are projecting that our kids, as an expectation rather than an exception, could live a 100-year life. 

Put that in the context of work. You and I were raised in a generation where hustle culture and putting in the hours and putting in the work was a matter of pride. It was what you did. But the idea of my children having to do that level of work over a 60- or 70- or even 80-year working life 鈥� that is not the life that I want for them, and I don’t think they could sustain it. 

When I think about the prospect, the possibility of my kids having a 100-plus year life and then I think about the likelihood that in that 100 years there will continue to be volatility and uncertainty, acceleration, innovation, change, AI, and other advances and disruptions, it changes my view about what is important and why. 

A first credential might matter less in the context of a longer life. We know that a degree is going to get you a better-paying job, that there are real economic benefits. But in the potential of a 100-year life, that is one step of many in a working journey.

What are some tangible ways we could refocus schools on children鈥檚 needs and development? 

One of the things that I was so hopeful about as I wrote the book was that there are these 10 timeless practices that will always, no matter what is happening, support the health and well-being of young people. We know that learning is highly social and emotional. and that when young people are well, not only are they healthy, happy and whole, but they’re better learners and one day, workers. 

In schools, we have all of these frameworks and prescriptive programs. We have tiered interventions. We have positive behavioral interventions and supports. We have discipline strategies, we have academic remediation. We have skills to prepare for the future. We have all of these pieces and requirements. 

But we don’t actually have explicit, named frameworks for the art and science of taking care of children and human development. Schools need policies and practices that explicitly name and prioritize child well-being and development. I would love to see our schools commit to the whole child with a whole life orientation. Imagine schools answering the question: How do we help young people build lives and futures that they love? 

We can focus on the everyday interactions that teachers and principals have full agency and decision-making power over. How are we building consideration of children鈥檚 development into the decisions that we’re making in the school culture, the commitments and the discipline decisions that we make? Our content and curricular choices? How are we setting up classroom learning? There are things like project-based learning and experiential learning that can light up all of the aspects of a kid鈥檚 well-being.

I would love for readers to look at Whole Child, Whole Life as kind of a sifter they can take their practices and policies through, and ask each time: What lights of well-being and thriving come on when we do this practice, when we implement this policy at home or at school? Is this helpful, or is this actually harmful to a young person’s well-being?鈥�