From 2017 to 2019, the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research and Ingenuity, a Chicago arts education advocacy organization, collaborated to examine the relationship between arts education and social-emotional development. Combining arts-specific research with multidisciplinary literature on child and adolescent development, the…

Health education offers a natural curricular home for important life skills and ways students can optimize physical, social, and emotional health. Although many schools have implemented social and emotional learning (SEL), health education provides a broader framework by encompassing the connections between physical and emotional health and the…

The road to achieving racial justice in the nation is marked by times of unspeakable tragedy followed by resilience and recovery and unexpected setbacks overcome by reinvention. As the nation emerges from a devastating and deadly pandemic, it stands again on the precipice of recovery and reinvention. Many school districts have returned to normal,…

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) refers to the process through which individuals learn and apply social, emotional, behavioral, and character skills required to succeed in schooling, the workplace, relationships, and citizenship. In public discussion of SEL, not everyone can quite agree on what it is. To some, it involves a set of tools for…

A number of states have taken steps toward promoting student wellness, with many of their state boards of education in the middle of the action. This article contains some examples of states leading on student wellness by addressing physical fitness, social and emotional learning (SEL), and mental health supports. The Every Student Succeeds Act…

The combination of verbal and nonverbal channels provided by the arts can offer valuable opportunities not only for students with language delays but also for English language learners. More generally, arts enrichment may help to bridge the gap that often separates home and school for children from racial and ethnic minority backgrounds. The arts…

The authors believe it is time to expand the term school climate to reflect an intention of giving all children access to positive school environments. Their expanded definition recognizes that equitable school climates are central to education equity, and it calls on educators and policymakers to deepen awareness of race, ethnicity, gender,…

California's CORE Districts--a consortium of eight school districts serving a racially and socioeconomically diverse population of over one million students--have since 2014 led the way in deploying measures of social and emotional learning (SEL) and school climate and culture. Influenced by surging interest and research support over the past…

While basic proficiency in mathematics, reading, and writing is essential, educators and parents alike would more likely list characteristics like perseverance, self-control, creativity, time management, leadership, conscientiousness, and being an effective collaborator when considering what is most important for success in school, work, and life.…

For much of the last two decades, the narrowed focus on raising test scores under No Child Left Behind left important aspects of education untended. Since 2016, when the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) enabled a more comprehensive look at accountability, state leaders have heard growing demands for a whole-child approach that emphasizes…

Recognizing the effects of trauma besetting many of their students, many states, districts, and schools are revamping approaches to making schools physically and psychologically safer. Many of the steps to establish safer, more supportive schools are aligned with those needed to create trauma-responsive schools. State boards of education are…