Opportunities for Supporting Social-Emotional Learning in the Era of ESSA
By Lisa Yu
In the past few decades, social-emotional health has been increasingly acknowledged as a top priority. Some organizations have put forward frameworks that outline tenets for taking a whole child approach.
Since 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has drawn increased attention to children’s social-emotional wellbeing and especially for those most at risk. Along with this growing interest, many states have responded to the calls to adopt standards for social-emotional learning (SEL) at the K-12 level.
In 2018, New York released its SEL benchmarks across K-12 settings and a framework explaining SEL concepts and the need for SEL in school activities and teaching practices.
This shift from emphasizing short-term academic achievement to long-term development including social emotional development has also impacted policymaking at the federal level.
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) signed in 2015, for example, provided valuable opportunities for a refocusing on SEL, and many states have prioritized SEL in their accountability systems as well as their attention to school-community partnership.
What Are Social-Emotional Core Competencies and Why Are They Important?
According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), social-emotional competencies are reflected in five areas that are essential for a person’s learning and development. Those five areas are self-awareness, self-management skills, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making abilities.
Through the development of these core competencies, children and youth will be able to apply knowledge, skills, and attitudes to understand and manage emotions, develop healthy identities, and cultivate supportive relationships with others. Those competencies are related to Emotional Intelligence and are part of what others term 21st century skills — all critical to being a successful student, worker, and citizen.
For school-aged children, social-emotional abilities are often correlated with better academic performance, positive social behaviors, and healthy social relationships. Meanwhile, children with social emotional supports are less likely to have behavioral issues and psychological distress. To prepare students to achieve lifelong success, educational researchers and leaders have recommended incorporating SEL in the latest reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESSA).
What ESSA Says About SEL
ESSA offers funding opportunities for districts and schools to incorporate social-emotional programs and take on SEL initiatives. Three funding streams support focused efforts on SEL including: school improvement (Title I), professional development (Title II), and 21st century schools (Title IV).
Title I: Improving the Academic Achievement of the Disadvantaged
The first area where SEL can be incorporated is in relation to the new school accountability and improvement system. Compared with No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the new system requires states to evaluate school capacity beyond test scores and graduate rates. ESSA encourages states to add non-academic indicators to these criteria such as postsecondary readiness and school climate and safety. In New York state, chronic absenteeism and student college, career, and civic engagement are the two major SEL-related indicators.
Title II: Preparing, Training, and Recruiting High-Quality Teachers, Principals, and Other School Leaders
ESSA also provides Title II funds for districts and schools to “improve the quality and effectiveness of teachers, principals, and other school leaders” as a way to promote student growth. These resources offer opportunities to engage school personnel in SEL-related professional development for a variety of topics such as peer relationships, drug and violence prevention, and chronic absenteeism. New York’s ESSA plan, for example, requires districts and schools to provide “school staff with capacity-building guidance, strategies, and best-practice resources in social-emotional wellness and in supporting the social-emotional needs of marginalized students.”
Title IV: 21st-Century Schools
Another source of funds in ESSA that can be used to support SEL is Title IV—the development of 21st century schools. ESSA specifies that districts and schools must use a portion of Title IV funds to “provide all students with access to a well-rounded education.” Those supports include access to mental health services providers and opportunities to engage in out of school activities. This allocation also gives schools flexibility to partner with community-based organizations to work on youth development and parent engagement as it outlines the importance of family-school-community partnerships explicitly in Part B and Part E.
In the next blog of this SEL series, we will take a closer look at the New York State ESSA plan and explore how it incorporates SEL in school programs and practices with examples of how SEL is approached in NYKids positive outlier schools.
Some useful resources on SEL include:
How are States Incorporating SEL into their ESSA Frameworks?
Encouraging Social and Emotional Learning in the Context of New Accountability
Social and Emotional Learning in State Strategic Plans: Examples and Opportunities
Stay tuned for more resources and information on this topic on NYKids’ News and Resources pages.
