Will students learn what they need to know for college and careers? While supporters say it increases test scores, less time is spent on teaching subject matter. How do we adequately measure behavior? Whose standards are the right standards? Words like “aligning” behavior to standards sounds creepy. We have always argued that poor children need what wealthy schools have in order to learn best. Most children come to school willing, if not eager, to learn.

Could SEL be training children to be future obedient workers? The same message about fixing the economy is involved with the SEL conversation. SEL caters to private companies that promote unproven SEL programs which can be costly for a school district. What if they addressed crumbling infrastructure, lacking resources, spoke out against high-stakes testing, fully funding special education? How about a curriculum with subject variety including the arts? Here’s Allstate, as an example, pouring $45 million into SEL. More counselors and school nurses would be nice. There’s no mention of lowering class sizes and adding play and recess. Most agree that students should be respectful, kind, and demonstrate good citizenship. Character education has always been controversial because it leans politically right or left, always leaving some parents unsatisfied.

Many of these groups also want to privatize public education: Chiefs for Change, Bose Washington Partners, Center for Innovation in Education, Council of Chief State School Officers, Civic Enterprises, Education Counsel, Learning Policy Institute, National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development, National Association of State Boards of Education, Pure Edge, Inc., Raikes Foundation, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Organizing a school around social-emotional learning raises questions about the meaning of education, teaching and learning. It’s creating a school climate where students have their behavior scrutinized like never before. It’s whole-school systematic change from teaching academics to focusing on students and personality formation.īooks and online programs galore are being written about SEL and school transformation. It could mean many things, restorative justice, meditation, anti-bullying programs, and much more.īut SEL is not just an add-on program. Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) is being pushed into public schools.

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