ABSTRACT
American education policies over the past three decades focused narrowly on academic achievement as measured by standardized test scores at the expense of other important goals in education such as socioemotional and physical development. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) gives states new opportunities to redesign educational accountability systems and incorporate non-academic measures. Moving to broad-based school accountability system 2.0 under ESSA calls for “whole community, whole child” approaches. While the U.S. school system is failing to meet the needs of many disadvantaged children and youth across the nation, there are substantial interstate variations. The states that have relatively stronger features of whole community—protective and nurturing family-school-neighborhood environment—would produce better results—more healthy, good, and smart students. Through secondary analyses of national education and health datasets, this study finds that adopting new statewide learning standards alone did not help improve whole-child development, particularly under the challenges of structural poverty and racial inequalities, but on the other hand, it finds evidence that supports well-coordinated government investment in education, health and human services which are crucial for improving whole community environment toward whole-child development. The study draws policy and research implications for improving education accountability and equity.
