Commentary: Use of Evidence-Based Interventions in Schools: Where We've Been, Where We Are, and Where We Need to Go

Abstract

Schools have emerged as the great hope for diverse sectors of our society (e.g., legislators, policymakers, the business community, families, advocates, the general public, and so on) as providing solutions to the many social ills that plague our daily lives and threaten our future. From drug and sex education to citizenship training, many continue to view schools as performing surrogate parenthood roles that should produce youth who are well socialized, motivated to achieve, and who abide by accepted standards of rule governed behavior. These value-added outcomes are in addition to the development of literacy, which remains as the school system's primary mission. It seems clear, even to the casual observer of public schooling, that achievement of these lofty expectations is still well beyond the reach of most public schools. The pressures on school leaders and staff to better respond to the demands and expectations of these various stakeholder groups have been enormous. The school reform movement and the No Child Left Behind legislation reflect broad dissatisfaction and severe criticism of public schooling in this regard. Further, the U.S. mental health constituency has been vocal in documenting (a) the continuing unmet needs of students with mental health needs who are not served or are underserved by schools, and (b) educators' failure to access and use evidence-based intervention approaches for those students who are served. There has been considerable speculation as to why this is the case-most of which fails to take into account key features of the school culture, setting, and process as explanatory factors. Hoagwood and her associates have written extensively about this issue (see Burns & Hoagwood, 2002; Hoagwood, 2001; Rones & Hoagwood, 2002) and they cite the following facts and developments to buttress their case: (a) fully 1/5th of today's students meet the necessary diagnostic criteria for a recognized mental disorder, (b) 5% to 9% meet criteria for a severe emotional disturbance, (c) many such students are comorbid for more than one disorder thus further increasing their vulnerability and risk, (d) only about 16% of children and youth receive any services or treatment for their mental health problems and approximately 70% to 80% receive those services within school settings, and (e) schools typically do not access and implement proven or promising interventions and treatments that have a scientific evidence base in support of their effectiveness. The arguments of Hoagwood et al. raise contentious arguments about both the proper role of schooling in today's society and who is ultimately responsible for the existence and remediation of the dysfunctional school adjustment of the growing at-risk student population. The conservative perspective argues that schools are about the academic development of all students and should not be expected to address the mental health problems that students bring to the schooling process. A more progressive view points to the documented connections and interrelationships among academic, social, and mental health dimensions and argues that all should be addressed in an integrated fashion through the instrument of schooling. Regardless of one's perspective(s) on these arguments, there appears to be relatively little disagreement about whether schools can and should improve their performance in implementing evidence-based practices. There is a broad consensus that schools do not have a good record in accessing the available knowledge base on empirically validated interventions and adapting them for effective use within school settings. However, schools should not bear all the blame for this development because developers and advocates of effective practices have a shared responsibility with educators to create the awareness, conditions, incentives, and context(s) that will allow achievement of this important goal. The remainder of this commentary briefly addresses where schools have been, where they currently seem to be, and where they need to go regarding this issue. …