Health and Social Services in Public Schools: Historical Perspectives

Abstract

There is a long history in United States of providing noneducational services to in a school setting. Initially, as part of social reform efforts early in this century, health services were provided primarily by public health doctors and dentists who volunteered their services. Groups such as philanthropic women's clubs provided breakfasts or lunches, vacation schools, and playgrounds. In urban slums, settlement houses pioneered new forms of school-linked social work and vocational guidance. A primary goal of earliest efforts to provide health and social services at schools was to help immigrant cope with poverty and assimilate into dominant culture. As health and social services became embedded in schools, services became more school-centered and less family-oriented, focusing on improving school attendance, for instance. The number of noneducational staff and ratio of these staff to pupils has increased markedly in past 40 years. Some communities, however-primarily poorer ones--have often suffered cutbacks in such staff during budget crises. As in past, ultimate goal of today's renewed efforts to provide school-linked health and social services is to make students productive members of society. Current reform proposals build either on a nation-at-risk model, with goal of improved academic performance and international competitiveness, or a children-at-risk model, with goal of meeting health and social needs of currently underserved children. The author contends that urban school reform should based on second model, incorporating lessons from past. he time has come for a new conception of responsibilities of school, reformer writes. The lives of youth in cities are desperate, parents bring up their in surroundings which make them in large numbers vicious and criminally dangerous, and some agency must take charge of the entire problem of child life and master it. It is clear who should do so: If school does not assume this responsibility, how shall work done?I An urban superintendent agrees: The school should serve as a clearinghouse for children's activities so that all child welfare agencies may working simultaneously and efficiently, thus creating a child world within city wherein all may have a wholesome environment all of day and every day. 2 A sociologist echoes this idea: All agencies dealing with neglected or behavior-problem children should be closely David Tyack, Ph.D., is Vida Jacks professor of education and a professor of history at Stanford University. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.215 on Wed, 31 Aug 2016 05:10:57 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 20 THE FUTURE OF CHILDREN SPRING 1992 Night School in West Side Lodging-House, circa 1891, New York City. The house was run for homeless, working boys by The Children's Aid Society. (From The Children of Poor, by Jacob A. Riis, 1892.)