ASCD continually seeks to provide solutions to the challenges that face educators of all levels. Recently theASCD SmartBrief ED Pulse poll asked about the important topic of school climate.
A new report on school climate (PDF) discusses creating a holistic framework for education reform, with school climate as the center. The report states that "[s]chool climate—the totality of factors that affect a learning environment—is talked about much less often ... despite research showing that a school's climate, whether positive, negative, or somewhere in between, is connected to the level of students' engagement in their course work and, consequently, to student success."These ASCD SmartBrief readers felt that the primary goal of improving school climate is to create a climate conducive to teaching and learning (79 percent). Following this, far fewer mentioned that they desired an improvement in school climate to foster social and emotional learning (13 percent). The other reasons were selected as the primary goal far less often. These were to
- Make students and staff feel safe (5 percent)
- Ensure students are well-behaved (2 percent)
- See that bullying rarely occurs (1 percent)
This survey question was included in ASCD SmartBrief, a free daily e-mail news service that provides summaries and links to major education
