Event Description
Broader, Bolder, Better: How Schools and Communities Help Students Overcome the Disadvantages of Poverty: A Conversation with Elaine Weiss
Presented by Drexel University School of Education’s Education Policy program
In this presentation, author Elaine Weiss, of the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education campaign, along with her co-author Paul Reville, a professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, make a compelling case for a fundamental change in the way we view education. Weiss argues for a large-scale expansion of community-school partnerships in order to provide holistic, integrated student supports (ISS) from cradle to career, including traditional wraparound services like health, mental health, nutrition, and family supports, as well as expanded access to opportunities such as early childhood education, afterschool activities, and summer enrichment programs.
The book builds on nearly a decade of research by the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education, a national initiative endorsed by more than sixty policy experts and leaders from across the country, and draws on the work of Harvard’s Education Redesign Lab. It pulls from case studies of effective ISS efforts in twelve diverse communities to illustrate the variety of strategies that can be adopted locally.
The conversation with Ms. Weiss will be moderated by Drexel University Associate Clinical Professor and Education Policy Director Bruce Levine, JD.
About the presenter
Elaine Weiss is the Lead Policy Analyst for income security at the National Academy of Social Insurance, where she spearheads projects on Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, and Workers’ Compensation. Prior to her work at the Academy, Weiss was the National Coordinator for the Broader Bolder Approach to Education from 2011-2017, where she worked with four co-chairs, a high-level Advisory Board, and multiple coalition partners to promote a comprehensive, evidence-based set of policies to allow all children to thrive in school and life. Major publications for BBA, a campaign launched by the Economic Policy Institute, include case studies of diverse communities across the country that employ comprehensive, whole-child approaches to education. These case studies are the basis for a book Weiss authored with former Massachusetts Secretary of State Paul Reville for the Harvard Education Press, Broader, Bolder, Better, which was published in June 2019.
Weiss has authored a series of 2019 papers with EPI economist Emma Garcia on the drivers of teacher shortages. Earlier publications include major 2013 reports on how Market-Oriented Education Reforms’ Rhetoric Trumps Reality, and Mismatches in Race to the Top Limit Educational Improvement. In 2014, Elaine worked with multiple educators to author a series of commentaries for Bill Moyers on the many links between poverty and education. She has also authored dozens of blogs for the Huffington Post, Washington Post Answer Sheet, TalkPoverty, the Nation, and other publications, and been interviewed for numerous radio shows, including Jesse Jackson’s Keep Hope Alive show and National Public Radio’s The Diane Rehm Show and A1 with Joshua Johnson
Elaine came to BBA from the Pew Charitable Trusts, where she served as project manager for Pew’s Partnership for America’s Economic Success campaign. In that capacity, she collaborated with high-profile researchers to assemble a body of evidence on the economic benefits of public investments in early childhood education and other supports and with state partners to engage business leaders to promote effective early childhood programs. Dr. Weiss was a member of a Center for Disease Control task force on child abuse and served as volunteer counsel for clients at the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless. She has a PhD. in public policy from the George Washington University Trachtenberg School, a JD from the Harvard Law School, and a BA and BS from the University of Maryland, College Park. She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland with her husband and two daughters, both students in Montgomery County public schools.
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