Child by Child: The Comer Process for Change in Education

In this new book, the editors from the best-selling volume Rallying the Whole Village (1996), move beyond theory to present powerful, day-to-day experiences of change in school communities. Community members, business leaders, school board members, superintendents, principals, teachers, and parents across the country share their experiences as they have tried to create school communities in which all adults help young people develop and learn.

Their indefatigable efforts are guided by their participation in the Yale School Development Program (SDP). A comprehensive program for systemic reform, the SDP provides the framework for organizing and operating schools effectively in order to promote students’ academic achievement and life success. This framework places students’ developmental needs at the center of all school decisions and establishes shared responsibility. In SDP school communities far more is expected of the students than just cognitive development.

The professional development activities described in this book will help prepare preservice and in-service teachers, administrators, and parents to do the kind of collaborative diagnostic and problem-solving work that has been so successful in transforming schools across the country.

James P. Comer, M.D., is the founder and chairman of the Yale School Development Program (SDP), Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry at the Yale Child Study Center, and associate dean of the Yale University School of Medicine. Michael Ben-Avie is an Associate Research Scientist at the Yale Child Study Center. Norris M. Haynes is Professor in the Counseling and School Psychology Department at Southern Connecticut State University. Edward T. Joyner is the Executive Director of the Yale School Development Program.