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Originally appears in the Winter 2018 issue.

Perhaps more than any other factor, existing school, district, state, and federal education policies hinder the adoption of environmental education in the classroom. While teachers have a good deal of latitude as to what content they teach in a particular course, the overall school curriculum, as well as the standards for specific courses, are in the United States largely set by state, district, and, to a lesser extent, federal policies.

As a result, policy change offers the potential for tremendous impact. a major leverage point in changing how a system operates is to change the rules of that system, and the rules of a system are often embedded in the system’s policies. School systems institutionalize change by embedding that change in their policies, for example by integrating environmental education into the policies related to graduation requirements, learning standards and curriculum, building standards, and budgets. Policy change is one of the few ways to effectively address the problem of scaling —the difficulty faced by so many effective environmental education and green school programs for significantly expanding their reach and audience.

In the U.S., the most influential education policy is set at the level of the individual school or district. State education policies are the next most influential. Least influential is federal education policy; indeed, the U.S. Department of Education feels that they are not allowed to mandate anything having to do with curriculum and subject matter, for example. That said, the U.S. Department of Education is the single largest and influential education entity in the country; if one can work within their constraints, creatively engaging them can make significant impacts on the nation’s classrooms in other ways than mandates.

The following story illustrates how the green school community can engage policy makers and education authorities in making change that in turn will benefit the entire community, much like how “a rising tide lifts all boats.” While this particular change took place primarily at the federal level in the United States, it had impacts on state and district policy and behavior. A similar process could be employed in other countries for changes at the national level, or directly aimed at the state, provincial, and/or district levels.

In 2005, I established the Campaign for Environmental Literacy (CEL) in partnership with a small group of private funders dedicated to environmental education. Our hope was to find a solution to the policy and advocacy gap — the lack of coordinated support for federal and state environmental and sustainability education programs. Indeed, CEL helped secure several legislative and appropriations successes, which restored and increased millions of dollars in funding for federal environmental education programs each year. However, by 2010, it became clear that new funding from Congress for environmental education (or just about anything else) had become almost impossible to obtain. At the same time, passing new legislation to further these programs had become equally challenging due to Congressional gridlock. What to do?

The Obama Administration itself offered one ray of hope. The Administration clearly had both education and environmental aspirations — but it was not as clear that they were connecting the dots between the two. And even if the dots were connected, what could the Campaign ask them to do in the absence of legislative opportunities?
Sitting in my home office over the garage one evening, I was thumbing through the 1,600 pages of the federal No Child Left Behind Act looking for a crack in the door, and there it was: “The Secretary is authorized to support…identification and recognition of exemplary schools and programs, such as Blue Ribbon Schools…” Bingo! The Blue Ribbon award is granted to some 350 schools across the U.S. each year for academic excellence. If the federal Secretary of Education was authorized to grant Blue Ribbon awards to schools, why couldn’t he/she also offer a green ribbon award?

Such an award could be a significant boon to the growing K-12 Green School movement, which had taken off over the previous decade. For example, nearly 10% of all K-12 schools throughout the nation self-identify as “green schools.” Yet no standards, benchmarks, or widespread agreement existed for exactly what the movement is trying to accomplish — or even agreement on what actually is a green school. As a result, the movement has been falling short of its potential.

First Steps
Our first step was to initiate a petition calling on the U.S. Department of Education to create the Green Ribbon Award program. I needed help to pull this off, and enlisted the Earth Day Network (EDN), National Wildlife Federation (NWF), and U.S. Green Building Council’s Center for Green Schools (USGBC) as an ad hoc steering group to shepherd this idea. We then convinced 80 national and state organizations to sign on to the petition, and began meeting with various federal agency officials to convince them of the merits of the idea. It took over two years, but the Department of Education finally agreed to lead the effort to create the program in collaboration with the Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Then a new hurdle presented itself: The Department of Education staff had zero expertise about green schools (or environmental education). So, with the help of NWF, USGBC and EDN, I spent much of the following year supporting Andrea Falken, the Department of Education staff member assigned to start up the program. During that time, we provided technical assistance with program design to both the Department and many of the states who choose each year to participate. Our steering group also recruited new state participants, and helped these states recruit the first round of schools to recruit applicants, which they then winnowed down into their nominees to be forwarded to the Department of Education. On September 23, 2011, the Secretary of Education, EPA Administrator, and Council on Environmental Quality Chair opened the pilot year with a press conference to announce that the new Green Ribbon Schools award program would recognize the highest-performing green schools in the nation.

Since the beginning, the U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools (the official name, or ED-GRS) has typically chosen 50-70 award winners from nominees provided by participating states. While the award does not include any federal funding, winners of the Green Ribbon award, much like Blue Ribbon winners, experience extensive national and local press coverage, re-energized staff and parents, enhanced community support, and increased application rates (private schools). They also gain business partners and other private financial assistance. Schools must be nominated by their state chief education officer and cannot apply directly to the U.S. Department of Education. Each state may nominate up to five schools. If a state wishes to nominate more than one public school, at least one must be a school with 40 percent or more of their students from a disadvantaged background. If a state wishes to nominate a fourth school, one of the four nominations must be a private school.

The Award’s Three Pillars
Modeled on the Department of Education’s prestigious Blue Ribbon Schools award, Green Ribbon recognizes K-12 public and private elementary, middle, and high schools across the nation who demonstrate the greatest combined achievement in the following three achievement “Pillars”:

  1. Reduced environmental impacts;
  2. Improved health and wellness of students and staff; and
  3. Increased environmental and sustainability literacy, incorporating STEM, civic skills, and green career pathways.

More Than an Award
At first glance, Green Ribbon seems to be just another award program, but dig a little deeper, and it becomes apparent that it is also more. Green Ribbon is an organizing framework for the green school movement which does three key things. It fosters collaboration between green building, healthy schools, and environmental and sustainability literacy communities at the federal, state, and school levels. It provides a comprehensive definition of a green school, involving buildings and operations, health, and learning. It also sets a high standard for what a green school means: 100% of graduates are environmentally literate; there is a “net positive” impact on student and staff health; and a “net zero” environmental impact.

Green Ribbon is also an educational program in its own right. The depth of the application process often provides a learning experience for the applicant school, and the application form provides an ongoing tool to record and benchmark progress.

Finally, Green Ribbon is a promotional vehicle for the green school community which has engaged federal government (Eight federal agencies have been involved.) in the green school movement for the very first time. It has engaged state departments of education (40 states have participated to date.), often in partnership with state departments of health and environment, in the green school movement, many for the first time. It has engaged an estimated 2,000+ schools to date in the program. Last but not least, it has engaged the public/press. (Approximately 400-500 national, state, and local press articles are generated about green schools each year when the winners are announced on Earth Day.)

Value Added
Green Ribbon is the first comprehensive green school initiative to come from the U.S. federal government — and the first time that the three main federal environmental and education agencies are working together. The very existence of the Green Ribbon award acts as a form of “permission” by the highest education authority in the land for students, staff, and teachers across the country who want to move their schools in a greener direction.

The three pillars lay out the framework for a comprehensive vision for what constitutes a green school (without mandating anything, since educational mandates can be politically controversial). Because the U.S. Department of Education — the biggest single player in the U.S. education system — has promoted the framework, it has subsequently been adopted by many of the 40 states who have participated in Green Ribbon as well as other green school organizations.

In addition to the intended impacts of Green Ribbon noted above, Green Ribbon continues to generate many unintended, positive consequences beyond those that were originally anticipated. For example, over 50% of the schools that have won the award are considered “resource-constrained” schools, thus helping dispel the myth that only rich schools can afford to become green. When asked how he managed to achieve the improvements that led to the award despite a lack of funds, a principal from one such school said that resource-constrained schools such as his were used to getting things done with no money, and “going green” was no different.

Several new programs have sprung up and modeled themselves after the U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools program such as Clean Memphis’s new Sustainable Schools Challenge (SSC). SSC is a local certification program that serves as a framework to encourage and recognize schools, administrators, teachers, and students who are actively working to create a more sustainable future. Although the program was created to ultimately align with the national Green Ribbon Schools program, the SSC meets schools where they are and provides a scaffolding method to the Federal program.

As another example of unexpected consequences was described by WKYT News, “Two years ago, high levels of radon were discovered at Locust Trace Agri-Science Center. The school was tested after it applied for green ribbon status. Radon testing is mandatory to achieve green ribbon status. The district had gone for years without testing radon levels because it wasn’t a requirement. After the higher levels of radon was discovered at Locust Trace, all 66 Fayette County Public Schools were tested in 2015. Twenty-two of the schools tested higher than the U.S. EPA residential recommended level of 4 picocuries per liter.” As a result, the Fayette County School Board invested $500,000 to bring these schools into compliance.

Subsequent Developments
Several states such as California have begun their own state-level Green Ribbon award program, which they have tied directly into the process for nominating schools for the federal award.

The Department of Education expanded the Green Ribbon award in 2013 to include awards for exemplary performance by school districts, and in 2015, it added higher education institutions. The Department has also created several additional related green school initiatives. After Green Ribbon, they launched the federal Green Strides program, which includes an ongoing monthly webinar series as well as a website with resources for all schools, districts, and postsecondary institutions that wish to move toward the Pillars of the award. They also now conduct the Green Strides Best Practices Tour, an annual visit to winning schools across the country by a delegation of high-level officials from ED, the school’s state department of education, members of the local School Board and District leadership, as well as local government and other dignitaries.

Beyond the expenses incurred by the Department of Education in running the program (the salaries and overhead of one-two FTE staff), the primary expense of developing and launching Green Ribbon has been my part-time engagement over the first three years of the initiative. The program is now completely self-sustaining from the perspective of the funder community, and has required no subsequent external or private funding since 2014 (other than funds raised by the Department related to the annual award ceremony).

Hailed by leaders of the green school movement as the most significant milestone in the movement’s recent history, Green Ribbon has unquestionably been a success. All the impacts associated with the program are occurring due to one relatively modest intervention in the mainstream education system. For those wanting to replicate its success in their own jurisdictions, the keys to this success were understanding the leverage points in the education system, understanding the incentives and constraints under which the decision-makers are operating, developing a good idea that addressed those incentives and constraints, and engaging a broad network of potential supporting organizations. None of this would have been possible without many players cooperating at many levels (the original funders, the initial NGO steering committee, the initial Federal agencies, the state agencies, and the schools themselves) to rally together around a good idea — and a little luck.

Award Criteria
Early on, it was decided that the award criteria should have the following attributes:

  1. Comprehensive — Include as many elements of both green school buildings, grounds, and operations, and environmental teaching and learning as possible.
  2. Set a high bar or standard for excellence, thus making the award a stretch that challenges all schools to do better.
  3. Outcome-based — This keeps the focus on the all-important end results, while allowing schools to choose their own ways of achieving progress towards these targets. We did not want the federal government to dictate every detail of how a school becomes a green school, but rather to set the outcomes for what a green school achieves or accomplishes. For example, it’s not enough to, say, have a green cleaning program in place. The Green Ribbon applicant needs to demonstrate that no toxics or other bad things are entering (or leaving) the school. This outcome-based award parameter was consistent with then-U.S. Department of Education Secretary Duncan’s philosophy of “tight on the ends, loose on the means.”

These award criteria then helped to shape the details of the three Pillars of the award program and their respective goals:

  1. Teaching and learning goal: 100% of the school’s graduates are environmentally or sustainability literate.
  2. Buildings, grounds, and operations goal: The school has a net zero environmental impact.
  3. Healthy students and staff goal: The school has net positive impact on students/staff health.

 

James L. Elder is the founder and Director of the Campaign for Environmental Literacy, and an expert on environmental and sustainability education policy, whose work focuses on strategically advancing these fields at the national and state levels. In 1980, Dr. Elder founded the School for Field Studies, building it over 17 years into the nation’s leading environmental field program for undergraduates and a pioneering model for sustainability education. He has served on the boards and committees of a dozen non-profits, most recently the Norcross Wildlife Foundation and Ocean River Institute. He has authored numerous book chapters and papers, and is the recipient of an honorary doctorate from Barry University as well as the National Wildlife Federation’s 2009 National Conservation Achievement Award. He lives in Manchester, Massachusetts.