WORDS FROM THE EXPERTS:
Aspen Institute Holds National Education Summit
Walter Isaacson, President and CEO of the Aspen Institute opened the National Education Summit recently by “using a call to action to work in a bi-partisan manner to raise public awareness of the educational challenges faced by our students, teachers, and school leaders. These challenges will likely affect our standard of living in America in the near future.”
“Addressing the challenge of ensuring that all young people are prepared for lives of opportunity and future success will take more than a clarion call and more than passing a law. It will require concerted effort by parents, educators, citizens, business leaders, legislators, and others in communities and states across the country.”
Nationwide Consensus Vital
By Richard W. Riley, former U. S. Secretary of Education (1993-2001)
During the past fifteen years, the nation has taken significant steps to improve education performance. The National Goals 2000 Act, along with the Improving America’s Schools Act (1994 ESEA reauthorization), helped move states down the path of establishing expectations for all students through the adoption of state standards that have resulted in improved achievement and a more clear understanding of what students are expected to learn. Importantly, this effort began the transformation of our public education system away from having high expectations for some and lower hopes for others based on family income and zip codes. The No Child Left Behind Act established strong accountability for results in improving student achievement. Importantly, the law also required consistent measures and clear reporting on the progress of all children—ensuring that large numbers did not continue to remain invisible in state accountability systems.
In each case, noteworthy progress has been marked by important moments when leaders from both parties have come together to produce solutions that move us forward. Every step forward leads to new knowledge, new understanding, and new solutions. Now we must leverage the fact that we have more and richer student performance data than ever before to power the next wave of effective education reform. Though our challenge is significant, we now know more than ever before about how well our children are faring and what needs to be done to improve performance. And, in our competitive, global economy, it is more critical than ever that we make education a top priority and that we succeed in improving performance.
Our nation’s future depends on more than just the quality of education provided to our own children. The future of our economy, as well as our competitiveness and security in the world, will depend on the ability of all of the nation’s children to succeed academically.
Parents Play Critical Role
By Bill Jackson, President, GreatSchools,
Parents have two critical roles to play in increasing student achievement. First, parents are a child’s first and foremost teachers. Parents, and only parents, can set the stage for their children’s success by providing unconditional love, establishing rules, and expressing high expectations. They are in the best position to model the personal qualities and learning habits they want their children to develop. And they have the power to help their children paint an attractive picture of their future and plan ahead to make it happen.
Second, parents have an enormous influence on the quality of schools. They decide what is “good enough” for their children and their community. They have the power to go into their schools and demand that they serve their community’s children well. Equipped with accurate and easily understandable information about their children’s and school’s achievement, they are well positioned to exert pressure and provide support for schools to improve.
Given these facts, I see two great opportunities to draw parents more deeply into the campaign to improve student achievement: First, let’s leverage technology and media to inspire and train parents to be more involved and more effective in supporting their children’s education. Second, let’s make school performance measures simpler and more compelling.
Every Child Must Graduate
By Bob Wise, President, Alliance for Excellent Education
All Americans—whether they have a direct connection with schools or not—have a personal stake in ensuring that every child becomes a high school graduate, prepared for success in college, the modern workplace, and life. Clearly, the students themselves suffer the most direct impact from dropping out of school, but the economy, social fabric, and security of the nation, states, and local communities are also affected.
Consider the 1.2 million students from the Class of 2008 who dropped out. Had those students graduated with their classmates, the nation’s economy would have benefited from an additional $319 billion in income over their lifetimes. Were the nation to cut its dropout rate in half, U.S. taxpayers could reap $45 billion annually. Indeed, in this time of declining stock markets, higher inflation, and rising unemployment, the best economic stimulus package for the economy is a high school diploma.
Already, the United States has started to slip in the international race to produce a workforce prepared for the demands of a global economy, falling from first in high school graduation rates to thirteenth. Ensuring that all secondary students are prepared to succeed in college and work is a giant step in the right direction. Not only because American students must achieve at increasingly higher levels to compete for good-paying jobs, but also because more high school graduates will benefit themselves and society for decades to come.#
