Re-imagining the Means to Provide Our Children with the Tools of Information and Education

Abstract

Recently I was ensconced with others from the Pennsylvania Governor's Commission for College and Career Success in an Alexandria, Virginia, retreat, and the data we received were sour. Our host was Achieve, www.achieve.org, a twenty-two-state nonprofit coalition of state government, business, and education leaders concerned about what they see as inadequate preparation of American youth for postsecondary education, work, and citizenship. Achieve staff and colleagues from Education Trust, www2.edtrust.org/edtrust, reported that among ninth-grade students in the United States, 32 percent will not complete high school; 40 percent will enter college, but only 27 percent will enter their post-secondary sophomore class; and only 18 percent of the ninth-grade class will earn a college degree. The working hypothesis is that America's K-12 students are not adequately prepared for college or career success. No argument here. The data highlight educational failure. They also suggest deep strains of inequality. Nearly 80 percent of whites will graduate from high school, but only 50 percent of Latino and African American youth will receive secondary school diplomas. Extended through higher education, the gap widens. Only six out of 100 Latino youth entering American kindergartens will complete a four-year college degree. For every one hundred African Americans entering kindergarten, only sixteen will earn a bachelor's degree. Racial inequality is not the only driving force. Family income is a powerful predictor of educational resources beyond reach. Regardless of race, by age 24 nearly half of all young people from high-income families have graduated from college. The number of individuals earning college degrees plummets to seven for every 100 young people from low-income families. By the end of the presentation, we could feel the rush of air currents generated by the force of heads shaking in disbelief. Among those who complete high school and enter a two- or four-year college, nearly one-third will need at least one remedial writing, reading, or math course. Among two- and four-year college students, 76 percent who need remedial reading courses and 68 percent who need remedial math courses will not complete their degrees. But what about the commitment that no child will be left behind? The American high school graduation rate is lower now than it was in 1982. The press in many states have reported significant reading improvements, but the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, www.edexcellence.net/foundation/global/index.cfm, found that among twenty states claiming gains in the percentage of eighth graders scoring Proficient on state reading tests since 2003, only three states documented progress at even a Basic level when the U.S. Department of Education sponsored National Assessment of Educational Progress measures, www.nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard, were applied. Basic is at the bottom of the scale. Achieve leaders identified some implications, focusing primarily on the thesis that without a highly educated population, the United States cannot compete globally. While economics and standard of living salaries account for some of the American rush to outsource manufacturing, research, and information industries to other nations, the failure to keep up with-let alone lead-other nations in educational accomplishment is foreboding. Even at the college and university level, international students increasingly are turning to alternatives outside the United States. Also of importance, especially in light of the difference in educational outcomes between youth from high- and low-income families, there is a $2.5 million difference in earning potential between the educational haves-those with a college degree-and the educational have-nots. The current educational dynamic has all the earmarks of a closed loop. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, in his just published treatise, Active Liberty, provides another reason for concern that is particularly relevant to those who teach, study, and practice the scholarship and professions of communication. …