Photo courtesy of GreatEcology.com

It’s simple: A high-quality education for all children is the best long-term solution for poverty. As this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast points out, this is especially true in an age in which what you know trumps what you can do with your hands. One of the underlying causes of the nation’s current economic malaise is the 14 percent unemployment rate among high school dropouts aged 25 and older; this along with the high levels of unemployment among the 150 children dropping out from high school each hour, has led to a drag on economic growth that will continue to burden the nation and its poorest communities both economically (and through an expanded welfare state) decades into the future. Meanwhile the unemployment levels for high school grads with at least some college education is far lower.

In this Best of Dropout Nation from last June, Editor RiShawn Biddle further explains why ensuring that kids currently in school get high-quality teaching and curricula can help stem poverty. Read, listen to the Podcast, consider, and take action.

When it comes to the matter of the role of high-quality education in stemming poverty, the thoughtlessness on the subject is rather bipartisan. Bring in the question of whether every child should be given a rigorous, college preparatory education, along with the idea that every child should attain postsecondary education, and the mindlessness becomes astounding. This truism was proven once more this week amid the publication of Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce’s latest report on the need to increase the number of college-educated American children. From Deborah Meier’s latest anti-intellectual defense of the status quo (on a blog she shares with Diane Ravitch that should be called “Thoughtless Minds Think Alike”), to the meanderings of the usually more-thoughtful Neal McCluskey of the reform-minded Cato Institute, their general complaint is that there is no economic or social value for kids supposedly uninterested in college. And ultimately, that providing kids with college preparatory education (and encouraging them to attend college or some other form of higher education) is rather wrongheaded.

One can at least say that McCluskey is partly right about this: There isn’t necessarily any magic in attaining a degree, especially if one’s goal is to go into fields such as the Humanities, where the possibilities of attaining a decent-paying job is unlikely. But liberal arts, social science and history degrees only account for 15 percent of all baccalaureate degrees awarded in 2008-2009, according to the U.S. Department of Education; high-paying fields such as business, health-related fields, education, biological sciences, engineering and computer science account for half the baccalaureates earned by collegians. Let’s also be clear that there is plenty wrong with America’s higher education system. (I have noted some of those problems this month in my report for Organization Trends on for-profit colleges.) But those problems don’t negate the value of higher education, especially for poor and minority children.

But at least McCluskey is coming from a good place. He actually wants high-quality school options for all children. Meier, on the other hand, is like her EdWeek colleague: Ready to damn poor kids with low expectations and using condescending nostalgia about a student that chose to go into law enforcement to justify her point. The fact that one young man did manage to get into one of the few middle-class careers that didn’t require college or technical school (even though police academies are, in fact, higher ed institutions of a sort) doesn’t prove her point. (The fact that her own grandchildren are attending college disproves her argument entirely.) And given the educational requirements to succeed in law enforcement (which involve abstract thinking), along with the fact that college education is required for attaining more-prestigious positions in that field (including serving with the FBI), even aspiring cops can use college preparatory education.

For anyone to say that encouraging kids to pursue higher education — and thus, provide all children a college preparatory education — is ridiculous. Especially when it comes to our kids who grow up in the poorest urban and rural communities. Higher ed has value for the kids and the communities in which they live.

As Dropout Nation has noted, the math and science skills needed to get into college and white-collar fields are also needed in high-paying blue-collar fields such as welding and elevator installation (which one can only get into if they attend other forms of higher education such as community colleges, technical schools and apprenticeships). The jobs that those with some form of higher education can attain is often higher-paying than that for those who only finished high school or worse, just dropped out.

The value of higher education in bolstering incomes is especially clear when one looks at its impact on income for blacks and Latinos. A black man or woman with some form of college education will earn at least $9,142 more in annual income than their dropout counterpart; the gap grows both with additional higher ed credentials and as the better-educated person attains experience in the workforce in higher-paying fields. Those additional dollars flow into the economies of the communities in which they live, spurring home ownership, entrepreneurial pursuits and the emergence of middle-class families on whose energies and dollars civil society is dependent.

For a lower middle-class black community such as the one in which I grew up, South Ozone Park in New York City (part of the zip code 11436), those additional higher ed credentials equals a decline in poverty. If just a third of the 3,110 residents living below poverty had attended college for at least two years, they would triple their income and contribute at least an additional $20 million a year in income to their neighborhoods (and more if they reach the nation’s median annual income). If every one of the 1,276 kids under age 5 went to college and returned to the community, that would be an additional $36 million in annual income.

Such numbers seem small on their face, and yes, these quick-and-dirty estimates don’t account for such things as migration and neighborhood transition. But even for this blue-collar community, where many of the residents are employed in high-paying jobs and own homes, higher education equals more men and women who can help sustain the area. In the case of the kids, it means avoiding poverty and prison in their adulthood.

If this is true for South Ozone Park, it is also the case for Eight Mile in Detroit, for rural Liberty, New York, and for our poorest communities.

This is just the economic impact. For most of us, the campuses of colleges and technical schools are the places where we build the connections that lead to career opportunities and fulfilling friendships. Then there are is the knowledge — from the courses on economic theory to the simple lessons about navigating life outside of the communities in which one had grown up — that is even more value. Well-educated men and women beget learned children who continue economic renewal. And for those who live in poor communities where optimism is in short supply, watching neighbors achieve higher education and economic success brings the bright light of hope they need to move their kids on up.

Attaining higher levels of education alone won’t ensure happier lives. But for minorities, acquiring at least some college education often means the difference between being able to feed their children or subsist. And for the communities in which they live, education, along with low crime, and the flourishing of entrepreneurism and free markets, is the most-effective form of long-term economic development — and it is cheaper over time than costly tax increment subsidies. One would dare say if cities such as Detroit, Philadelphia and Newark devoted more civic energy to school reform than to tax abatements and stadium deals, they wouldn’t be facing the economic abyss.

This reality is why rigorous, college-preparatory education at the K-12 level, and the implicit expectation for all children that they must attain higher education, is critical. It is also why we must improve reading instruction and make sure that every child is literate.

For our poorest kids, especially those in black and Latino households , the education they receive at all levels is critical to brighter, less-economically impoverished futures and wider social options. And for the communities in which they live, it can mean the difference between vibrancy and continued decay.

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Although in the shadows of Big K.C., Kansas City, Kansas City, K.S. struggles with similar academic woes.

Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan weighed in on the failures of Kansas City, Mo.’s school district, declaring that its low graduation rates and collection of dropout factories were “a huge concern”. That statement could also apply to its sister city across the border in Kansas — especially when it comes to the low graduation and promoting power rates for young men of all races. Little Kansas City epitomizes one of the reasons why we must expand accountability — requiring districts to focus on addressing the underlying illiteracy, special education over-labeling, and overuse of suspensions and expulsions — that is the underlying reason why so many young men in both Kansas Citys and throughout America — end up in poverty and prison.In this Best of Dropout Nation from March 2010, Editor RiShawn Biddle illustrates the problems in little Kansas City. Read, consider, and take action. And listen to tomorrow’s Dropout Nation Podcast on the importance of the No Child Left Behind Act, which has helped shine a light on the extent of little Kansas City’s — and the nation’s — education crisis.

The closing of 29 (of 61) schools by the Kansas City (Mo.) school district has captured the attention of the nation. But across the state line in the Big KC’s sister city that shares the same name, a more-fundamental crisis looms. It is one that both cities share with each other — and with other urban school systems across the nation: The young men, no matter their skin color or ethnicity, don’t graduate.

At the beginning of the 2003-2004 school year, young men made up the slight majority of Kansas City’s graduating Class of 2008. This is typical in many districts. But five years later, according to data from the National Center for Educational Statistics, the numbers reverse. Young women, no matter their race or ethnicity, make up the majority of seniors. Among blacks in the Kansas City district, young women account for a slight majority over young men in the Class of 2008; but among whites and Latinos, the young women outnumber the young men by a 3-to-2 ratio.

Black males in KC barely progress, but...

The white males do even worse. And...

Promoting power rates for young black men are, as one would expect, not high. But with 63 percent of young black male 8th-graders reaching senior year of high school (compared to 72 percent of their female counterparts), at least more than half are making it through. Among young white men, the numbers are even worse: A mere 44 percent of them made it from 8th grade to senior year versus 71 percent of young white women. And only 49 percent of the district’s Latino male 8th-graders were promoted to 12th grade; the promoting power rate for Latino females was 71 percent.

fewer Latino males make it than their sisters.

The consequences can be seen in little Kansas City’s demographic and economic statistics: Seventeen percent of the city’s residents are economically impoverished; only 10 percent of Kansas’ citizens (and 13 percent of U.S. citizens) report poverty-level incomes; 18 of Kansas City households are headed by an unmarried woman (versus 8 percent of the U.S. population). But these consequences can be felt nationwide, especially as higher educational attainment becomes key to economic sustainability.

The issues facing young women, especially young black women (who are more likely than the general population to become head of households and never marry) cannot be ignored; the likelihood that young women are being under-diagnosed for learning disabilities must always be kept in mind. The promoting power rate for Kansas City, while better in some respects than its more-populous neighbor, still means that one out of every four children are dropping out. But if the nation wants to stem the dropout crisis, it needs to work on improving academic achievement among young men. Working in little KC wouldn’t be bad place to start.

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As we commemorate the legacy of Martin Luther King, listen to this Best of the Dropout Nation Podcast from November 2010 on what it means for education to be the leading civil rights issue of this era. School reformers and others make this statement every day, but it will be meaningless jargon unless several steps are taken to walk the proverbial talk.

You can listen to the Podcast at RiShawn Biddle’s radio page or download directly to your iPod, Zune, MP3 player, smartphone, Nook Color or Kindle.  Also, subscribe to the podcast series. It is also available on iTunes, Blubrry, the Education Podcast Network,  Zune Marketplace and PodBean. Also download to your phone with BlackBerry podcast software and Google Reader.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Tuesday’s Dropout Nation commentary on why student surveys were more effective in evaluating teacher quality that classroom observations by adults hits upon one of the most-important issues in American public education: The need for cultures of genius in which high quality caring teachers and principals nurture the potential of all children in their care. What we need for schools to do is embrace the approach of children’s hospitals, who work hard to help children succeed and treat the parents and caregivers who love them with the respect and candor they deserve.

In this Best of Dropout Nation from last May, Contributing Editor (and Connecticut Parents Union President) Gwen Samuel recounts a hospital visit and wonders why schools can’t be so compassionate to kids and families.

Several months ago, my daughter’s teacher and I noticed that her leg was starting to bow. Puzzled about why my daughter’s leg was growing crooked, we began the immediate medical journey of diagnosing the problem and putting the needs of my child first.

From day one, the first moment my daughter’s ailment was noticed, the school took immediate action. We developed an educational and physical needs plan to support her. She went from walking the stairs to riding on the elevator to get to class.  No long meetings, or stalling tactic. They put my child’s needs first.

As my child went through the rounds of CATScans, MRI exams and trips to the doctors to diagnose the ailment, the school and I worked together at the school and home level to keep her educationally engaged.

Then the hospital came into play. Weeks before the surgery, our family met with doctors, who gave my daughter support and prepared us for outcomes after the operation. On the day of the surgery, nurses showed us pictures of the operating room and presented the actual items that would be used n surgery, including the oxygen mask and gowns. And they created a welcoming environment in which my daughter and our family could ask questions and get answers. We also played “I Spy” with the nurses and we had a spelling bee with the key word being anesthesia.

My daughter got to choose how she traveled to the operating room; she road there in a Barbie Car. And I got to stay in the until she was sleep. When I cried, a nurse consoled me and walked with me to the family lounge.

In the family lounge, I was given a phone for updates, a tracking ID number for my child and up to the minute progress reports. A big LCD screen constantly updated families about the progress of procedures. A nurse called me during surgery to give an update. WOW!  It was all about my child and her well being, with the family role clearly defined and supported.

My daughter is doing fine and still recovering. And our experience makes me thrilled to have health insurance and caring hospitals. I wish the same can be said for many of our schools. Teachers and administrators need to realize that parents aren’t the enemy. If schools were as supportive of families as our children’s hospitals, we would accomplish so much for our kids.

The Children’s Medical Center is just another example of a family-centered welcoming environment that can be replicated in our schools.  Working together is clearly the path of least resistance thus placing all the adult stake holders in a better position to meet the needs of our children.

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One of the emerging trends in education is the advance of online and blended learning. Efforts such as School of one in new york City have shown how education can be of high quality and still tailored to the individual needs of kids. This development, along with the development of tablets, and the growing frustration of parents with traditional public education, has created new opportunities for families and communities to go further and start their own schools, breaking away from the old-school district model

In this Best of Dropout Nation from March, Editor RiShawn Biddle explains the importance of this emerging DIY education concept. Read, consider, and offer your own ideas.

This month, Wired profiled the work of what can be called the DIY gadget movement. Embracing both a sort of get it done yourself ethic of the early 70s punk music era and the earlier generations of gadget-builders such as computer pioneer Steve Wozniak, folks such as Limor Fried of Adafruit Industries have stepped up their device-building and become providers of tools and guides to fellow DIY builder looking to do it for themselves. Now people can build everything from cutesy novelties such as a device that tweets one’s electric usage to more-useful items such as a scanner that detects cancer. And from these devices can come the kind of tools that will make our lives better, and leads to the start-up of firms that can contribute to the nation’s economic growth.

So imagine if such DIY ethic was brought into reforming American public education? We’re not necessarily talking about the so-called unschooling movement (which consists of very few kids and their parents), or the more-mainstream homeschooling. This would go beyond that. The idea would be that teachers, parents or others committed to reforming American public education would simply start their own schools, either in their own homes, in storefronts or even in the basements of churches. While the schools would still be subjected to standards and accountability — including testing — to ensure that every child is getting high-quality instruction and curriculum, they would be able to create cultures of genius with little bureaucracy in the way.

We have seen some of this happen in the past. As Dropout Nation discussed on Wednesday, parents in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville community of New York City’s borough of Brooklyn started schools in storefronts during the battle between the parent-controlled district and the American Federation of Teachers that shut down three schools. In Africa and India, the presence of privately run schools operating outside the official state confines has helped the quality of school options and student outcomes. Many of the nation’s Ivy League and top-tier universities — think Harvard and Georgetown — started as sort of DIY startups. And then there are the historically black colleges and universities such as Bethune-Cookman and Tuskegee; they emerged after the Civil War as DIY schools, initially providing elementary and secondary education to the children and grandchildren of former slaves.

For parents, especially those whose kids are subjected to the worst American public education offers, waiting for the school reform efforts such as those fostered by President Barack Obama’s Race to the Top initiative means more days of their kids getting abysmal instruction and curricula. Given that high-quality charter schools still reach only a smattering of America’s kids, there are still not enough alternatives to mediocre and atrocious education.

At the same time, for reform-minded high-quality teachers frustrated with the pace of reform, sitting around isn’t enough. They have talents that aren’t recognized or rewarded by traditional districts and compensation systems that reward seniority and degree attainment instead of improvements in student achievement. Community leaders want to do more than agitate for change; they want to see it happen now.

It is possible to make robust and immediate reform a reality. The development of online learning means that a talented teacher can reach more students through the Web. The advent of sites such as Project Gutenberg means access to books that can be used in teaching. Technology gives parents and churches the ability to start makeshift schools anywhere. And there are entrepreneurs in education (including Dropout Nation Contributing Editor Steve Peha) who can provide other tools, including better instructional methods and curricula.

The technology is here and so are the people. In some ways, DIY education is already happening in small ways. But imagine what a mass movement might look like.  One can imagine an urban Parent Power group or community organization working with Barnes & Noble on customizing Nook Color tablet e-readers for video access. This would allow students to access free textbooks and videos from teachers on the subjects they need to learn. Barnes & Noble would gain deductions, new customers and public relations goodwill; the kids would be able to get the high-quality education they need. Same would be true if education toymaker LeapFrog and Parent Power groups did the same thing.
It is also imaginable that high-quality teachers get together and, with start-up grants, create an online education firm that supplies DIY schools with instruction. The teachers could reach more kids; the schools can expand the number of kids getting good-to-great teaching in scarcity fields such as math and science.

There’s still a lot that would need to happen to make DIY schools a reality — including the overhaul of school funding to voucherize dollars so they follow kids to any school option. Nor can we ignore the need to systematically overhaul how we recruit and train teachers, reform the quality of curriculum and other aspects of systemic reform. Not every parent or community will be equipped to do DIY education. But embracing a do-it-for-ourselves ethic can help revolutionize American public education and help all kids everywhere write their own stories.

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Photo courtesy of the great Andrew Moore (http://andrewlmoore.com/)

One of the prevailing discussions among school reformers and education traditionalists alike is whether concepts such as Teach For America and KIPP can be successful in spurring the overhaul of American public education at a mass level. While both TFA and KIPP have proven able, the preoccupation with scale ignores the reality that scale is largely irrelevant in terms of providing kids with a high-quality education. What is needed are high-quality standards, especially in curricula, and a focus on performance.

In this Best of Dropout Nation, Editor RiShawn Biddle explains why school reformers should focus mostly on creating numerous, small-scale schools and systems of high quality instead of just trying to scale up successful concepts. Read, consider, and take action.

When you think about Microsoft, Apple, Google, Proctor & Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive, you think about the leading corporations in their respective technology and consumer products markets. You think of high-quality products and services that have helped their respective consumers live better, become more-productive and engage in entertainment and media on their terms. You think of recruiting processes in which entrepreneurial and savvy talents are brought in to innovate and improve products and services. And you think of high standards for developing products and services, delivering them to the public and improving them once they get customer feedback.

What you don’t think about is scale. You don’t expect Apple or Microsoft to duplicate the others governing philosophies. You won’t see either company embracing Google’s throw-it-up-against-walls technique for service development. You wouldn’t be surprised that Proctor & Gamble’s product management approach is in many ways dissimilar to that of Colgate-Palmolive. In short, these companies are as dissimilar in their proprietary methods as they are uniform in their high standards and rigorous approaches to running their businesses. And we should look at institutions within American public education in the same way.

One of the few fetishes shared by both defenders of traditional public education and the school reform movement is the pursuit of scale. The idea is that a new solution to the nation’s education crisis — usually an organization — will only be workable if it can be expanded from small scale to regional and (usually) national scope. Such thinking, borrowed from industrial companies of the 20th century, made sense at a time in which inputs and outputs were more important than outcomes, and the quality of education was hardly measured or even measurable.

But we don’t live in a world in which scale applies much to education anymore. Certainly there are elements of education — namely transportation, construction and school lunches — in which scale is critical; after all, the more students served, the easier it is (in theory) to bring down the cost of these back-office functions. But the nation’s education crisis isn’t a problem of operational scale; it’s a quality problem with its roots in low-quality instruction, abysmal curricula, shoddy academic standards and mediocrity in expectations for students, teachers, principals and parents alike. You can’t simply hire more teachers in order to solve the problem; the class size reduction-driven hiring boom of the past decade has already proven that. Nor can you solve the problem by building more schools or authoring more certification procedures. The fact that we now live in a world in which technology allows for instruction to be tailored to the needs of individual students also renders scale moot.

This isn’t to say that scale can’t be used in improving quality; expanding school data systems and applying Value-Added Assessment to teacher and principal evaluations are two examples of using scale to improve quality. Even the expansion of school choice (through the expansion of high-quality charter schools and voucher programs) can address some aspects of quality. But for the rest of the problems in American public education, scale is not the answer.

We already have a successful model of a scalable operation in education: The traditional public school district. It is successful in the sense that districts persist in existing and in the ability to raise large sums of money to build schools and buy buses. But based on the woeful data system problems within districts and  the fact that just 69 percent of school buses are kept in operation throughout the school year, according to Michael Casserly of the Council of the Great City Schools, you can say that schools barely succeed in that arena. More importantly, districts fail in their ultimate purpose: Providing high quality education for all kids. This is the kind of scale we don’t need.

Another example of scale: Collective bargaining agreements and state laws that essentially protect laggard teachers and fail to reward high-quality teachers. These laws and contracts — artifacts of industrial-era thinking and a time in which teacher performance could not be measured — also amount to the kind of scale we don’t need. All in all, American public education has been extraordinarily well-scaled to fail our kids.

Yet traditionalists and school reformers continue to argue about which solutions are scalable, with debates as to whether such successes as the Knowledge is Power Program, Green Dot Public Schools and Teach For America can be replicated en masse, either by the organizations themselves or startups with similar goals. Certainly, KIPP, Green Dot and TFA have continued their success as they have expanded. But not every reform model will reach those levels of scale.  The Harlem Link charter school in New York City has an approach that is unique to its roots and environs. This is also true for every successful traditional public, private and parochial school or system.

The obsession with scale, both among traditionalists and school reformers, fails to consider what actually happens in the private sector.  Companies rarely do the same exact thing as their competitors and this is especially true when it comes to the most-successful firms in their respective markets.  Proctor & Gamble is as different as Colgate-Palmolive, as Apple diverges from Microsoft.  All are successful in the space in which they compete and satisfy the needs of their customers. They share similarities in terms of their success in talent development, and clear focus on product, service and customers. What each company does that is particular to its corporate culture and historical development will not work for others.

What does happen in the private sector is the creation of standards, the rules, regulations, principles and concepts that organizations accept in hiring practices, design principles and product safety. When it works (and it often does), these standards and expectations ensure that consumers get high-quality products and services. It is up to the companies to find ways to meet those standards. Companies that do meet those standards rise in esteem among customers and their peers; those that don’t lose standing — both in market position and reputation — in the marketplace.

This should be the same for the institutions in American public education. Rigorous standards in curriculum, in talent management and in performance should be applied to all. For K-12 schools, it’s recruiting, developing and retaining high-quality teachers and principals who are entrepreneurial, have strong subject competency and care for kids; rigorous and challenging curricula; and cultures of genius and high expectations in which the capabilities of kids to handle high levels of learning is not only recognized, but cherished. For ed schools and alternative certification programs, it’s recruiting high-quality aspiring teachers and developing rigorous courses for teacher training. How they innovate in getting there and meeting standards is up to them.

Essentially, it isn’t important for every alternative teacher training operation to look like Teach For America; what is important is that they all provide high-quality teachers. It isn’t necessary for every school to function exactly like Urban Prep; it’s important for them to improve student achievement and make sure that all their students graduate. What we need are a thousand flowers of high quality to bloom, not for all to look exactly alike. There will be different ways of getting there (even though there might be general concepts of what it should look like), but what is important is that the goal is met. Those goals should be guided by objective data. A high-quality teacher should be able to boost student achievement by at least 150 percent above expected growth (or 150 percent above a student’s previous growth level) and the same should be true for a high-quality school and principal; and students should be reading and comprehending above grade level by third grade.

This is why keeping and expanding the No Child Left Behind Act’s Adequate Yearly Progress accountability measures is critical to reform. AYP provides a guide to developing standards and can help schools focus on what is needed to improve education for all children; it also serves to make school performance transparent and keep schools and teachers honest. It is also why Value-Added Assessment and standardized testing are also critical; they provide benchmarks for standards and accountability. It is why teacher evaluations must be based on student test score performance; you need objective data for objective standards. It is also why collective bargaining agreements and tenure must be ditched; you can’t achieve a culture of genius in education and high standards with contracts that treat all teachers as widgets with no regard to performance.

It’s time to end the focus on scale. Instead, we must address quality.

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