Missouri Wrap-Up

We're back from Missouri and I wanted to share with you some of the articles that ran across the state about our campaign. You can read about the event in the clips below and also, don't forget to view the slideshow of pictures from our launch.

Local Fox Affiliate -- St. Louis 
Are your kids prepared to compete with the world? The number of U.S. students who won't graduate high school this spring is startling...1.2 million nationally, 20,000 in Missouri alone. The Gates Foundation is partially funding a campaign underway at the St. Louis Science Center. Our policy director Adam Thibault explains the goals of the "National Education Reform Campaign.  (Adam did a great job representing the campaign; take a moment to hear him talk about our outreach.)

More clips after the jump:

ED in '08 Launches in Missouri

The campaign is in St. Louis today for the launch of our outreach in the Show-Me State. We're hosting an event with over 200 students and elected officials at the Saint Louis Science Center. Today's event will be led by State Rep. Scharnhorst, St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley, and former Gov. Bob Holden.

Our policy director, Adam Thibault, was on the local Fox news station this morning discussing our campaign and the Missouri launch. You can watch that clip here.

We'll have pictures from the Science Center event up shortly and you can check out our Missouri Web page for the latest news and events taking place in the state.  For now, I wanted to share with you part of my statement regarding today's event:

"In Missouri, a ninth grader attending one of the two largest school districts has less than a 40 percent chance of graduating from high school within four years.

"As we approach high school graduation this spring, our campaign is working with key leaders in Missouri to urge the candidates to focus on the importance of improving America’s education system so all students who graduate from high schools in Missouri and across America are prepared for college, work and life. Missouri continues to be a key state in the presidential election and I look forward to working with the strong bipartisan leadership team in Missouri, as well as other key states, such as Ohio and Iowa as we continue to galvanize support for education reform this election cycle."

Members of our Missouri Advisory Team can also be found on our site.

Ohio pictures and press coverage

I hope you all had a great holiday weekend.  As I shared with you last week, we officially launched our campaign in Ohio. You can view pictures from the event in the slideshow below or by visiting our Flickr page. I've also included some of the news coverage the launch received below:

The Columbus Dispatch
"Candidates urged to focus on schools: Group making education issue in '08"

Associated Press
"Advocate: registering youths should trump partisan efforts"

Gongwer News Service-Ohio
"Capitol scene: former Gov. Taft joins education campaign"

Also, I represented ED in '08 on NPR's Weekend Edition on Sunday discussing the role of education in the 2008 election. Listen to the interview and let me know what you think.

Achieving Progress in Rural Areas

The Center for American Progress has recently come out with a new report, Additional Learning Opportunities in Rural Areas. The report simply states, "Rural, low-income students are more at risk of becoming high school dropouts than their city and suburban peers."

That concerns me.

Coming from Colorado, I'm familiar with rural communities. However, for those of you who aren't – rural communities are determined by a number of characteristics including the size of the community, the population density, and local job availability.

I was pleased to read that the Center for American Progress cites extended learning time as a promising strategy as a way to improve the achievement of rural students.

For example, one school highlighted was KIPP Gaston in Gaston, N.C. They have already utilized extended learning time as a means for enhancing student achievement. All students are in class there from 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. every day and half a day every other Saturday. The students also attend a three-week, full day summer session.

In the latest KIPP Report Card, Kipp Gaston's 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th graders have ranked higher than their North Carolina counterparts in every category. Check out the breakdown after the jump:

Catching up on Herbert

On the flight back from our Ohio launch (pictures to come soon), I was able to catch up on some reading that my staff passed along to me. One op-ed that I enjoyed was from Bob Herbert in last Saturday’s New York Times. The column paints the picture of the education crisis this country is facing and I wanted to share with you some key parts of the piece. Herbert writes:

"At a time when the nation is faced with tough economic challenges at home and ever increasing competition from abroad, it's incredible that more is not being done about the poor performance of so many American high schools […]

"The role of the federal government in improving secondary education should be one of the major issues in the presidential campaign […]

"[But what] is front and center in the campaign is the economy. We're looking for ways to turn things around for the short and long term. One of the answers in this technologically advanced, highly competitive, increasingly globalized environment is staring us right in the eyes […] the best economic stimulus package is a diploma."

Our campaign has been making these points about K-12 education regularly and it is refreshing to see Herbert communicating the message. If we’re going to improve our economy we need to better prepare our students for college and work. We must provide them the skills they need to compete in today’s global economy.

And We're Launched!

I'm in Columbus, Ohio and we've just launched our campaign in the state with an event at the Center of Science and Industry.  Joining the campaign for the state-wide kickoff were elected officials and business leaders from across Ohio and over 250 students.

Recent statistics tell us that this spring, more than 40,700 Ohio students will not graduate with their peers, resulting in millions of dollars in lost wages, taxes and productivity. It is estimated that dropouts in Ohio from the class of 2007 cost the state more than $10.6 billion. We've launched an Ohio webpage where you can find more education statistics and the latest news of our efforts in the state.

We'll have some pictures from today's launch up shortly, but I thought I'd share with you two excerpts from my remarks today and introduce you to our Ohio Advisory Team:

Oregon and Kentucky

For the past several weeks, I've been highlighting the education stats in the remaining primary states. We've only got a few left to go and today Oregon and Kentucky are voting. Also, the campaign is screening the documentary Two Million Minutes in Richmond tonight at the Byrd Theatre in Carytown. The event is free and open to the public, if you're around -- stop on by.

Oregon Facts
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (2007)
% 4th graders proficient in reading: 28
% 4th graders proficient in math: 35

% 8th graders proficient in reading: 34
% 8th graders proficient in math: 35

According to the state’s own assessments (2007)
% 4th graders proficient in reading: 79   
% 4th graders proficient in math: 71   

% 8th graders proficient in reading: 68   
% 8th graders proficient in math: 70   
(Source: U.S. Dept. of Education)

High School and Beyond:
% 9th graders who graduate from high school on time: 71
% high school graduates who go right on to college: 46
% college freshmen who earn a diploma within six years: 55
(Sources: Education Week; The NCHEMS Information Center)

Kentucky Facts   
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (2007):
% 4th graders proficient in reading: 33
% 4th graders proficient in math: 30

% 8th graders proficient in reading: 28
% 8th graders proficient in math: 27

According to the state’s own assessments (2007):
% 4th graders proficient in reading: 73   
% 4th graders proficient in math: 60   

% 8th graders proficient in reading: 64   
% 8th graders proficient in math: 49   
(Source: U.S. Dept. of Education)

High School and Beyond:
% 9th graders who graduate from high school on time: 70
% high school graduates who go right on to college: 57
% college freshmen who earn a diploma within six years: 44
(Sources: Education Week; The NCHEMS Information Center)

Blogger Summit Wrap-up

P.S. I also wanted to share with you some other video clips from the summit. Feel free to view them and let me know what you think  in the comments. Keep an eye out for more videos from the summit all week long on our YouTube channel.

Here are Huffington Post blogger Dan Brown...

...and Teaching in the 408 Blogger Kilian Betlach:

Celebrating the Anniversary of Brown v. Board

Tomorrow our country marks the 54^th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. Even though 54 years have passed since purposeful segregation was ended in our schools, many minority students are still not receiving equal educational opportunities. Too often they are far less likely to attend schools with high expectations and effective teachers. Due to these diminished educational settings, we are not adequately preparing minority students for college, work and life.

A recent study by the Manhattan Institute found that black and Latino students are only about half as likely as white students to graduate from high school prepared for four-year colleges. This means that minority students are more likely to fail college placement exams and have to spend money on remedial classes in college. In 2007, the California State University system reported that two out of three black freshmen who enrolled in fall 2006 had to take remedial courses in English or mathematics.

On the anniversary of Brown v. Board it's imperative that we continue to live up to the promise of giving all students equal opportunities to succeed in college, work and life. To do this, we need to make sure that we are challenging our students, providing effective teachers in every classroom and giving them the time and support for learning that they truly deserve.

Announcing the Bloggers' Choice Award

After a full day of blogging and great discussion surrounding education reform and the 2008 election, I’m off to Denver. My colleague Holly Zardus is wrapping up the summit and presenting the 2008 Bloggers' Choice Award. The first-place recipient is an unconventional blog from a teacher who blogs with his classroom: the South Titan Government Blog, taught by Ray Keller, a high school history teacher.

In the submission for nomination, Keller wrote,

"As a secondary government teacher in a public school, I am trying to find ways to get my students to begin to voice their opinions. Most of my students would rather type or text about an issue, than to speak about it in class. I have had almost 2000 comments posted by high school students in my first year of having the blog. These comments were not required as assignments for the class and many students truly expressed their opinions on many issues ranging from illegal immigration to the campaign ads."

Congratulations to Mr. Keller and his students.

I’d also like to recognize Tracy Bryant Stuckey, writer of Early Education is the Key who was the runner up for this year’s award.

The statement from the nomination form:

"Tracey offers her readers insightful information that causes them to reflect on the role they can begin taking toward educational change. She offers parents solutions to educational problems and she gives examples of how we got to where we are in the first place. She is definitely a teacher and an advocate for developing 21st century skills in young children."

Keep checking the Blogger Summit homepage as there will be pictures, video clips and highlights from this year’s event. Also, use the comments section below to share your thoughts with me on what you thought about the event.

Video Blogging from the Summit

Our staff running the Blogger Summit pulled me aside after the morning sessions to film my comments below, and hopefully other bloggers will join me in video blogging throughout today's events.

Posting from the Blogger Summit

Today I’m at the ED in '08 Blogger Summit with education bloggers from around the country at the Hotel Palomar in Washington, D.C. I've been looking forward to this opportunity to bring together some of the leading education bloggers and hear their thoughts on how we should move forward to improve our educational system.

As I've come to realize, by writing in this space, blogging is a powerful tool which can be used to continue to push the discussion and ideas of education reform into the mainstream. I have the honor of introducing the first panel (titled " Shaping Education Reform: The Issues Ahead" and moderated by Alexander Russo) and briefly sharing some of my thoughts on raising standards, improving teacher quality, and giving more time and support for learning. I’ll be around most of the day, so come by and say hello.

The New Republic Event

We had a great event today at the National Press Club where the campaign joined with The New Republic to sponsor a discussion on "Which Way to Education Excellence?"

I joined with Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education Joel Klein, Superintendent of Prince George's County Schools John Deasy, KIPP Schools Co-Founder Mike Feinberg and President of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute Chester E. Finn, Jr. to outline the serious problems facing America’s schools and stressed the need for leadership at the national, state & local level to fix the nation’s education crisis. The panel underscored the need for the next president to give personal attention and leadership to an education agenda.

I'll tell you more about the event later, and it will be featured in an upcoming issue of The New Republic. For now, be sure to check out some of the event pictures on our Flickr page.

Education statistics from West Virginia

Last week, I shared with you some of the education statistics in Indiana and North Carolina. Today, as primary voters head to the polls in West Virginia, I wanted to highlight some similar statistics in the state:

Student Performance:                
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (2007):
% 4th graders proficient in reading:    28
% 4th graders proficient in math:    33

% 8th graders proficient in reading:    23
% 8th graders proficient in math:    19

According to the state’s own assessments (2007):
% 4th graders proficient in reading:   
% 4th graders proficient in math:    79   

% 8th graders proficient in reading:   
% 8th graders proficient in math:    71   

High School and Beyond:
% 9th graders who graduate from high school on time:     76
% high school graduates who go right on to college:        53
% college freshmen who earn a diploma within six years.     44
(Sources: U.S. Dept. of Education; The NCHEMS Information Center)

Cost to the State:
Approximately 6,700 students did not graduate from West Virginia’s high schools in 2007; that cohort of West Virginia students forfeited $1.7 billion in lifetime earnings by dropping out.

If West Virginia’s high schools graduated all students ready for college, the state would save almost $3.8 million a year in community college remediation costs and lost earnings.
(Source: Alliance for Excellent Education)

As the primary season is winding down, it is time for the candidates in both parties to talk more about their plan to bring about real education reform. All Americans deserve to know how we are going to fix our schools, recruit and retain quality teachers and provide more time and support for learning.

Teacher Pay Advancements in the Bay State

Massachusetts' incoming education secretary Paul Reville supports higher salaries for those teachers who take posts in the most challenging schools, such as teaching hard-to-staff subjects such as math, science, and special education and working in schools with dramatically improved performance:

"The larger challenge is to take on the monolithic pay notion and differentiate pay based on skill, knowledge, and assignment, and establish a concept that everyone doesn't have to be paid in the same lock step and lanes."

I am heartened to hear that Reville has recognized the importance of providing teachers with opportunities for better pay that other professionals enjoy. Even leaders at the national level are recognizing the need for reforming teacher pay. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings stated during her visit to Massachusetts, "If schools are to improve the achievement of their lowest-performing students, they should get the best teachers into the neediest schools by rewarding them with higher salaries."

And, most importantly, teachers in Massachusetts who have taken part in grant programs that award teacher bonuses based on performance say the program makes them feel more like a professional.
One teacher quoted in the Boston Globe article said that the extra money, "shows that they respect and value us, and that helps motivate us to keep doing it."

Teachers have a bigger impact on student learning than anything else in schools. They are the single greatest "natural resource" in education and we must begin treating them as so.  I look forward to reading more about the reforms in teacher pay taking place in Massachusetts.

Exploring KIPP

I mentioned on Monday that this week is National Charter School week and that I would be highlighting some charter school programs. I wanted to start off by pointing out the positive impact on student achievement attained by the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP). For those of you who are less familiar with the program, KIPP is a national network of charter schools serving low-income and minority communities.

The KIPP Academy in Lynn, Mass. has received a “high” in the categories of English Language Arts and Math for the 2007 State performance Rating. The school has also made some great progress particularly in their 6th and 7th grades, which you can find after the jump:

Happy Teacher Appreciation Day

We all have them -- those special teachers from school that we'll always remember. It might be the teacher that taught you how to read, or the one that mentored you in choosing which college to attend. Whoever it may be -– teachers affect the lives of our students everyday. We know, and research even shows, that teachers have the biggest impact on student learning.

Over the next eight years, the United States will need to recruit nearly 3 million new teachers due to teacher turnover, retirement and increased student enrollment. However, this task will be nearly impossible if we don't start to treat teachers like the professionals they are. As we celebrate National Teacher Appreciation day today, there are three major approaches we need to take to successfully recruit and retain our teachers:

• We need to give teachers the same opportunities for advancement and better pay that other professionals enjoy.
• We need to offer higher salaries to compete with other professions for adults who have strong math and science backgrounds.
• We need to pay teachers more when we ask them to take on harder jobs.

It's imperative that we have an effective teacher in every classroom and to do this we need to start appreciating our teachers more than one day a year. Take some time today to use the comments section of the blog to tell me about your favorite teacher.

Education makes a difference in key primary states

Tomorrow is a big day in Indiana and North Carolina, and many voters will head to the polls with the state of the economy on their minds. With the economy in peril, it's no wonder why voters in both states are worried about the increasing costs to consumers coupled declining wages and outsourcing of their jobs.

We cannot fix the economy without focusing preparing our next generation of workers with adequate skills and knowledge to succeed in the global marketplace. Recent data in both Indiana and North Carolina has shown that our traditional public schools need reform. Below is overview of education statistics in these two states:

Milken Wrap-up

I'm back from the Milken event in Los Angeles and with over 3,000 attendees from around the country, the event was a good place to discover and discuss the latest innovations and thoughts on topics such as health, education, and the economy. I mentioned earlier in the week that I sat on a panel at the event with 1992 Nobel Prize in Economics winner Gary Becker, Eli Broad, Michael Morris and Lowell Milken.

We had a thought-provoking discussion that focused on America's education system compared to the rest of the world. We also discussed critical solutions for getting our country back on track and fixing our schools. KTLA covered parts of the panel discussion, which you can watch in the clip below.

As I've mentioned before, I strongly believe that we are losing the education race worldwide. As recently as 1998, the U.S. ranked first in percentage of 25-34 year olds with at least a bachelor's degree, but by 2005 it had dropped to 7th.  Between 2000 and 2005, out of 23 countries, the U.S. was the only country that showed no increase in its postsecondary graduation rate.  And while America once had the best high school graduation rate in the world, it has now slipped to 20th out of 26 countries.

Fixing our mediocre education system is something that we must do and as I witnessed from the event – there's great interest to do so. I can only hope that the candidates will continue to offer their plans for true education reform – our students and our country deserve that.