Events

The Campaign for High School Equity held a Congressional briefing to discuss how high quality expanded learning opportunities including weekends, summer, before school, after school, and extended day can help to address the American high school graduation crisis.

The Campaign for High School Equity (CHSE) held a briefing to provide recommendations for the development of common academic standards that take into account the unique needs of students of color and low-income students to ensure that all children, regardless of ZIP code, income, race, or ethnicity are taught to the same high standards. 

CHSE partners joined together for a Congressional briefing to discuss high school education reform in the era of the Obama administration and stimulus bill debate, discussing education as a civil right, accountability, and the economic impact of fixing our high schools. Senator Richard Burr, Congressman Mike Honda, and Congressman Chaka Fattah offered remarks.

CHSE held a Congressional briefing offering recommendations to close the chasm between what students learn in public high schools and what they need to know after they graduate. Panelists provided a range of solutions for improving student performance, from instituting a high-rigor curriculum that can help to close the achievement gap to an early college high school model to aligning high school standards, assessments, curriculum, and instruction with college and work readiness.

CHSE was joined by an expert panel who discussed culturally based teaching practices as a methodology for closing the achievement gap between students of color and white students in America’s public high schools.

The briefing, sponsored by Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ), focused on the urgent need to ensure that states and districts have quality data systems capable of collecting accurate data about student achievement and attainment. Accurate and dependable information is particularly essential to informing critical decisions that can benefit students of color and low-income students by increasing graduation rates, improving teacher quality, and providing adequate and appropriate academic supports.

Representative Mike Honda (D-CA) sponsored this panel discussion focused on ensuring stronger provisions for the more than 5 million English language learner (ELL) students enrolled in America’s public school system. While English language learners are growing in number, they are being left behind in other respects. On the 2007 National Assessment for Educational Progress, only 4 percent of eighth-grade ELLs scored at or above “proficient” compared to 31 percent of non-ELL students. Without the right academic supports, these students are at especially high risk of leaving school without a diploma or the skills needed for success in college, work, and life.

Panelists joined CHSE to discuss the importance of having all students graduate from high school ready for graduation, college, work, and life. Specifically, they focused on how the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act could improve high school graduation rates for low-income and minority students and how civil rights and federal initiatives could support local reform efforts.

CHSE sent an urgent message to Congress: An improved version of The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) must be reauthorized in 2008 or the U.S. will fail the 1.2 million students who do not graduate from high school each year, the majority of whom are students of color. CHSE emphasized the steps required by Congress to strengthen and improve NCLB legislation, including implementing meaningful federal accountability for high schools and investing in turning around low-performing high schools.

The leaders of nine major national organizations representing communities of color gathered on Capitol Hill to launch the Campaign for High School Equity, their first-ever national partnership to reform the nation’s high schools. This historic event showcased the commitment of these organizations and their members to improving America’s high schools and ensuring that they have the capacity and motivation to prepare every student for graduation, college, work, and life. At the event, the organizations’ leaders signed an open letter to members of the U.S. Congress, urging them to act on behalf of the millions of students whose futures are at risk because they are ill-served, as well as underserved, by our nation’s high schools.