Coalition to Show How High School Accountability Narrows the Education Gap for Underserved Students
- A Briefing on Graduation Rate Accountability in NCLB
The Campaign for High School Equity
A Briefing on Graduation Rate Accountability in NCLB
Thursday, January 24, 2008
10:00 – 11:30 a.m.
Dirksen Building, U.S. Senate, Washington, DCCosponsored by
The Campaign for High School Equity and
The Honorable Richard Burr (R-North Carolina)Audio and Video from the Event can be accessed below...
More than eighty educators, policymakers, civil rights leaders, community activists, and other stakeholders from across the nation gathered on January 24 to discuss the importance of having all students graduate from high school ready for graduation, college, work, and life. Specifically, they focused on how federal legislation, and particularly the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), could improve high school graduation rates for low-income and minority students and how civil rights and federal initiatives could support local reform efforts.
Michael Wotorson, director of community partnerships for the Alliance for Excellent Education, opened the briefing by discussing the dropout crisis among the nation’s students of color. Noting that only 55 percent of African American students and 53 percent of Hispanic students graduate on time (compared to 78 percent of white students), he highlighted the Campaign for High School Equity’s (CHSE) four recommendations for closing the graduation rate gap:
- graduation rates should be clear, accurate, and comparable across states and districts;
- graduation rates should increase over time and schools and districts should be held accountable;
- graduation rate increases should be aggressive but attainable; and
- graduation data should be disaggregated.Wotorson emphasized that failing to graduate all students and prepare them for a global economy “makes us more and more complicit in creating a class of people that are increasingly unable to participate in this society and increasingly unable to control their own destinies.”
Joseph Garcia, vice president for advocacy and communications at the North Carolina New Schools Project, discussed the importance of having accurate graduation data. He stressed that without such data, it is impossible to fully understand what goes on within schools.
Garcia also emphasized that policymakers, advocates, and citizens alike should pay a great deal more attention to ensuring that all students perform to high standards. He called increasing graduation rates a “moral imperative” and disagreed with the notion that higher standards for students will result in increased failure rates.
Gary Huggins, director of the Commission on No Child Left Behind, spent the first part of his allotted time describing some NCLB successes, including a change from process-oriented to results-oriented federal education policy. He added that NCLB “created a national will to do something about schools that struggle.”
He further emphasized that NCLB’s real strength is the disaggregation of data, which spotlights the academic challenges that students in various subgroups face. He acknowledged, however, that NCLB is weak on high school accountability, and that NCLB’s strengths need to be applied to high schools.
Given the lack of disaggregated data and a common graduation rate calculation, high schools can currently present graduation rates in such ways that hide essential truths, Huggins said. In addition, he noted that while NCLB requires that students must progress to proficiency on assessments, there is no comparable requirement for graduation rates, adding that schools must be held accountable for they are graduating students in addition to whether students are proficient in subject areas.
Raul González, legislative director for the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), noted that, despite the passage of Brown vs. Board of Education over fifty years ago, the educational experience of minorities is still vastly different from nonminority students, and that, “opportunities for students are very segregated.” He argued that graduation rate accountability is a core civil rights issue, and pointed out that many schools that teach significant minority populations have less rigorous courses, less qualified teachers, and low levels of support for issues that students face outside of the classroom.
Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), who cosponsored the event, shared his personal frustration over the fact that Americans did not seem “outraged with the graduation rates for high school students.” He emphasized that while high school dropouts in his generation had a chance for a successful career and life, today’s dropouts cannot compete in the global and technologically advanced economy of the twenty-first century. He pointed to countries such as India and China that produce many more graduates due to their high populations, and said that the United States must ensure that every child in the nation is a high school graduate fully prepared to compete in the international economy.
Burr then discussed the important role business should play in ensuring that young people graduate from high school in higher numbers. He described the vested interest businesses have in a more able future workforce and said that in order to win in the long term, the United States has to use “one hundred percent” of its students to innovate, create, and out-produce the rest of the world. He finished his speech by calling for bipartisan cooperation on the issue of graduation rate accountability.
In closing, Michael Wotorson called on the federal government to set enabling conditions that would require the steady increase in graduation rates over time and urged that federal policy consider graduation rates equally with high-quality assessments. Such action, he argued, is crucial for successfully preparing students for college and life and reversing the “push out” phenomenon affecting too many students of color.
AGENDA
I. Welcome and Opening Remarks
Michael Wotorson, Director of Community Partnerships, Alliance for Excellent EducationII. Graduation Rate Accountability from a Local Perspective
Joseph Garcia, Vice President for Advocacy and Communication, North Carolina New Schools ProjectIII. The Federal Imperative of Graduation Rate Accountability
Gary Huggins, Executive Director, Commission on NCLBIV. Graduation Rate Accountability as a Civil Rights Necessity
Raul González, Legislative Director, National Council of La RazaV. Discussion
VI. Policy Recommendations on Graduation Rate Increases
Bethany Little, Vice President for Policy and Federal Advocacy, Alliance for Excellent EducationVII. Special Remarks
The Honorable Richard Burr, U.S. Senator, North CarolinaVIII. Press/Audience Question & Answer
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