Marguerite W. Kondracke, President and CEO of America's Promise Alliance, Speaks at the Aspen Ideas Festival
July 6, 2006
Introduction
Our children are our future. We have all heard this said and most of us believe it, but if this is true (as I believe it is), our nation is truly at risk. America’s children are not doing as well as they deserve and our nation’s future requires. Indeed, our nation is in danger of going “from great to good.” The America’s Promise Alliance recently approved a five-year commitment to do something about that. We have set a goal of changing the lives of 15 million disadvantaged young people, and the number-one measure of our success will be to change the statistics on high-school graduation.
How can America have the best higher education system in the world and yet have such a mediocre K-12 system? And why do we allow that to stand? Where is the outrage? Where is the national will?
Where We Are Now
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One million young people each year fail to obtain high school diplomas and will never achieve one.
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One-third of our students never graduate from high school, and of those who do, one-third aren’t prepared for college or work and have to have remedial courses, sometimes in basic literacy. That leaves scarcely one-third ready for college or meaningful work. Only in baseball is batting “300” acceptable.
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Worst of all is the inequality we see – the accident of birth. Students from low-income families are twice as likely to drop out as students from higher income families. And the American Dream? Recent surveys tell us that many people no longer believe it is available to them. Indeed, the U.S. has the worst social mobility of the Western world.
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Graduation rates for Hispanic students (52%) and African-American students (56%) are significantly lower than the rate for white high school students (78%).
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Only 30% of our eighth graders are proficient in reading and math. Internationally, we’re 27th in math and science proficiency.
As Joel Klein (Chancellor of the NY city schools) says, “A good education is a moral imperative, but it’s now become an economic imperative.” Many people believe we’ve lost a generation. And the crisis in education represents not only lost opportunity, but also a significant economic burden.
Why It Matters
COST TO THE NATION
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The one million who drop out each year cost the nation $325 billion in lost wages, taxes, and productivity over their lifetimes.
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Each “lost youth” (defined as a high school dropout, heavy drug user or career criminal) costs society $2 million.
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But just a one-percent improvement in high school graduation rate can save $1.5 billion in criminal justice costs alone.
COST TO THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY
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In this global economy our national prosperity depends on having a workforce with the skills needed for the 21st century. If one-third of students who enter ninth grade will not earn a diploma in four years, and another third will need remedial training, we are not going to be able to compete very well. We have to do better.
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Today only 6% of our PhD’s were born in America. As Thomas Friedman has pointed out, the days are disappearing when we could make up for any shortfall in workforce talent by simply importing the brightest young minds from India, China and elsewhere. As the world is more wired together, these talented young people are able to stay home and work in their own countries, or if they come here for their education, they are now more likely to go back home for good jobs.
COST TO THE INDIVIDUAL
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Without an adequate education it’s almost impossible for someone to break the cycle of poverty. We must fix the education crisis if we are going to do anything about poverty in this country. The income gap between the haves and have-nots has widened and is getting wider.
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We need to change our old way of thinking. I firmly believe that all young people today should be prepared for college. In 2005, only 14% of jobs in America were unskilled. Without marketable skills, you may get a job. But you'll earn only the minimum wage, get no benefits, and have few opportunities for advancement.
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Young people who drop out are short-changing themselves in ways they may not even realize. A young person who drops out is:
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Less likely to be regularly employed;
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Less likely to escape poverty even if they work full-time;
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Less likely to be married;
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More likely to have a child out of wedlock; and
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More likely to end up in prison.
These young people will NOT be a part of the workforce and the leadership America needs for the 21st century. They will have a hard enough time just surviving.
Our young people deserve a better future, and as a nation, we need them to have a better future. We need ALL our youth to be better prepared.
The drop-out crisis is a silent epidemic, a quiet but very real national crisis – so far falling on deaf ears. We read every day about the threats to our national security, but when one million of our young people each year fail to finish high school, that’s a threat to our security.
What’s Needed / Where Do We Need to Go
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I like the way Bill Gates puts it. Education should prepare all students for college, work and life. And to do this, education must be grounded in the three R’s – rigor, relevance, and relationships. Students must have a more rigorous and relevant curriculum. Yet, to stay the course, to believe in themselves and succeed, students also must have strong relationships with caring adults, with mentors, parents, teachers, other people who will take an interest in them.
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A survey of Teach for America alumni is very revealing about the importance of those relationships. When asked what the top three reasons were that disadvantaged kids can’t succeed in school, Teach for America teachers going into their first teaching assignments originally answered:
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Lack of student motivation
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Lack of parent involvement
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Poor quality home life
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But after their Teach for America service, they answered differently. They said the factors that could most influence school success for disadvantaged youth are:
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Teacher quality
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School leadership
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Adults who have positive expectations of the kids and believe in their ability and encourage them to believe in themselves
We know that many people are working on school reform and we support those efforts. Our focus is the child. We especially care about the disadvantaged young people.
Today 30 million kids live in families with incomes less than two times our national poverty level. Regardless of how good schools get, these kids are going to need extra help. As Tony Marx says, “These are ‘our kids.’”
The America’s Promise Alliance believes that it may not be that our kids are failing, but that we are failing our kids. What do our young people need, and how can we make sure they get what they need?
We believe that to succeed in school - and in life - every young person needs and deserves certain essential resources. We call them the Five Promises:
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caring adults in their lives, mentors, adults who care about them;
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safe places to be when they’re not in school;
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a healthy start and a chance to grow up healthy;
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an effective education that builds marketable skills; and
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opportunities to help others.
These “promises” are research-based, and over the past ten years studies prove that the more of these “promises” a young person has in his or her life, the more successful they will be. And we know that the presence of these resources can off-set the disadvantages they might be living with.
Young people with these “promises’ are five to 10 times more likely to stay in school, to avoid drugs and alcohol, to stay out of trouble with the law, to not become teen parents, and to grow up to be a more responsible and engaged citizen.
And the power of youth service is especially promising to help a young people find themselves and make a contribution.
If we listen to our young people themselves, they are dropping out of school not because they are failing, but because they don’t believe in their own future and in many cases because they are bored. They also tell us they drop out because they can, because the classes are irrelevant, and because no one cares.
Studies show us that if someone believes in them, if there is help with homework, if someone asks them to help in a community service project, they will succeed.
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Here’s an example of what works. The Quantum Opportunities Program, evaluated by Brandeis University, involved tutoring, homework assistance, community service and college preparation activities for 9th graders. It also included activities with the family, in school and in the community. The students who took part in the study were less likely to drop out of school and more likely to attend post-secondary school one year after the program ended.
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Another example: A program called Across Ages, which targeted 6th graders. This program also integrated family, school and community and involved mentoring by an older adult, life skills training, community service and workshops for parents. The participants showed more positive attitudes toward school and the future; they became more involved in community service; and they were absent less often from school.
And there IS a return on our investment in kids. According to Dr. James Heckman, the Nobel laureate economist at the University of Chicago, every $1 invested in preschool for a disadvantaged child returns $7 to taxpayers.
A new study by Dr. Heckman to be released this fall shows that the earlier we begin our investment in disadvantaged children, the greater the return. And if that investment is sustained, the return is even greater. If there is only a “one-shot” investment in quality preschool, for example, the results diminish in terms of better outcomes for kids as well as better economic returns for taxpayers.
His study also proves that intervention in adolescent years (versus an early and sustained investment) is far more expensive and far less effective. So the old adage is true - an ounce of prevention IS worth a pound of cure.
Conclusion
Yes, our future is at risk, and our young people need us. It will take all of us, working together to see that every child has every promise, every opportunity to realize his or her own potential.
The “Silent Epidemic,” the drop-out crisis, is real and it is dangerous because it has been below the radar. I’ve never met anyone who didn’t want our children to succeed. But we have some real education to do — and not just with our young people. We must awaken the nation to the need for urgent action.
Our young people will tell us the crisis is very real.
When I was recently in Los Angeles, I talked with a young Hispanic woman who had just graduated from high school. She was proud she had graduated but she was very sad that so many of her friends had not. She showed me a picture of her ninth grade class and pointed to her two dozen or so friends who had entered high school together, so excited about what their future might hold.
Then she showed me her senior class picture. Of the two dozen friends who started high school together, there were only four still in school.
But there is reason for hope and even optimism if we can get enough people to care. And it will take all of us, mayors and governors, business and civic leaders, parents and young people themselves, all across our great country.
We have seen what happens when we pull together, as we have in other times of national crisis. That is the imperative here. We cannot afford to make children and youth anything less than an urgent national priority.
Last spring I was visiting in Africa and thinking of the plight of children there. Our nation is so richly blessed: surely we can summon the will to see that every child has the essential resources they need and deserve. I am reminded that a common greeting in the Masai culture is to ask, “And how is it with the children?” Wouldn’t it be wonderful if one day we could answer, “They are thriving.”