State and local government agencies currently shoulder the primary responsibility for educating young Americans. While presidential candidates may talk a lot about the importance of education during election season, the federal government actually has a fairly small financial role in education. Of the approximately $1 trillion spent on education at all levels in 2007-08, the vast majority of that money came from state and local sources. On the elementary and secondary levels, only 9 percent of funding came from federal sources. Nonetheless, the federal government plays a large role in influencing education policy and COULD take an even greater leadership role in transforming America’s education system so that once again America is a leader in the world:
• The federal government COULD take the steps necessary to close the achievement gap and remain committed to preserving and improving the measures of accountability that keep us focused on that goal.
• The federal government COULD ensure high quality standards and assessment systems that measure growth, critical thinking skills, college readiness, and give real time feedback. It is human nature to teach to the test – the federal government COULD provide the resources and leadership to ensure that the test measures what is important in the 21st century.
• The federal government COULD invest in early childhood education by ensuring that every child has access to affordable quality preschool and early childhood education.
• The federal government COULD ensure that access to college is a birthright and not a privilege: every American should be able to afford college in exchange for service to their community or country.
• The federal government COULD provide incentives for changing the way that teachers are recruited, trained, retained, supported, and mentored , so as to increase the opportunity for every child to be exposed to highly effective teachers in their classrooms. The Federal government COULD offer incentives for our most effective teachers and principals to move to and stay in schools that need them most. This includes offering resources for extended school days and school years, investments in middle school and high school reform and dropout prevention, and time for teachers to analyze student data and modify practices to increase student achievement.
Reauthorizing No Child Left Behind
The No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law in 2002. Through No Child Left Behind the federal government has the authority to label schools as failing or succeeding. The federal government is also able to award or withhold federal funds based on those labels.
By the fall of 2004, 24 percent of America’s school’s had failed to meet the law’s “adequate yearly progress.” Federal ratings came into conflict with state and local evaluations of schools, as was the case when 78 percent of schools with an “A” rating from Florida Governor Jeb Bush were said to have failed to meet No Child Left Behind’s “adequate yearly progress” standards. The law’s standards caused many states to threaten to forgo federal education funding rather than submit to federal sanctions. Many education experts say No Child Left Behind has failed to reform public education. Not only has No Child Left Behind become an onerous unfunded mandate, but also it evaluates children with narrow assessments that cause schools to focus on basic skills while ignoring the development of all talents. No Child Left Behind has created a culture where labeling public schools as “failing” encourages students and communities to abandon that school.
Equity – equal access and quality
Every child should have the right to attend an excellent public school, but that is not the reality today. Public school quality varies dramatically and is often tied to a community’s affluence or lack thereof. Our nation’s urban or rural areas are often where our children are most underserved.
Inequity along race lines is rampant. The 2008 Schott Foundation Report – Given Half a Chance – documents that states and most districts with large Black enrollments educate their White, non-Hispanic children, but do not similarly educate the majority of their Black male students. Key examples of this are:
• More than half of Black male students did not graduate with their class in the 2005-2006 school year. (Schott Report )
• According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, 78 percent of White, non-Hispanic male students scored at or above the basic grade 8 reading level in 2007. In that same year and grade, just 46 percent of Black, non-Hispanic male students scored at or above the basic reading level.
• Nearly three times more Black male students receive out-of-school suspensions than White, non-Hispanic male students. In many school districts across the country nearly all out-of-school suspensions are for Black male students. Studies have shown that out-of-school suspensions remove students from the school community and often lead to drop-outs. (Schott Report- suspensions )
• There are 17 states – including New York, Florida and Ohio – where Black male students have a less than 50 percent chance of graduating with their class. (Schott Report-graduates )
Schools in underserved communities often lack the essentials – textbooks, supplies and qualified teachers. These gaps must be closed.
According to a U.S. Department of Education report , nearly 90 percent of new jobs require literacy and math skills taught in post-secondary education. High-skill jobs are growing more than three times faster than other jobs. The equity of a public school system says volumes about its overall value to our community.
Access to Affordable Higher Education
A perfect storm of state budget shortfalls, inflation and a credit crunch has lead to drastic increases in the cost of higher education in recent years. Some public universities have had recent single-year tuition increases of 10 to 15 percent.
The price of tuition at both public and private institutions is up, according to College Board figures . For the 2007-2008 school year, the average tuition at a private university was $23,712, a 6.3 percent increase from the prior year. That year the average tuition at four-year public colleges and universities was $6,185, a 6.6 increase from the year before.
The real median household income was $50,233 in 2007, according to a recent U.S. Census report . Paying for the average public college tuition, then, would cost the average household 12 percent of the family’s annual income. If a child wanted to attend a private university, that average tuition would cost the average household 47 percent of its annual income. While the first number is daunting for many families, the second would be impossible without assistance.
The cost of a college education translates to long-term financial challenges for many college graduates who take on private, personal loans to pay for college. The average college graduate has $20,000 in debt, according to a 2008 Demos report called The Economic State of Young America . High college debt coupled with declining wages, increasing rents and expensive and unsubsidized childcare all combine to pinch the young middle class.
Getting access to a college education makes a lifelong impact on one’s earning potential. According to a 2007 College Board study, a person with a bachelor’s degree will earn over 60 percent more than someone with a high school diploma. The earning gap adds up to $800,000 over a lifetime.
With student loans harder to come by, the opportunity of a post-secondary education is slipping through the fingers of many high school graduates. Just as more jobs require college degrees, college is more out of reach than ever for many young people. Access to an affordable higher education is incredibly important for America’s economy and for the opportunity for people to advance themselves.
Teacher Recruitment and Retention
The clearest factor that contributes to a student’s educational success is repeated exposure to effective teachers. Now more than ever, there is a great need for excellent teachers to work in public schools. The combination of a generation of teachers approaching retirement and many new teachers leaving the teaching profession, at the same time when schools are experiencing enrollment growth and schools are also working to pair more teachers with students for a better teacher-to-student ratio, adds up to a potential crisis in the classroom. A concerted effort must be made to increase the recruitment, training, and retention of effective teachers. The need for teachers is especially great in certain subject areas – like math and science – and in less affluent urban and rural schools.
According to an Education Commission of the States report, Teacher Recruitment and Retention , teacher quality is paramount in student success:
“While even children who attend the highest-performing schools have, from time to time, teachers who simply don’t measure up, the situation for children from low-income families is often reprehensible. High-poverty, low-performing schools suffer from severe teacher turnover, which increases the atmosphere of failure; they have far fewer accomplished, veteran teachers; and the qualifications of their faculty, especially in science and mathematics, are often marginal at best.”
In order to recruit effective teachers, efforts to re-design the profession must be undertaken. We must:
• Raise teacher preparation standards;
• Create high quality induction programs and mentoring for beginning teachers;
• Provide incentives to change the way schools of education prepare teachers, including offering five or six year teacher preparation programs as well as supporting community colleges efforts to support teaching assistants;
• Expand teacher education programs in hard-to-fill fields such as special education, sciences and math, and English as a Second Language;
• Offer loan forgiveness to teachers for fulfilling a commitment to teach in high needs schools or fields;
• Permit licensing reciprocity between states, especially for those who have National Board Certification; and
• Provide teachers with salaries that are competitive with other professions, and develop a potential for a career ladder.
Teacher Mentoring
Mentoring is hugely successful in supporting teachers in their early years of teaching. A new teacher is partnered with a more experienced teacher in their school or district. The mentor relationship provides a new teacher with a person with whom they can discuss ideas, express frustrations, and troubleshoot. Without initial and ongoing support, new teachers are twice as likely to leave the profession, according to a report from the Public Education Network . The study states that:
"A number of studies have shown that, during the first five years of a teacher’s career, student achievement correlates with years of teaching experience. Therefore, stemming the tide of teachers leaving the profession has significant implications for student learning. Professional development, along with a supportive working environment that includes strong principal leadership, helps to keep teachers in the classroom and ensure a return on the substantial investment expended to prepare them."
Mentoring is a tried-and-true method to support teachers and improve the odds that they continue teaching in the future.
Teacher Pay
Teacher pay in America does not reflect the importance of the job teachers do. Teachers have an average starting pay that is lower than that of college graduates entering fields with similar training and responsibilities, according to the National Education Association.
A National Association of Colleges and Employers study found that teachers start at a national average salary of $30,377. By contrast, computer programmers start at an average of $43,635, public accounting professionals start at $44,668 and registered nurses start at $45,570. The study also found that the more years teachers put into teaching, the bigger the gap became. Using U.S. Census data, the study found that teachers’ annual pay has fallen dramatically over the past 60 years in comparison to that of other workers with college degrees. Nationally, the average earnings of workers with at least four years of college are over 50 percent higher than the average earnings of teachers.
Privatization
Public education is intrinsically that – public. It is funded by public money and is free and available to all children. The value of public education to a society is tremendous. Public schools provide opportunity for all children and that opportunity elevates entire families. The quality of a child’s education can be the difference between remaining in poverty or rising into the middle class. Public education builds community and develops our sense of investment in each other and our future. A strong public education system can lift us all up, and build a 21st century workforce.
But there are powerful forces working to privatize education. The movement to privatize education is happening on several fronts. Some school districts have contracted out (or privatized) services like transportation, maintenance and food to private companies. On a more advanced level, private companies have taken over larger functions of schools, including administration and teaching. Some schools have been entirely taken over by private companies.
Privatization of education also comes in the form of school vouchers. The philosophy behind vouchers is that families should be able to take the money allotted to their children at public schools and use that money to send their children to private schools. Vouchers essentially subsidize private education with public dollars. If left unchecked, the privatization movement threatens to tear down public education and the promise it offers all children.
Transforming the System
We know the solutions to many of the problems that prevent our public education from being the best in the world. We know we must guarantee a child’s access to early childhood education as well as to college. We know that we must improve children’s access to experienced and effective teachers. We know that we must revise the assessments we use to ensure that students are ready for college and beyond. We know that we must close the opportunity gap and foster a school environment where every child has an equal chance of graduating, regardless of race or class.
The next President can and must change the frame for discussion about public education in this country. Educating every child, regardless of race or income, is a core American value. Public education is a promise we make to our children. It is our duty to fulfill that promise.
State and local government agencies currently shoulder the primary responsibility for educating young Americans. While presidential candidates may talk a lot about the importance of education during election season, the federal government actually has a fairly small financial role in education. Of the approximately $1 trillion spent on education at all levels in 2007-08, the vast majority of that money came from state and local sources. On the elementary and secondary levels, only 9 percent of funding came from federal sources. Nonetheless, the federal government plays a large role in influencing education policy and COULD take an even greater leadership role in transforming America’s education system so that once again America is a leader in the world:
• The federal government COULD take the steps necessary to close the achievement gap and remain committed to preserving and improving the measures of accountability that keep us focused on that goal.
• The federal government COULD ensure high quality standards and assessment systems that measure growth, critical thinking skills, college readiness, and give real time feedback. It is human nature to teach to the test – the federal government COULD provide the resources and leadership to ensure that the test measures what is important in the 21st century.
• The federal government COULD invest in early childhood education by ensuring that every child has access to affordable quality preschool and early childhood education.
• The federal government COULD ensure that access to college is a birthright and not a privilege: every American should be able to afford college in exchange for service to their community or country.
• The federal government COULD provide incentives for changing the way that teachers are recruited, trained, retained, supported, and mentored , so as to increase the opportunity for every child to be exposed to highly effective teachers in their classrooms. The Federal government COULD offer incentives for our most effective teachers and principals to move to and stay in schools that need them most. This includes offering resources for extended school days and school years, investments in middle school and high school reform and dropout prevention, and time for teachers to analyze student data and modify practices to increase student achievement.
Reauthorizing No Child Left Behind
The No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law in 2002. Through No Child Left Behind the federal government has the authority to label schools as failing or succeeding. The federal government is also able to award or withhold federal funds based on those labels.
By the fall of 2004, 24 percent of America’s school’s had failed to meet the law’s “adequate yearly progress.” Federal ratings came into conflict with state and local evaluations of schools, as was the case when 78 percent of schools with an “A” rating from Florida Governor Jeb Bush were said to have failed to meet No Child Left Behind’s “adequate yearly progress” standards. The law’s standards caused many states to threaten to forgo federal education funding rather than submit to federal sanctions. Many education experts say No Child Left Behind has failed to reform public education. Not only has No Child Left Behind become an onerous unfunded mandate, but also it evaluates children with narrow assessments that cause schools to focus on basic skills while ignoring the development of all talents. No Child Left Behind has created a culture where labeling public schools as “failing” encourages students and communities to abandon that school.
Equity – equal access and quality
Every child should have the right to attend an excellent public school, but that is not the reality today. Public school quality varies dramatically and is often tied to a community’s affluence or lack thereof. Our nation’s urban or rural areas are often where our children are most underserved.
Inequity along race lines is rampant. The 2008 Schott Foundation Report – Given Half a Chance – documents that states and most districts with large Black enrollments educate their White, non-Hispanic children, but do not similarly educate the majority of their Black male students. Key examples of this are:
• More than half of Black male students did not graduate with their class in the 2005-2006 school year. (Schott Report )
• According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, 78 percent of White, non-Hispanic male students scored at or above the basic grade 8 reading level in 2007. In that same year and grade, just 46 percent of Black, non-Hispanic male students scored at or above the basic reading level.
• Nearly three times more Black male students receive out-of-school suspensions than White, non-Hispanic male students. In many school districts across the country nearly all out-of-school suspensions are for Black male students. Studies have shown that out-of-school suspensions remove students from the school community and often lead to drop-outs. (Schott Report- suspensions )
• There are 17 states – including New York, Florida and Ohio – where Black male students have a less than 50 percent chance of graduating with their class. (Schott Report-graduates )
Schools in underserved communities often lack the essentials – textbooks, supplies and qualified teachers. These gaps must be closed.
According to a U.S. Department of Education report , nearly 90 percent of new jobs require literacy and math skills taught in post-secondary education. High-skill jobs are growing more than three times faster than other jobs. The equity of a public school system says volumes about its overall value to our community.
Access to Affordable Higher Education
A perfect storm of state budget shortfalls, inflation and a credit crunch has lead to drastic increases in the cost of higher education in recent years. Some public universities have had recent single-year tuition increases of 10 to 15 percent.
The price of tuition at both public and private institutions is up, according to College Board figures . For the 2007-2008 school year, the average tuition at a private university was $23,712, a 6.3 percent increase from the prior year. That year the average tuition at four-year public colleges and universities was $6,185, a 6.6 increase from the year before.
The real median household income was $50,233 in 2007, according to a recent U.S. Census report . Paying for the average public college tuition, then, would cost the average household 12 percent of the family’s annual income. If a child wanted to attend a private university, that average tuition would cost the average household 47 percent of its annual income. While the first number is daunting for many families, the second would be impossible without assistance.
The cost of a college education translates to long-term financial challenges for many college graduates who take on private, personal loans to pay for college. The average college graduate has $20,000 in debt, according to a 2008 Demos report called The Economic State of Young America . High college debt coupled with declining wages, increasing rents and expensive and unsubsidized childcare all combine to pinch the young middle class.
Getting access to a college education makes a lifelong impact on one’s earning potential. According to a 2007 College Board study, a person with a bachelor’s degree will earn over 60 percent more than someone with a high school diploma. The earning gap adds up to $800,000 over a lifetime.
With student loans harder to come by, the opportunity of a post-secondary education is slipping through the fingers of many high school graduates. Just as more jobs require college degrees, college is more out of reach than ever for many young people. Access to an affordable higher education is incredibly important for America’s economy and for the opportunity for people to advance themselves.
Teacher Recruitment and Retention
The clearest factor that contributes to a student’s educational success is repeated exposure to effective teachers. Now more than ever, there is a great need for excellent teachers to work in public schools. The combination of a generation of teachers approaching retirement and many new teachers leaving the teaching profession, at the same time when schools are experiencing enrollment growth and schools are also working to pair more teachers with students for a better teacher-to-student ratio, adds up to a potential crisis in the classroom. A concerted effort must be made to increase the recruitment, training, and retention of effective teachers. The need for teachers is especially great in certain subject areas – like math and science – and in less affluent urban and rural schools.
According to an Education Commission of the States report, Teacher Recruitment and Retention , teacher quality is paramount in student success:
“While even children who attend the highest-performing schools have, from time to time, teachers who simply don’t measure up, the situation for children from low-income families is often reprehensible. High-poverty, low-performing schools suffer from severe teacher turnover, which increases the atmosphere of failure; they have far fewer accomplished, veteran teachers; and the qualifications of their faculty, especially in science and mathematics, are often marginal at best.”
In order to recruit effective teachers, efforts to re-design the profession must be undertaken. We must:
• Raise teacher preparation standards;
• Create high quality induction programs and mentoring for beginning teachers;
• Provide incentives to change the way schools of education prepare teachers, including offering five or six year teacher preparation programs as well as supporting community colleges efforts to support teaching assistants;
• Expand teacher education programs in hard-to-fill fields such as special education, sciences and math, and English as a Second Language;
• Offer loan forgiveness to teachers for fulfilling a commitment to teach in high needs schools or fields;
• Permit licensing reciprocity between states, especially for those who have National Board Certification; and
• Provide teachers with salaries that are competitive with other professions, and develop a potential for a career ladder.
Teacher Mentoring
Mentoring is hugely successful in supporting teachers in their early years of teaching. A new teacher is partnered with a more experienced teacher in their school or district. The mentor relationship provides a new teacher with a person with whom they can discuss ideas, express frustrations, and troubleshoot. Without initial and ongoing support, new teachers are twice as likely to leave the profession, according to a report from the Public Education Network . The study states that:
"A number of studies have shown that, during the first five years of a teacher’s career, student achievement correlates with years of teaching experience. Therefore, stemming the tide of teachers leaving the profession has significant implications for student learning. Professional development, along with a supportive working environment that includes strong principal leadership, helps to keep teachers in the classroom and ensure a return on the substantial investment expended to prepare them."
Mentoring is a tried-and-true method to support teachers and improve the odds that they continue teaching in the future.
Teacher Pay
Teacher pay in America does not reflect the importance of the job teachers do. Teachers have an average starting pay that is lower than that of college graduates entering fields with similar training and responsibilities, according to the National Education Association.
A National Association of Colleges and Employers study found that teachers start at a national average salary of $30,377. By contrast, computer programmers start at an average of $43,635, public accounting professionals start at $44,668 and registered nurses start at $45,570. The study also found that the more years teachers put into teaching, the bigger the gap became. Using U.S. Census data, the study found that teachers’ annual pay has fallen dramatically over the past 60 years in comparison to that of other workers with college degrees. Nationally, the average earnings of workers with at least four years of college are over 50 percent higher than the average earnings of teachers.
Privatization
Public education is intrinsically that – public. It is funded by public money and is free and available to all children. The value of public education to a society is tremendous. Public schools provide opportunity for all children and that opportunity elevates entire families. The quality of a child’s education can be the difference between remaining in poverty or rising into the middle class. Public education builds community and develops our sense of investment in each other and our future. A strong public education system can lift us all up, and build a 21st century workforce.
But there are powerful forces working to privatize education. The movement to privatize education is happening on several fronts. Some school districts have contracted out (or privatized) services like transportation, maintenance and food to private companies. On a more advanced level, private companies have taken over larger functions of schools, including administration and teaching. Some schools have been entirely taken over by private companies.
Privatization of education also comes in the form of school vouchers. The philosophy behind vouchers is that families should be able to take the money allotted to their children at public schools and use that money to send their children to private schools. Vouchers essentially subsidize private education with public dollars. If left unchecked, the privatization movement threatens to tear down public education and the promise it offers all children.
Transforming the System
We know the solutions to many of the problems that prevent our public education from being the best in the world. We know we must guarantee a child’s access to early childhood education as well as to college. We know that we must improve children’s access to experienced and effective teachers. We know that we must revise the assessments we use to ensure that students are ready for college and beyond. We know that we must close the opportunity gap and foster a school environment where every child has an equal chance of graduating, regardless of race or class.
The next President can and must change the frame for discussion about public education in this country. Educating every child, regardless of race or income, is a core American value. Public education is a promise we make to our children. It is our duty to fulfill that promise.