Service Unites - Featured Speakers at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service

Looking forward to the annual Conference on Volunteering and Service this June in Washington D.C., which I just learned is the largest conference of its type in the world. Pretty amazing.  There will also be quite a few ways AmeriCorps Alums will be involved this year, including an AmeriCorps Alums Town Hall.  I'll be speaking at two sessions (details below) -- one on our shared work to raise high school graduation rates and build a Grad Nation, and another on Achieving Excellence through Service and Diversity with MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry. I was excited, too, to discover yesterday that I'm featured on the Conference's "Featured Speakers" page, along with Harris-Perry and Bill O'Reilly! 

I'll be speaking during these two sessions:
Higher Education Forum - Achieving Excellence through Service and Diversity

Date: Wednesday, June 19, 2013, 1:30 PM - 3:00 PM (featured Melissa Harris-Perry)
How has service influenced the profile of the 21st century student? With volunteerism nearly expected on the transcript of college applicants, and applications to AmeriCorps at their highest rates, how has this influenced the student that arrives on campus? The session will focus on higher education-community service initiatives that bring diverse groups together and facilitate and elevate community voice to strengthen our communities, businesses, campus neighbors and students.

Building A Grad Nation: National Service as a Strategy to End America's High School Dropout Crisis (with Emily Samose of the Corporation for National and Community Service)
Date: Thursday, June 20, 2013, 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM
Grad Nation is a national effort to end the dropout crisis with a goal of a 90% high school graduation rate by 2020. This session will discuss how national service advances student success in critical areas that can help end the dropout crisis.

Program Highlights here.  Hope to see you there!

Yesterday's Dropouts. Today's Events.

This morning, I've been thinking of little else besides the chaos in Boston. That city used to be my home, and with many friends and family there, I'm having a very difficult time staying focused on much else... but, on my walk to work this morning listening to the coverage, NPR returned to its regularly scheduled programming.  

My thoughts of Boston were interrupted by Kavitha Cardoza from WAMU, who is, with the support of CPB's American Graduate Initiative, doing a wonderful series on yesterday's dropouts. In fact, just a block away from my office, her piece on the "High Price For Low Literacy," featured a clip from my boss: 

But perhaps the biggest cost is one that can't be measured. It's the invisible cost of what might have been. John Bridgeland, with Civic Enterprises, a public policy firm in D.C., calls dropping out a "dream buster." Students who drop out usually don't vote and don't volunteer.

“With millions of students dropping out every year, it’s like generations of talent needlessly lost,” Bridgeland says. “You think about the civic fabric of our communities and what life could have been like. You realize the dropout epidemic is a huge loss to our nation.”

I found the piece very grounding.  

The civic fabric of Boston isn't torn, it's strengthened.  And across the country, the work of strengthening communities goes on.  Hopefully Boston will be back at it, doing what it does best, in no time. In the meantime, I'll be drinking Dunkin Donuts in D.C., thinking of my home away from home.  

The College Readiness Gap

A new ACT survey shows a giant gap between high school teachers’ perceptions of their students’ ability to succeed in college, and the opinions of students’ college professors. Nearly 9 in 10 high school teachers say their students are either “well” or “very well” prepared for college-level work in their subject area after leaving their courses. Yet only a quarter of college instructors report that their incoming students are either "well" or "very well" prepared for first-year credit-bearing courses in their subject area. These percentages remain virtually unchanged from a similar survey from 2009.

ACT’s survey is indicative of the college readiness (and therefore completion) gap currently facing our nation. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, 4.3 million freshmen started college in fall 2004.  More than half (60+ percent) of these first-year college students discovered that, despite being fully eligible to attend college, they had to take remedial courses in English or mathematics, which do not earn college credits. This made graduating on time, or at all, more difficult.  In part because of this college readiness deficit, 2.1 million of the 4.3 million freshmen did not officially graduate (though some may still be working towards a degree).  To put this in a global context, the U.S. has fallen from first in the world in college completion, to 14th (among OECD countries).  (See chart below for more on this.) 

If the U.S. wants to be able to compete in the economy of tomorrow, we need to prepare students to succeed in college and career today. In my heart of hearts, I do believe we’re all on the same page about this --- families, teachers, students, policy makers, funders. We want students to thrive in P-12, and be ready to take on whatever challenges they seek in postsecondary education, and eventual careers. But we’ve got a ways to go in identifying and scaling solutions.

I’m regularly shocked by the data (which I suppose is better than being numbed by it).  But I’m also looking to be re-inspired by the solutions. What’s working? What’s scalable? A recent report released by America’s Promise Alliance helps point us in that direction. In conversations with leaders from Baltimore, Denver, Louisville, and Miami, the report authors were able to identify some of what’s working on college readiness, access, and completion. For example, Howard County Community College in Maryland provides readiness testing to high schools in the county. Some of the schools have developed a “college- readiness class” in partnership with the community college for students whose tests show they need additional instruction.  Louisville is providing parent academies and scholarships, creating pathways from GED to college, and offering summer transition and credit-bearing programs for incoming freshmen.  Miami Dade College invites students to campus to work with staff on seeking and applying for scholarships in the college’s computer lab, drawing 2,500 students to the campus last year.  And leaders Colorado established the Denver Scholarship Foundation which (among other things) provides students with personal guidance through the selection, application and financial aid processes.

Common Core, too, is doing a lot to help students get ready for college.  It’s raising standards and spurring discussions around college readiness and the meaning of a high school diploma. However, major gaps remain in the implementation of the standards – and the tools to provide all students what they need for postsecondary success. We need to continue to update curricula, as well as the accompanying (print and digital) textbooks. We need to better support teachers, counselors, and wraparound service providers so they can help students meet these higher standards– through pre-service and in-service training. We also need to continue to create and foster ongoing and systemic opportunities for k12 and postsecondary educators to collaborate to find common solutions and to better engage extant resources.

ACT reports a more than 60 percentage point gap in high school versus college educators’ perceptions of their students’ readiness.  Now, it’s up to us to question our own perceptions about what works, what doesn’t, and why not -- so that we can test and scale solutions that work, close the 60 point gap, and ensure all students have access to entering college, and thriving there.