White House Panel on Sustaining the Dream through Education

Hugh Price, former head of the Urban League and civil rights luminary (and a professor of mine from graduate school) explained yesterday at a White House Panel on Sustaining the Dream through Education that "schools can not do it alone and should not go it alone." A part of the ongoing celebration in honor of the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington, Price was joined by Jim Shelton (Acting Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Education), David Johns (Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Education Excellence for African Americans), Rev. Brenda Girton-Mitchell (Director of the Center for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the US Department of Education), and other leaders from the White House, Department of Education, and the civil rights community. I was honored to be among them.

Mrs. Dorothy Height

Both Rev. Brenda Girton-Mitchell and Hugh Price remembered leaders of the past, while calling on leaders of the future. They paraphrased the words of Dorothy Height (the only woman to be on the stage during King's "I Have a Dream" speech) that "the table is big enough," and it's up to us to make sure community leaders have a seat at that decision-making table. Rev. Girton-Mitchell recalled the moment she met Height --- though the leader of a large organization, she was licking stamps for a mailing. Height explained she wouldn't ask others to do any work she wasn't willing to do herself. 

I had the honor of meeting Height when I was a student at the University of Virginia. I was on the leadership of the University's Minority Rights Coalition (representing the National Organization for Women, and later, serving as chair of the MRC). She was sitting in a chair, and I remember kneeling down next to her. She placed her hand on mine, looked me in the eyes, and encouraged us to keep working for equity. Likewise, yesterday, Price reminded us all that 50 years after the March on Washington, there is "urgent and unfinished business to do." According to the most recent data available, today in America, about half of African American males (52%) do not graduate from high school on time -- but that's a 10 percentage point increase from 10 years prior. So, while that's encouraging news, and success is more common than failure, there is much work to do. As he said, schools can't do it alone, so we must all continue to step up, and step in.

New Feeder Pattern Guide for Schools & Communities!

Over the past few months, I worked with the team at Civic Enterprises, the Everyone Graduates Center at JHU, and United Way to produce a feeder pattern guide for schools and communities. This guide builds on the commitments made by leaders of United Way at the previous Grad Nation Summits in Washington D.C. to help drive improvements in graduation rates. The guide provides valuable information to help identify the schools where additional adult and community support for students are most needed -- which in turn will help keep students in school and on-track to graduation.  More from United Way below. 

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Early Intervention Drives Graduation Success

The path to dropout starts early. So the earlier a struggling student is identified, ideally before they enter high school, the better the chances in shifting the odds for success in school, work and life.  But that identification must be based on the right data.  One effective starting point is identifying the middle and elementary schools that “feed” into the  lowest-performing high schools.

United Way Worldwide, Civic Enterprises, and Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University have developed a guide to help you and your community partners identify school feeder patterns – and help your community begin the critical discussion on using that data to boost graduation rates. 

This Guide can help you and your community partners:

·         Understand the graduation crisis and effectively convey the rationale for identifying and using school feeder pattern data

·         Understand your community’s education landscape

·         Find out where to access key education national, state, and local information and data

·         Know how graduation rates are calculated and determine your community’s graduation rates

·         Identify feeder school patterns in your community

·         Use school feeder pattern data for greater impact in your community

Download the guide here, and use these tips and this flyer with your board, key volunteers who care about education, partners, funded agencies, and other community stakeholders.  If you missed the April 24^th webinar focused on school feeder patterns and featuring Bob Balfanz, the nation’s premier researcher on high school dropout on this topic, click here to view the archived Webinar.

Judith O’Connor Memorial Scholarship

BoardSource, the leading national provider of resources related to exceptional nonprofit boards, is proud to announce that I have been selected as one of 15 national 2013 Judith O’Connor Scholars!  More from their press release, below.

The Judith O’Connor scholarships enable emerging nonprofit leaders to participate in the annual BoardSource Leadership Forum. The Forum, November 7-8, 2013, in Los Angeles, provides the Scholars with opportunities to advance their leadership skills, learn about progressive practices in good governance, and interact with nonprofit sector leaders from across the country. 

The Judith O’Connor Memorial Fund was created to honor the legacy of the late Judith O’Connor, former BoardSource president and chief executive officer. Judy firmly believed that citizens working together to address community issues are the very essence of a vibrant, democratic society. She was committed to strengthening the ability of the nonprofit sector to serve as a vehicle for engaging all citizens in civic life. Her passionate advocacy for building effective nonprofit boards touched nonprofit leaders around the world.

“We were pleased with the extremely competitive pool of applicants this year,” said Anne Wallestad, BoardSource president and chief executive officer. “I know Judy would be honored to have her legacy live on through the outstanding achievements and backgrounds of this year’s Scholars.”

The BoardSource Leadership Forum is the only national conference focused on the impact of nonprofit boards and the unique role they play in advancing the public good. Every year, approximately 700 nonprofit leaders from around the world gather with an impressive array of experts to discuss the newest thinking and practices in nonprofit governance and solutions to current leadership issues.

Chronic Absenteeism - It Adds Up

Guest Blog by Alison Courtney.  Alison was a summer 2013 education fellow at Civic Enterprises and is a Master of Public Policy candidate at the College of William and Mary.  She can be reached at macourtney@email.wm.edu.

September is just around the corner, which means it’s back to school for about 215 million students across the country.[i] Imagine what the month of September could look like for them, with school experiences as diverse as they are.  I’m thinking of  John, a math-loving 5^th grader.  During the first week of September, John has an afternoon doctor’s appointment so his mom will take him out of class for half the day.  Mom’s not too concerned; John will have an excused absence so he won’t get in trouble…and he needs to stay healthy, right?  The following week, John’s dad’s car breaks will break down on the way to school, so John will spend the morning with him at the mechanics before getting to school for the afternoon.  The last week of the month, John and his family will take off Friday to enjoy a long weekend visiting John’s grandparents.  That will be a whole month of school, and only a few excused absences along the way.

Now let’s apply some math that John will be learning in his 5^th grade class.  There are 4 school weeks in the month and 5 school days each week, totaling 20 school days in September.  With the half-day lost for the doctor’s appointment, half-day lost for the car problem, and a full day lost for the family vacation, John will miss a total of 2 days of school.  Not bad, you might think.  In actuality, it is bad.  John will miss 10 percent of in-school time, including access to academic, social, and emotional learning opportunities.

Missing 10 percent or more of school for any reason—excused or unexcused—is actually an indication that a student is academically at risk.[ii] And, important for John’s little sisters and brothers, chronic absence linked to academic trouble isn’t just a secondary school problem—it can start as early as kindergarten and pre-kindergarten.[iii]

Now, John may have family members, friends, or mentors who will make sure he reads or does math problems while in the doctor’s waiting room, at the mechanics, or on his Grandpa’s lap, but even if that is the case, chronic absenteeism is a strong indication that a student will experience academic trouble and eventually drop out of high school.[iv]

Nationwide, as many as 10-15 percent of students (7.5 million) miss nearly a month of school every year.[v]  That’s 135 million days of lost time in the classroom.  In some cities, as many as 1 in 4 students are missing that much school.[vi]  For students without strong out-of-school academic supports, those who miss 10 percent face even greater risk of falling off the track to graduate.  They may be more likely to miss additional days of school due to barriers such as lack of access to health care, poor transportation, or not having a safe path to school.

This September, things could be different for John and the millions of other students across the country who are chronically absent.  The first-ever Attendance Awareness Month, sponsored by Attendance Works in partnership with America’s Promise Alliance, the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, Civic Enterprises, Points of Light and is supported by a growing list of other national partners, aims to rally communities around the importance of attendance and its role in academic achievement.  People are sharing their activities on Attendance Works’ Community Action Map as well as running PSA’s, writing op-eds, and posting on social media sites.  The Count Us In! Toolkit is a great resource, providing ideas for getting involved in Attendance Awareness Month.  For example, students at a school in Oakland, California created a video about how students can achieve their goals tomorrow if they attend school today.  In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg launched an attendance initiative in 2010 that has already significantly reduced chronic absence in its pilot schools.  The initiative, Every Student, Every Day, relies on data tracking, school attendance committees and Success Mentors who work with students at risk of dropping out.[vii]    

This September, help John and other chronically absent students achieve in school by spreading the word about the importance of attending school every day!  You can learn more at Attendance Works, or visit BoostUp to use a new tool that allows you to chart the effect of missing school.  

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[i] United States Census Bureau (2011, October). School Enrollment. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/hhes/school/data/cps/2011/tables.html

[ii] Balfanz, R., Byrnes, V. (2012, May). The Importance of Being in School: A Report on Absenteeism in the Nation’s Public Schools. Retrieved from http://new.every1graduates.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/FINALChronicAbsenteeismReport_May16.pdf and Chang, H., Leong, C. (2013, May 24). Early Intervention Matters: How Addressing Chronic Absence Can Reduce Dropout Rates. Retrieved from http://www.attendanceworks.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Early-Intervention-NDPC-SD-webinar-FINAL-5-24-13.pdf

[iii] Chang

[iv] Balfanz

[v] Balfanz

[vi] Chang

[vii] Attendance Works, America’s Promise Alliance, Civic Enterprises, Points of Light, and the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading (2013, July). Count Us In! Working Together to Show That Every School Day Matters. Retrieved from http://www.attendanceworks.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/AAM-toolkit-2.0-FINAL.pdf