Can our public schools be fixed?
For those of us who have chosen to devote our careers to education reform, this is a rhetorical question.
Of course we believe our schools can be fixed, and of course we believe every child can achieve at high levels. But, sadly, it’s not a belief that is universally held.
Decades of data have shown us that the achievement gap between students of color and their white counterparts is widening. Dropout rates remain staggeringly high — nearly 50 percent of all black, brown, and low-income students are failing to complete school on time.
Against this dismal backdrop, the foundation’s president of U.S. Programs, Allan Golston, was recently interviewed by Black Enterprise magazine and challenges us all to see a path forward.
My favorite part:
“That’s a huge inequity in this country — that we don’t expect that you can live in a different state, or different zip code, and that can be a determinate of what type of education you’re getting through what you’re expected to know. So, one goal is to level that out so that we have high expectations regardless of what state, what zip code, what school district you’re in.
The second goal is to have a great teacher for every student. So, [it] shouldn’t matter if you’re in an urban district or a rural district, or you’re in Massachusetts or Mississippi. [For] every student, particularly the ones that don’t get access to a high quality education, which are typically students that are low income, minority, we’ve got to solve that problem so that there is a great teacher for every kid in every classroom.”
For those of us who have chosen to devote our careers to education reform, this is a rhetorical question.
Of course we believe our schools can be fixed, and of course we believe every child can achieve at high levels. But, sadly, it’s not a belief that is universally held.
Decades of data have shown us that the achievement gap between students of color and their white counterparts is widening. Dropout rates remain staggeringly high — nearly 50 percent of all black, brown, and low-income students are failing to complete school on time.
Against this dismal backdrop, the foundation’s president of U.S. Programs, Allan Golston, was recently interviewed by Black Enterprise magazine and challenges us all to see a path forward.
My favorite part:
“That’s a huge inequity in this country — that we don’t expect that you can live in a different state, or different zip code, and that can be a determinate of what type of education you’re getting through what you’re expected to know. So, one goal is to level that out so that we have high expectations regardless of what state, what zip code, what school district you’re in.
The second goal is to have a great teacher for every student. So, [it] shouldn’t matter if you’re in an urban district or a rural district, or you’re in Massachusetts or Mississippi. [For] every student, particularly the ones that don’t get access to a high quality education, which are typically students that are low income, minority, we’ve got to solve that problem so that there is a great teacher for every kid in every classroom.”
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