Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Making College The Standard For Students

By Eliza Krigman  

Michael Lomax

President and CEO of the United Negro College Fund

Education policy expert Michael Lomax presided over a public hearing on improving schools held last week by the Aspen Institute's bipartisan Commission on No Child Left Behind. Lomax is president and CEO of the United Negro College Fund and a member of the commission. "We're gearing up for a major national conversation about the academic health of our country," Lomax said. The Sept. 2 hearing was the first in a series leading up to a report on improving NCLB during its upcoming reauthorization process.

National Journal caught up with Lomax before the event to hear his views on school improvement and the future of NCLB.

NJ: What have we learned from NCLB?

Lomax: All kids can learn... but not every kid gets the opportunity to learn. We have learned that student performance is utterly uneven around the country, and that when you set standards, they must be national standards to which everyone subscribes, or else they are watered down and are meaningless. When you hold teachers, principals and school systems accountable to deliver results that are quantifiable, real things happen. When you don't hold them accountable, and when you don't have data and evidence on which to judge their performance, you're not certain of your results.

We have also learned over the last decade that schools and education can be extraordinarily innovative. We've seen incredible things happen, pockets of innovation -- charters in particular. They are schools that show low-income kids from families who have never had education can achieve extraordinary results if given the opportunity, in the right classroom, in the right school setting.

I don't think we can have excuses any longer that kids can't learn. The responsibility is on the adults to make the environment one in which they have the ability to do so.

NJ: What are the best ways to improve schools?

Lomax: One of the best ways to improve schools is to have a great teacher in every classroom and a great principal in every school.

NJ: What specific policy recommendations do you have for the reauthorization of NCLB to improve schools?

Lomax: I think it's a little early. Part of the reason we are having these hearings around the country is to listen, to hear on the ground what people are saying works and doesn't work. At the end of that, we are going to come forward with a thoughtfully developed recommendation, which we are going to take to the Congress, the secretary [Arne Duncan] and the president. I hope we are going to be able to make the case for a bipartisan, broadly supported reauthorization of NCLB. Whatever we call it, a reauthorization, and a demonstrated commitment that we are going to hold this nation to high standards. We can fight this battle, but right now we are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. If you look at what's happening in schools in China, India and Western Europe, they are holding their kids to very high standards; they are producing the engineers, the scientists, that are going to drive their economies in the 21st century. We better do the same.

NJ: Do you support Duncan's approaches to education reform so far?

Lomax: I think we've got a great secretary, who is using the resources that he has -- and he has extraordinary financial resources -- to drive innovation and reform.

NJ: If you were to do anything different from the secretary, what would it be?

Lomax: I would make an even more powerful linkage between what we have to do to improve P-12 and what happens to kids in the post-secondary. We don't want to be a nation of high school graduates, we want to be a nation of college graduates. This approach, where it's P-12 on the one hand and post-secondary [on the] other, needs to be viewed as a continuum of education. We need to make sure that we're graduating high school seniors college-ready. We need to be doing everything we can to help them with the transition to college, help them remain in college and graduate from college with the skills that we need them to have to be competitive in the work force.

I'm an English teacher, so I want students who come into my classroom with critical reading, analytical and problem-solving abilities who are able to communicate in writing. I want those skills that are going to be necessary for them to be successful in college to begin to be taught to them, substantially, while they are in high school and middle school. I think there is a disconnect between the expectations of college and what is taught to kids in middle school and high school. One of the things we could do is a better job in is making that bridge between K-12 and post-secondary.

NJ: There's been increased discussion that a four-year college may not be right for everybody. Do you agree with that?

Lomax: We keep lowering the standards. I think the goal is to be the number one nation in the world in terms of producing college graduates. That's a very high standard; not everyone is going to meet it....

The truth about the 21st century, and the kind of economy we will have in the United States, and the requirements of the work force, is that the more education someone has, the better they will negotiate that economy. So I think we should set that standard with the understanding that some people will get certifications, some people will get associate of arts degrees, but we should be pushing everybody to get a bachelor's degree.

So often when we say not everybody needs a college degree, the people that wind up in the "not everybody" class are black or brown, and it's another way of saying that not everybody is college material. I believe that all students should have equal access to a college degree, because a college degree is the minimum academic credential for having a strong professional career in the 21st century. In this country today, very few professional jobs don't require educational credentialing beyond a high school diploma. That is only going to become more rigorous, and we should aspire to the higher standard, not the lower standard.