Education Nation

1. 68 EBONY | SEPTEMBER 2010
eDUCATION SPeCIALe
FOR THE PRESIDENT, IT’S PERSONAL.
For the country, it’s critical. For African-Americans, it’s the civil
rights issue of the 21st century.
Nationwide, three out of every 10 students drop out of high school.
For Blacks, that number is near half—and growing. Further, it is
estimated that every 46 seconds of every school day, a Black male
student drops out of high school. That’s enough students to fill two
classrooms every hour and an entire high school each week.
Ineffective teaching strategies, off-the-shelf tests, outdated equipment,
dilapidated buildings and a host of other ills have been allowed to
fester so long in schools nationwide that it seems as if expectations of
success no longer exist. With American schools failing—and countries
including China, India and an increasingly capitalistic Russia knocking
atthedoor—theAmericanDreamisbeingthreatenedlikeneverbefore.
Many now believe that small changes here and there won’t work.
Education in America is in such a crisis, and at such a crossroads, that
the country needs to totally rethink how it educates its children.
In fact, President Obama is so frustrated with the quality of our
schools that he has taken the stand, controversial in many liber-
al circles, of supporting the expansion of charter schools. The
White House has spearheaded $4.35 billion in “Race to the Top”
competitive grants that reward states that propose the best out-
of-the-box solutions. In doing so, the president is encouraging
the innovative spirit that spurred the growth of charter schools
in the first place, and is supporting parents who want to shop
around for a public school that is producing results.
The president has also made it clear that he has little time for parents
who don’t put in the effort needed to foster learning in their children,
and no patience for teachers and administrators who care more about
job security than educating students.
Butifeducationalsuccessisthemarriageofmotivationandpreparation
on the part of students, parents, teachers and administrators, a
president—even one named Obama—can only do so much.
Ultimately, the best education system may be one that simply
holds both its students and its teachers to strict standards, aims
to prevent as many students as possible from falling through the
cracks, and catches as many as possible that do.
President Obama recently sat down in the White House’s Oval
Office with EBONY Editor-in-Chief Amy DuBois Barnett and
White House Correspondent Kevin Chappell to talk about what his
administration is doing to turn around the education system, and
why he is committed to having America graduate the highest
proportion of students from college in the world by 2020.
PRESIDENT OBAMA
ISONA
MISSION
WHEN IT COMES TO
PROVIDING AN
ENVIRONMENT IN
WHICH EVERY
CHILD CAN LEARN,
BY AMY DUBOIS BARNETT
AND KEVIN CHAPPELL
NATION
EDUCATION
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eDUCATION SPeCIALe
EBONY: MR. PRESIDENT, WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR
THE UNITED STATES THAT A SIGNIFICANT PORTION
OF OUR AFRICAN-AMERICAN POPULATION IS UNABLE
TO COMPETE AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS BECAUSE OF
THE WIDENING ACHIEVEMENT GAP BETWEEN
WHITE AND BLACK STUDENTS?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: It’s a huge problem … obviously
for the students themselves most importantly, because it means that
their incomes are going to be capped. But it’s bad for the economy
as a whole. One of the strengths of the United States is that we’ve
got a relatively young population and a growing population. That’s
not true for most developed countries, but it’s only an advantage if
those young people … are proficient in math and science and can
communicate effectively. And our fastest-growing populations are
African-Americans and Hispanics.
This achievement gap is going to be an albatross around the neck of our
economy if we don’t solve it. You’re increasingly seeing a mismatch
between the jobs that are being created and the skill sets that are avail-
able. A lot of companies out there are saying, “We’re ready to hire, but
we’renothiringsomebodywhodidn’tgraduatefromhighschool.We’re
not going to hire somebody who doesn’t have at least decent math
skills.” So one of our highest priorities is closing that achievement gap.
EBONY: The achievement gap goes beyond demographics and
policy. Do you think that there needs to be a fundamental shift in what
we value as a people and how we perceive academic achievement? How
can we make education, achievement and success cool again?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, this is something that I’ve
been preaching for years. Look, the government has obligations that
it has to meet. We have to properly fund our schools and we’re still
not doing that in a lot of communities. One of the top priorities of
this administration has been making sure, during the recession, that
we’re providing stabilization funds to local school districts so that they
can keep their doors open. But the bottom line is, if we don’t have
parents who are constantly emphasizing high levels of achievement,
if we don’t as a community … tell kids that their primary focus is to
learn and that … they’re letting themselves down and letting their
communities down and letting their country down when they don’t
succeed … we’re not going to be able to compete. When you look
at the success of immigrant kids, for example, a lot of them … even
if they’re in relatively poor schools, oftentimes are succeeding at the
highest levels. And the reason is because they’ve got a network of fam-
ily and community that is constantly reinforcing, “Your number-one
job is to succeed in school.” And we just don’t do that.
And that goes to everything from making sure our kids read and
write, to turning off the TV, to reading to them, to putting away the
video games. You know, all of those things are hard to do for a lot of
families where maybe a single mom is working all day, coming home
and having to cook, having to take care of a household. Michelle felt
like a single mom when I was off campaigning … so she’s very sym-
pathetic about how hard this is. But the issue is, what are your pri-
orities? And it doesn’t require money. It requires a sense of commit-
ment. Every African-American knows some family where the mom
never graduated from high school, did some sort of domestic work
or worked in a factory, but was so geared up on education that, you
know, she’s got five kids and they’re all doctors or lawyers.
EBONY: Let’s talk about your administration’s efforts to bring
high standards back to public education: the Race to the Top initia-
tive. What’s the time line, and what are the expectations for measur-
able goals to be achieved?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, just to describe what Race to
the Top does: Essentially, we carved out $4.35 billion dollars, and we
said to states and local school districts, “This money you don’t get
just because it’s part of a formula. You get this money only if you are
competing with other states to show us how you’re reforming your
school system along with a couple of key indicators. Are you train-
ing teachers effectively? Are you keeping track of your schools’ per-
formance so that there’s accountability? Are you looking at the low-
est-performing schools, and do you have a plan to make sure those
low-performing schools are ramped up?”
The good news is that 46 states and the District of Columbia all
applied for the money. Not all of them got funding in that first year,
but because they all were competing for it, they all ended up chang-
ing their laws and strengthening reform efforts. So what we’ve already
seen is a much more aggressive reform agenda at the local level with
a relatively small amount of money. How fast we start seeing results
… is going to depend on how aggressive that particular school district
is. But what we’re seeing already is that in some states and local school
districts, just paying attention to what works and best practices is
already starting to yield results in terms of improved student
performance. This is not going to be a one- or two-year issue,
partly because we’re already dealing with a bunch of kids who are
”
“If we don’t have
parents who are
constantly emphasizing
high levels of
achievement,
if we don’t … tell kids that
their primary focus is to
learn and THAT THEY’RE
LETTING THEMSELVES
DOWN and …
letting their country down
when they don’t succeed,
we’re not going to
be able to compete.
LEADSPREAD:TIMES-PICAYUNE/LANDOV;
DUDLEYM.BROOKS
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DUDLEYM.BROOKS
eDUCATION SPeCIALe
behind; we’re going to have to sustain this for a decade or 15 years.
We’ve got another round of [Race to the Top] competitions coming
up and then we’re going to see, even in these tight budgetary times,
whether we can get additional funding.
EBONY: Well, while we need to develop our brain trust to be inter-
nationallycompetitive,wealsoneedtomotivateouryouthtowardservice.
Thisideaisthatweallhaveadebttosocietyissomethingthatyou’vetalked
a lot about. How can we encourage and inspire our kids to give back?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: First of all, it starts at home. One
of the things that Michelle and I always emphasize to our kids is,
“You’ve got responsibilities to the family. Your first responsibility is
to do your work at school and bring home good grades, and pay
attention and behave yourself. But you’ve also got responsibilities in
terms of taking care of your business, whether it’s walking your dog
or [cleaning up] your room.” Some of those kinds of demands made
on children in the home … carry over to a sense of responsibility and
obligation outside the home.
I think structuring service opportunities for kids, even in elementary
school … even if the contributions are modest, gets young people in
that mindset that they’ve got responsibilities. And that then carries
over into how they do their homework, how they treat their
boyfriends or girlfriends. Just having a sense of, “It’s not just about
me, it’s about something else—other people,” is one of the most
important aspects of educating young people, period.
And what I’d tell young people is that service is actually a great oppor-
tunity to network and get exposure to a wider group of people who
can end up being helpful to you, even if that’s not your intention.
Everybody I know who gets involved with a not-for-profit, who vol-
unteers … ends up meeting people who, at some point in their lives,
open doors. And that’s true especially for young people. [However,]
we’re very mindful of the fact that some kids who are more privileged
can afford to do things that are not-for-profit. And other kids [can-
not], and I include myself in this. I had to work at Baskin-Robbins
... just to make money. So it’s not always an even playing field. But I
think the general principle applies.
EBONY: Let’s talk about violence. Violence seems to have, unfor-
tunately, been normalized in many of our nation’s schools. As you
well know, in Chicago alone, 19 kids under the age of 18 were killed
by gun violence this year. How do you propose to address the vio-
lence that endangers our children and certainly impedes their ability
to get a quality education?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, you’ve got to have an all
hands on deck approach. Federal, state, local, criminal justice sys-
tems, schools, community, churches: Everybody’s got to be involved
in thinking about these issues because they’re complicated. Obviously,
it starts with making sure that kids and families have the structure and
the support to make them less vulnerable to drugs, make them less
vulnerable to communities that are rife with crime. So … we’ve tried
to take [steps] to improve job opportunities, to have drug treatment
programs, to have affordable housing.
You have to have a strong criminal justice effort. One of the reasons
that New York [City], for example, has been able to drive down its
murder rate significantly is that they just have more cops on the beat.
They have more police officers per capita than any other major city
in the country. And that makes a difference, having a police presence.
We’ve [also] got the Department of Justice and my attorney gener-
al, Eric Holder, working with local communities to find programs
that work effectively . . . to intervene before gang violence starts to
help train young people on issues of conflict to avoid. So there is a
whole range of things that we, at a federal level, are doing to help rein-
force what the state and local communities can do.
And one of the things we have to do is not get numb to the tragedies For additional information and resources, log on to ebony.com.
TOP FIVE WAYS
TO HELP YOUR
CHILDREN ACHIEVE:
◗ Expect the best from your children,
and tell them that their primary focus
is to learn.
◗ Turn off the TV, read to your kids,
prioritize their education.
◗ Inspire your children to give back
to their community by finding
service opportunities for them.
◗ Don’t get numb to the violence
in our communities, and support
drug treatment and anti-violence programs.
◗ Help your kids understand the
power and independence that
knowledge will bring them.
THETAKEAWAY…
PRESIDENT OBAMA’S
U.S. Secretary of Education
Arne Duncan has said that
“As a country, we should be
embarrassed and ashamed
that less than 2 percent, less
than one in 50, teachers are
African-American males.”
In an attempt to recruit more Black
males into the teaching profession,
this month the Department of
Education is unveiling its new
Teacher Education Assistance for
College and Higher Education
(TEACH) awareness campaign. It
includes an aggressive marketing
drive across television, radio, print
publications and the Web. The fed-
eral government is working with
Nike marketing execs, who have
volunteered their services, as well
as with celebrities including Oprah
Winfrey, who will appear in public
service announcements.
The primary goal of TEACH is to
highlight the great sense of pur-
pose and fulfillment that comes
from teaching. Duncan says that
he also wants to stress the upward
mobility possible in the education
profession by clearly laying out
how teachers can be promoted to
master teachers, principals and
superintendents.
Duncan recently sat down with
EBONY to discuss his plans for
encouragingmoreAfrican-American
males to become teachers.
EBONY: How much of a need is
there for more African-American
male teachers?
DUNCAN:It is hugely important.
I talk about it everywhere I go. If we
are serious about eliminating the
achievement gap, we have to close
what I call the opportunity gap. A
huge piece of the strategy is to get
more African-American males in
the nation’s classroom. We all
know the challenges our young
African-American boys face. We
know the challenges around single-
parent households and dads being
absent from their lives. Our young
boys desperately need role mod-
els, they need mentors, they need
men who they can look up to and
say, “If they did it, so can I.” Black
boys will gravitate to Black male
teachers . . . [which can] affect
hundreds of thousands of lives.
You cannot overstate the impact.
EBONY: Specifically, how would
the TEACH campaign get more
Black males into the classroom?
DUNCAN:Right now, we are not
graduating enough African-
American males from high school.
There are not enough going to col-
lege. We don’t have enough gradu-
ating from college. Those who do
get through have significant loans
and they feel like they can’t go into
teaching. There is not one easy
answer here. What we have to do
is build our own pipeline. This is
not a self-correcting problem. And
if we don’t do something, this
thing is actually going to get
worse. It’s a multifaceted
approach. The big change is our
income-based repayment plan, in
which we are dramatically reduc-
ing loan repayment, and after 10
years of public service, such as
teaching, your loans are forgiven.
BY KEVIN CHAPPELL
TEACHing Black Men
that are happening on our streets every day. As you said, [violence] can get normal-
ized in a way that we just have to fight against.
EBONY: Mr. President, this year EBONY is celebrating its 65th anniversary. As
the oldest Black magazine in the country, we would like to be part of the solution to
these issues. How can EBONY’s help you to solve these issues? How can we help our
children succeed in school and in life? Please share your wish list from us.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know, the most important thing for me is that
every single EBONY reader help to parent our kids and set very high expectations for
them. Number two, EBONY, and all our media outlets, have to start glamorizing edu-
cational achievement as much as we glamorize athletes and actors. Look, Malia and
Sasha, if given a choice, would rather listen to Beyoncé than they would do fractions.
But what Michelle and I are able to do is to say, “Your work now, your willingness to
defer gratification, is going to put you in a position where you can choose a career,
raise a family, afford a Beyoncé concert ticket. [Your work] gives you control over your
life.” And so the girls have made that connection.
We always have dinner together, Michelle, the girls and me. [Last year over dinner,]
Malia was explaining to us something about how electromagnetic waves were work-
ing, and Michelle and I were listening and trying to remember all this stuff we had
learned a while back. At the end of it, Malia said, “You know, I like having knowl-
edge.” She said it just like that. “I like having knowledge. You know, it’s good to know
stuff.” And when your kid feels that way, then half the battle is won. Then you don’t
have to nag them all the time because they’ve now decided … “To know stuff gives
me power. It gives me strength. It gives me a way to move through the world.”
EBONY: Did that make you feel good?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Oh, it made me feel great. You’re only as happy as
your least-happy child!
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