I’ve been a bit dismayed at the lack of discussion of education in this election. I was happy to hear Colin Powell highlight America’s educational challenges in his appearance this morning on Meet the Press. Gen. Powell stated:
I think the American people and the gentlemen running for president will have to, early on, focus on education more than we have seen in the campaign so far. America has a terrible educational problem in the sense that we have too many youngsters not finishing school. A third of our kids don’t finish high school, 50 percent of minorities don’t finish high school. We’ve got to work on this, and my, my wife and I are leading a campaign with this purpose.
Read the report (in PDF format) to which Powell was referring here.
Barack Obama wrote an editorial last year where he discussed addressing the crisis at the middle-school level. He wrote:
Students enter the middle grades hopeful about their future, believing that they will finish high school and then go on to college – as they should. If we are truly committed to maintaining our country’s economic and scientific competitiveness in the world, we must pursue unconventional strategies and innovative reforms to get all our kids the world-class education they deserve. Let’s invest in our next generation of leaders.
Along with this editorial, Obama proposed the Success in Middle Schools Act to address the dropout crisis. The bill includes:
- Authorize $1 billion a year to states to provide competitive grants to local school districts to improve low performing schools that contain middle grades. Using research findings and promising practices, states would develop detailed plans to improve middle school student achievement. Comprehensive centers, universities, and non-profits, would provide technical assistance to the states in developing these plans.
- Develop and utilize early identification data systems to identify those students most at risk of subsequently dropping out, and to assist school districts in providing targeted interventions to help all middle grades students succeed.
- Invest in effective strategies at the state and district level such as providing professional development and coaching to school leaders, and developing and implementing comprehensive, school-wide improvement efforts and implementing student supports.
- Authorize funds to generate and disseminate the results of research to identify and employ effective practices that support student learning and success at the middle level.
Read more about it here.
