by NNPA ESSA | Aug 31, 2018 | California, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), National, NNPA, NNPA Newswire, nnpaESSA
By Freddie Allen (NNPA Newswire Contributor)
The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) announced plans to conduct a groundbreaking survey that will gauge the awareness and impact of President Barack Obama’s education law—the Every Student Succeeds Act—in the Black community.
The NNPA is a trade group that represents more than 200 Black-owned media companies and newspapers in the United States, that reach an estimated 20 million readers in print and online, combined, every week.
President Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) on December 10, 2015, replacing the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind Act. ESSA encourages a personalized educational environment; supports programs that enhance parental engagement in schools; and improves guidelines about targeted resources for historically, underserved schools.
In late 2016, the NNPA received a three-year grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (Gates Foundation) to develop a multi-media public awareness campaign focused on ESSA, improving educational outcomes for Black students and increasing parental engagement.
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., the president and CEO of the NNPA, thanked the Gates Foundation for collaborating with the Black Press to help raise public awareness about the Every Student Succeeds Act.
Dr. Chavis described the ESSA awareness research as a “proactive move.”
“Rather than let people outside of our community tell us what’s going on inside our community, this is an opportunity for the [Black Press]—the people who work and serve and live and thrive in the community—to do our own research.”
Dr. Chavis said that the data will help the NNPA and other community stakeholders gain insight into how to be more effective in raising public awareness around ESSA.
“This study will also give a stronger voice to parents, educators and caregivers in the Black community,” Dr. Chavis said.
The NNPA has a track record of success for measuring the pulse of the Black community. The trade group partnered with Howard University in Washington, D.C. for a national poll of Black voters ahead of the 2016 midterms and for a 2017 poll on sickle cell disease (SCD) in the Black community; the SCD poll was supported by the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.
During a press conference about the results of the NNPA/Pfizer SCD poll, Michael Goettler, the global president of Pfizer’s Rare Disease unit, said that the survey analysis provided a basis for Pfizer to seek more detailed assistance for SCD sufferers, who are disproportionately Black.
Dr. Chavis said that the success of the Black voter poll and the SCD poll not only opened doors for other research opportunities, but that it also showed that Black folks trust and rely on the Black Press.
During a 2017 interview with the NNPA Newswire, John King, the former U.S. Secretary of Education and current president and CEO of the Education Trust, a national nonprofit organization focused on closing opportunity and achievement gaps, said that the Black Press has a hugely important role in mobilizing Black parents around education and ESSA.
“It’s partly about telling the story about [exposing academic and opportunity gaps], but it’s also about changing the narrative,” King said. “Sometimes, we focus only on what isn’t going well, but there’s also a powerful story to tell about what is going well.”
Dr. Chavis said that the ESSA survey and the data that is collected should play significant roles in crafting those powerful stories.
The ESSA survey will be conducted online and target pre-selected markets in California including: Los Angeles and the surrounding regions (Orange County, Ventura County, San Bernardino County, and Riverside County); San Francisco; Oakland; San Jose; Sacramento; Stockton; Modesto; San Diego; Fresno; Visalia and Bakersfield.
NNPA member publications in California will help to promote and distribute the survey and the results will be shared broadly across the nation.
Dr. Reggie Weaver, the former president of the National Education Association (NEA), said that, all too often, parents are not engaged in the education of their children.
“Any way that information about ESSA can be coupled with getting parents to act on the things that are in the law is absolutely critical,” Weaver said. “What the NNPA is doing to educate and inform parents of their rights is important.”
Weaver said that parents can’t sit back and be spectators in the education of their children; they have to be active participants. That means getting involved in school board meetings, working with teachers and school administrators, and participating in surveys like the NNPA’s education poll.
Dr. Chavis said that the results from the NNPA’s education poll will not only be used to develop successful models for future public awareness campaigns, but the national exposure would also help to enhance the visibility and value of Black newspapers in California.
“This is a historic moment for the NNPA and we are encouraged that so many of our members will be able to participate,” Dr. Chavis said. “We are eagerly waiting for the study to commence and to get the results.”
Dr. Chavis continued: “This is just the beginning. The NNPA will continue to seek out culturally-relevant research opportunities in our on-going effort to improve the quality of life in the Black community.”
Learn more about the NNPA’s ESSA awareness poll at nnpa.org/essa.
Freddie Allen is the former Editor-in-Chief of the NNPA Newswire and BlackPressUSA.com. You can follow Freddie on Twitter @freddieallenjr.
by NNPA ESSA | Aug 31, 2018 | K12 Education, National
By Nate Davis (CEO and Board of Directors Chairman, K12 Inc.)
Our nation’s graduation rate is at an all-time high. The national figure shows 84 percent of young people, overall, graduating from high school within four years after first entering the 9th grade, a trend that has been on a consistent upswing since the 2010-2011 school year.
Still, despite much progress with that indicator, major gaps still exist. And there is great concern that the graduation rate hype not only masks those gaps, but distracts us from what must be our ultimate goal: ensuring all students earn a high school diploma and are college and career ready.
Even as overall graduation rates improve, Black and Hispanic students continue to lag behind that curve. Graduation rates for African American students are 76.4 percentage points—8 percentage points behind the national average—and Latino students are at 79.3 percent. Native American students fare even worse at just 72 percent graduation. Meanwhile, White and Asian students are anywhere from four to six points higher than the national average.
None of us can reasonably expect the closure of inequality gaps, if we’re simply satisfied with overall graduation rates while resigned to stubborn achievement gaps. Yet, it seems as if we’re in a phase whereby these disparities are being treated as normal—“the way it is”—as opposed to addressing a larger parity problem.
We have to ask ourselves: are we having a responsible and responsive conversation about high school graduation?
The most recent “Building a Grad Nation” report from America’s Promise Alliance says that, “Twenty-three states have Black-White graduation rate gaps larger than the national average, including five states—Wisconsin, Nevada, Minnesota, New York, and Ohio—where the gap is more than 20 percentage points…Twenty-four states have Hispanic/White graduation rate gaps that exceed the national average, and in two states – Minnesota and New York—the gap is more than 20 percentage points.”
The persistent normalcy of lower achievement among certain disadvantaged student populations is deeply troubling. Closing those gaps should be as important—if not more—than simply raising overall graduation rates.
At the same time, graduation rates can be used to unfairly malign schools that are serving underprivileged youth and, in fact, helping at-risk students earn a high school diploma. Alternative schools are singled out for having four-year cohort graduation rates that are generally lower than the national average, but left out of the conversation is how these schools are intentionally designed to serve credit-deficient transfer students and former dropouts at risk of never earning a diploma at all.
Measuring how well schools are graduating students is important, but it should be done right, and must not create disincentives for schools to serve credit-deficient students or dropouts looking for a second chance. After all, what is more important for these students: graduating or graduating “on-time”? It’s why graduation rate calculations should be reformed altogether so schools are held accountable for students’ annual progress toward graduation every year, not just in the fourth year of high school.
Sadly, the drive to meet on-time graduation has led to recent cases of manipulation and fraud, which, of course, is wrong, but it also misses the primary purposes of high school altogether: preparing students for higher education, careers, and the workforce. The linkage between these goals—graduation and college and career readiness—is crucial for broader national competitiveness. Graduating students is meaningless if they are not prepared.
The number of high school students heading into remedial courses in their first year of college are staggering, and the gaps between varying demographics are even more troubling. Nearly 60 percent of African American students are forced to enroll in non-credit remedial classes in college, according to the Center for American Progress, compared to 45 percent of Latino students and 35 percent of White students. This means that Black, first-year college students, already burdened the most by rising college costs and loan debt, are taking on a greater share of the $1.3 billion wasted on non-credit remedial courses.
There is no one silver bullet that will solve our nation’s graduation problem, but we can start by realigning graduation standards to the expectations of colleges, career training programs, industries and jobs, and developing competency-based, personalized learning paths for students unconstrained by four-year cohorts. And we must finally address funding gaps that exist for too many alternative schools working to eliminate achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students.
Addressing this complex challenge requires a mix of other solutions, too; improved learning models and instruction, greater support for our teachers, innovative technology, and increased services to disenfranchised students groups are just a few that we should be working on. But none of this can happen without educators, policymakers and business leaders willing to engage in honest and constructive conversations, and then pledging to act.
A rising graduation rate is worth celebrating, but let’s not become complacent.
Learn more about improving the educational outcomes for the students in your life at nnpa.org/essa.
Nate Davis is the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors at K12 Inc., an online education provider for students in pre-K through 12th grade.