Category Archives: Education

White House Announces New Steps to Create Better, Fairer and Fewer Tests in Schools

Outgoing US Congressman Steve Israel with Great Neck (marking its 200th anniversary as a public school district) and Long Island educators, in front of Great Neck South Middle School, appeals for the Department of Education to change its rules regarding over-testing. The White House has just announced new steps to create “better, fairer and fewer tests” © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
Outgoing US Congressman Steve Israel with Great Neck (marking its 200th anniversary as a public school district) and Long Island educators, in front of Great Neck South Middle School, appeals for the Department of Education to change its rules regarding over-testing. The White House has just announced new steps to create “better, fairer and fewer tests” © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

Common Core has become one of those boogeymen memes that elicits hysterical knee-jerk reaction against Big Government intrusion into parental authority and local control over schools. However, what is deliberately set aside is that Common Core was developed at the state level. The point of Common Core was to lift standards for public education. Instead, it has been overtaken by the Accountability Movement which uses testing as a weapon against teacher unions and by the Privatized Education Corporatists as a tool to overturn public education in favor of taxpayer funding of for-profit, privatized charter schools and unconstitutional public funding of parochial schools.  The result was over-testing, creating unnecessary stress among public school students (private school students don’t have to take the tests), but a windfall for private testing and tutoring companies. In these waning days of the Obama Administration, which has worked so hard to improve public education for all, the White House has announced new, rational steps to create “better, fairer and fewer tests” in schools. . – Karen Rubin, News & Photo Features

 FACT SHEET: White House Announces New Steps to Create Better, Fairer and Fewer Tests in Schools

“When I look back on the great teachers who shaped my life, what I remember isn’t the way they prepared me to take a standardized test. What I remember is the way they taught me to believe in myself. To be curious about the world. To take charge of my own learning so that I could reach my full potential. …

I’ve heard from parents who worry that too much testing is keeping their kids from learning some of life’s most important lessons. I’ve heard from teachers who feel so much pressure to teach to a test that it takes the joy out of teaching and learning, both for them and for the students. I want to fix that.”

– President Barack Obama, October 2015

When done well, assessments give parents, teachers, and students critical information on whether all students in a community are progressing each year toward college and career readiness. When used appropriately, they also serve as an essential protection to promote equity.  In too many schools, however, redundant or low-quality assessments are being administered without a clear purpose.  These ineffective assessments can consume valuable class time and can take the joy out of learning.

That is why last October, President Obama announced his Testing Action Plan and asked the U.S. Department of Education to work aggressively with states and school districts to make sure that tests students take are worthwhile; high-quality; time-limited; fair and transparent to students and families; and one of multiple sources used to understand how students, educators and schools are progressing.  Since then, the Obama Administration has acted to assist states and school districts in ensuring that the tests they are giving are better, fairer and fewer.

The White House and the Department of Education, on December 7, brought state and district leaders together with educators, parents, technologists, developers and philanthropic leaders to discuss the impact of the Testing Action Plan and what more can be done to ensure that tests are better, fairer, and fewer. As part of the event, the Department of Education announced additional resources and guidance for states and school districts aligned with the Testing Action Plan, including nearly $8 million in grants to the Maryland State Department of Education and the Nebraska Department of Education to develop new and innovative ways to measure science achievement that can serve as models for other states.

New Federal Resources to Help States and School Districts Improve Testing

The White House and the Department of Education are announcing new efforts designed to help states and school districts improve their assessments and help them evaluate the totality of their assessments in order to eliminate unnecessary or low-quality tests.  Today’s announcements include:

o   The Innovations in Science Map, Assessment, and Report Technologies (I-SMART) Project, led by the Maryland State Department of Education and in partnership with Missouri, New York, New Jersey, and Oklahoma, will produce innovative science assessments aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards to support comprehensive alternate assessments for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities.  It will contain multiple measures of student progress over time, develop a science learning map that includes multiple pathways for students to learn science content and reach challenging grade-level expectations, and also deliver score reports that improve the information about student performance that is shared with educators and families.

o   The Strengthening Claims-Based Interpretations and Uses of Local and Large-Scale Science Assessments (SCILLSS) project, led by the Nebraska Department of Education in partnership with Montana and Wyoming, aims to improve the quality of statewide science assessments.  The project will leverage existing tools and expertise to generate more resources to strengthen states’ ability to create and evaluate quality science assessments.  The project will also engage state and local educators to clarify the interpretations and uses of assessments scores and to create tools to improve the usefulness of student performance results.

  • Regulations to Create Better, Fairer, and Fewer Assessments under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA):  The Department of Education is releasing two final regulations designed to give states and school districts clarity and flexibility as they implement the assessment provisions under Title I of the ESSA.  These regulations seek to clarify the statutory requirement that states administer high-quality, annual assessments to all students by ensuring that these assessments are worth taking and provide meaningful data about student success and equity for all students, while also encouraging states and districts to continue to push the field of assessment forward through innovation.

o   Creating Better, Fairer, and Fewer Tests:  The final regulation for state assessment systems under Title I, Part A — which are the result of consensus reached when the Department of Education conducted negotiated rulemaking with a diverse group of stakeholders earlier this year — willensure states continue to administer tests that are valid, reliable, and fair measures of student achievement for all students, including by setting clear parameters for meaningfully including students with disabilities and English language learners in state tests and supporting them with appropriate test accommodations.  The final regulation also allows states to take advantage of a range of innovative approaches to improve assessment and reduce overall burden, such as implementing computer-adaptive assessments and allowing a district to offer a locally selected, nationally recognized high school tests in place of the annual statewide high school assessment.  Taken together, this regulation will help states and districts implement ESSA to create better, fairer and fewer tests.

o   Producing a New Generation of Innovative Assessments:  The final regulation under Title I, Part B establishes the parameters under which states may take advantage of a new innovative assessment demonstration authority under the ESSA to create, try out, and scale up alternatives to traditional end-of-year large-scale assessments.  This demonstration authority, initially available to up to seven states, allows states to rethink assessment systems and pilot new, innovative approaches to measuring student achievement for use in their accountability systems.  States with demonstration authority will be allowed to phase-in and use a new innovative assessment system in a subset of their districts, while maintaining their existing system in the rest of their districts, and use the results from both systems for accountability and reporting purposes under the law during the pilot phase.  States may also apply for flexibility as a consortium, providing a built-in community of practice to share and work through common challenges as they scale their new innovative assessments statewide.

  • Guidance to States on How to Use Federal Resources to Create Better, Fairer and Fewer Tests:  The Department of Education is also releasing non-regulatory guidance for states and school districts, which highlights flexibility in ESSA for how states and districts can use federal funds to support the President’s Testing Action Plan. The guidance outlines how states and districts can use federal funding under the ESSA to ensure high-quality assessments for all students; reduce testing time; eliminate redundant, duplicative assessment; and provide clear, transparent and actionable information on assessments to students, families, and educators.  This ESSA guidance applies starting in fiscal year 2017 (i.e., the 2017-2018 school year) and updates previous guidance ED released earlier this year.
  • Profiles of Districts that are Taking Action to Improve Assessments:  The Department of Education is releasing profiles highlighting the steps taken by two districts, Eminence Independent Schools (KY) and Vancouver Public Schools (WA), to reduce and improve assessments. Eminence saw dramatic improvements in student achievement after implementing a learner-centric education model that focuses on differentiated instruction, personalized learning, continuous growth, and the use of formative assessments and alternative means to assess student progress.  Vancouver Public Schools conducted an audit of its district-required assessments in 2015 and eliminated 105 administrations of district-required assessments allowing the district to return an average of 900 minutes back into the classroom across grades 3 – 8. These profiles build on a report the Department released in April, highlighting the work of leading states and districts to improve assessment and ensure class time is preserved.
  • Information on Technology-Delivered Assessments Supported by the Institute of Education Sciences:  The Institute for Education Sciences (IES) is releasing ablog that highlights some of the technology-delivered assessments funded through IES.  Since its inception in 2002, three IES programs, including the Research Programs at the National Center for Education Research (NCER) and at the National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER), and the ED/IES SBIRprogram have made over 200 awards supporting the development of new technology-delivered assessments.  The awards were made to a mix of academic researchers, entrepreneurial firms, and larger education organizations. All of the projects included a rigorous research and development process with studies to validate that assessments are measuring what is intended and pilots to test the promise of the technologies for improving student learning outcomes.  Later this month IES will release a more detailed report highlighting the technology-delivered assessments and innovations in the assessment field funded through three research programs.

Donald Trump Pushes School Choice Proposal; Hillary Clinton Campaign Slams as Attack on Public Education

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses New York State Conservative Party © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump unveiled proposals to expand school choice © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

Donald Trump, in a speech in Cleveland on Sept. 8, unveiled four basic proposals as the underpinning of an education program that would stress school choice, a longstanding objective of the right wing, which is used to dismantle public schools in favor of privatized schools (such as charter schools), as a means of diverting public tax dollars into private and parochial schools as well as home-schooling, and a tool to dismantle teachers unions.

PROPOSAL: Trump says his first budget will immediately add an additional federal investment of $20 billion towards school choice. This will be done by repriortizing existing federal dollars. Specifically, Trump’s plan would use $20 billion of existing federal dollars to establish a block grant for the 11 million school age kids living in poverty. Individual states will be given the option as to how these funds will be used.

PROPOSAL:  Trump will establish the national goal of providing school choice to every American child living in poverty. That means that we want every disadvantaged child to be able to choose the local public, private, charter or magnet school that is best for them and their family. Each state will develop its own formula, but the dollars should follow the student.

PROPOSAL: To achieve this long-term goal of school choice, Trump make this a shared national mission – to bring hope to every child in every city in this land. Mr. Trump will use the pulpit of the presidency to campaign for this in all 50 states and will call upon the American people to elect officials at the city, state and federal level who support school choice.

PROPOSAL:  Trump will also support merit-pay for teachers, so that great teachers are rewarded instead of the failed tenure system that currently exists, which rewards bad teachers and punishes good ones.

“Our campaign represents the long-awaited chance to break with the bitter failures of the past, and to embrace a New American Future,” Trump stated.

“There is no failed policy more in need of urgent change than our government-run education monopoly.

“The Democratic Party has trapped millions of African-American and Hispanic youth in failing government schools that deny them the opportunity to join the ladder of American success.

“It is time to break-up that monopoly.

“I want every single inner city child in America who is today trapped in a failing school to have the freedom – the civil right – to attend the school of their choice. This includes private schools, traditional public schools, magnet schools and charter schools which must be included in any definition of school choice.

“Our government spends more than enough money to easily pay for this initiative – with billions left over. It’s simply a matter of putting students first, not the education bureaucracy.

“Let’s run through the numbers.

“At the state and federal level, the United States spends more than $620 billion on K-12 education each year. That’s an average of about $12,296 for every student enrolled in our elementary and secondary public schools.

“The federal government pays for about 10 percent—$64 billion, to be precise—of the K-12 costs. That $64 billion makes up about half of the total spending of the U.S. Department of Education.

“The other roughly $570 billion spent on K-12 education comes from the states.

“We spend more per student than almost any other major country in the world. Yet, our students perform near the bottom of the pack for major large advanced countries.

“Our largest cities spend some of the largest amounts of money on public schools.

“New York City spends $20,226 dollars per pupil.

“Baltimore spends $15,287 dollars per student.

“Chicago spends $11,976 dollars per student, and in Los Angeles it is $10,602.

“Just imagine if each student in these school systems was given a scholarship for this amount of money – allowing them and their family to choose the public or private school of their choice.

“Not only would this empower families, but it would create a massive education market that is competitive and produces better outcomes.

“These schools would then cater to the needs of the individual student and family – not the needs of the Teachers’ Union. There is no more important job than a teacher, and teachers will benefit greatly from these reforms.

“The current government monopoly, while great for the bureaucrats, has utterly failed too many students.

“According to the National Assessment of Education Progress, only 1 in 6 African-American students in the eighth grade are considered proficient in math and reading.

“Failing schools then contribute to failing economies.”

Trump declared, “As your President, I will be the nation’s biggest cheerleader for school choice. I understand many stale old politicians will resist. But it’s time for our country to start thinking big once again. We spend too much time quibbling over the smallest words, when we should spend our time dreaming about the great adventures that lie ahead.”

And in Charlotte last month, he said, “On education, we are going to give students choice, and allow charter schools to thrive…. overturn tenure…. my opponent wants to deny students choice and opportunity all to get a little more money from the education bureaucracy. She doesn’t care how many young dreams are dashed and destroyed, and they are destroyed, young people are destroyed before they even start. We are going to work closely with African American parents and children, wither the parents’ students, everybody in the African American community, in the inner cities, and what a big difference that will make.

But this is all a spiel and a scam – like his Trump University – to divert tax dollars into for-profit education companies, and into parochial schools (contradicting the Constitutional separation of church and state), and for good measure, undermine the Teachers Union, which has strongly backed Democratic candidates. That’s what is meant by the “education bureaucracy” and that’s why it has been so, so key to Republicans to end teacher tenure (and at the same time, make teachers subject to whim of firing when they get to expensive, or when they teach Evolution and refuse to teach Creationism as science).

This is his spiel, but how would his Education proposal work in real life? After all, it was George w. Bush, who as Texas Governor opposed President Bill Clinton’s effort to introduce national standards, but who as president, overturned public education with his No child Left Behind/Accountability federal control of public education, even promoting public shaming of teachers and public schools which did not meet the arbitrary and unfairly imposed testing regimen designed so that every public school and every public school teacher would fail.

HFA Statement in Response to Trump’s Education Speech Today in Cleveland

In response to Trump’s dangerous education proposals announced during his speech today in Cleveland, HFA Senior Policy Advisor Maya Harris offered the following statement:

“It’s no surprise that Donald Trump—whose only experience when it comes to education is his fraudulent ‘Trump University’—offered education policies that would prove disastrous for our public schools, our educators, and most importantly, our kids. Let’s be clear: Trump’s proposal to apparently gut nearly 30 percent of the federal education budget and turn it into private school vouchers would decimate public schools across America and deprive our most vulnerable students of the education they deserve.

“Hillary Clinton believes that the public school system is one of the pillars of our democracy. As president she will fight to strengthen our public schools to ensure every student receives a world-class education, regardless of their ZIP code.”

Donald Trump’s proposal, explained:

TRUMP: “[U]se $20 billion of existing federal dollars to establish a block grant for the 11 million school age kids living in poverty.”

EXPLAINER: A more extreme version of past Republican proposals, Trump’s plan would apparently eliminate the targeting of federal dollars to schools and districts with the highest concentrations of low-income students. Instead, he would turn over all $15.4 billion in Title I funding to states, and allow money to follow students outside of the public school system to private or parochial schools.

  • Trump’s proposal could strip funding from up to 56,000 public schools serving more than 21 million children. By allowing funding to leave America’s 56,000 Title I schools, Trump’s proposal will put crucial funding at risk for nearly 21 million American students.
  • Trump’s proposal might only serve 1.4 million students, while stripping funding from the other 10.5 million low-income students in America. Trump’s proposal would serve no-where near 11 million students. The average cost of a K-12 private school is $13,640 per student, per year. Since thevast majority of states do not support private school vouchers, Trump’s proposal would have to carry the full cost of attendance. As a result, Trump’s proposal might only serve 1.4 million students, while taking away funding that serves America’s low-income schools.
  • Trump’s proposal could have a devastating impact on student achievement. Research shows that students who attend schools using vouchersoften do worse than those who stayed in their neighborhood public schools.
  • To fund his $20 billion voucher program, Trump would have to cut all Title I funding and $5 billion dollars in additional federal education programs. Trump would need to “repurpose” roughly $5 billion in annual education funding which currently supports programming such as preschool, Pell grants, and crucial resources to help low income students, students with disabilities, and English-language learners.

Obama Addresses Rutgers University Commencement: ‘You’ve got the tools to lead us’

President Obama gets standing ovation after addressing the 250th anniversary Rutgers University Commencement © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
President Obama gets standing ovation after addressing the 250th anniversary Rutgers University Commencement © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

It’s commencement season. Speakers typically offer bromides to the newly minted graduates, about to take their first independent steps into an uncertain future, outside the protected confines of these lofty institutions. But President Obama’s commencement speech at Rutgers University was not like that. It was a sober reflection formed from the wisdom and experience of nearly eight years at the pinnacle of power – his own valedictory address. It was meaningful and important and real. And in the end, optimistic.

Rutgers was the perfect place for his address – not just because it was celebrating its 250th anniversary of its founding in 1766 – but that it has become one of the largest universities in the country, with 67,000 students (15,000 graduating on this day, alone) and arguably, the most diverse and more importantly, inclusive. These students left their own neighborhoods that formed the boundaries of a world view and entered this United Nations of ethnicities and backgrounds and found they could live together, learn from each other, create a new community.

Indeed, Rutgers is the worst nightmare for the brand of Know Nothingism, nativism, America Firstism that has taken hold of presidential politics.

“You’re not only better educated, you’ve been more exposed to the world, more exposed to other cultures,” he said. “You’re more diverse.  You’re more environmentally conscious.  You have a healthy skepticism for conventional wisdom…. You’ll look at things with fresher eyes, unencumbered by the biases and blind spots and inertia… So you’ve got the tools to lead us.”

Obama’s speech was a lesson in civics, in democracy, in personal responsibility. He called for critical thinking, participation, civil discourse. Fitting for a university founded before the Revolutionary War, he evoked the Founding Fathers, steeped in the Enlightenment, “rational thought and experimentation, and the capacity of informed citizens to master our own fates.”

President Obama gives the commencement address at Rutgers University, May 15, 2016.
President Obama gives the commencement address at Rutgers University, May 15, 2016.

Obama was warmly welcomed to Rutgers – indeed, the school lobbied him for three years to come, and he was the first sitting president to visit the university – and his speech was frequently interrupted with applause and cheers.

Here are highlights from his address:

Today, you join a long line of Scarlet Knights whose energy and intellect have lifted this university to heights its founders could not have imagined.  Two hundred and fifty years ago, when America was still just an idea, a charter from the Royal Governor — Ben Franklin’s son — established Queen’s College.  A few years later, a handful of students gathered in a converted tavern for the first class.  And from that first class in a pub, Rutgers has evolved into one of the finest research institutions in America.  (Applause.)

This is a place where you 3D-print prosthetic hands for children, and devise rooftop wind arrays that can power entire office buildings with clean, renewable energy.  Every day, tens of thousands of students come here, to this intellectual melting pot, where ideas and cultures flow together among what might just be America’s most diverse student body.  (Applause.)  Here in New Brunswick, you can debate philosophy with a classmate from South Asia in one class, and then strike up a conversation on the EE Bus with a first-generation Latina student from Jersey City, before sitting down for your psych group project with a veteran who’s going to school on the Post-9/11 GI Bill.  (Applause.)

America converges here.  And in so many ways, the history of Rutgers mirrors the evolution of America — the course by which we became bigger, stronger, and richer and more dynamic, and a more inclusive nation. 

But America’s progress has never been smooth or steady.  Progress doesn’t travel in a straight line.  It zigs and zags in fits and starts.  Progress in America has been hard and contentious, and sometimes bloody.  It remains uneven and at times, for every two steps forward, it feels like we take one step back.

But progress is bumpy.  It always has been.  But because of dreamers and innovators and strivers and activists, progress has been this nation’s hallmark.  I’m fond of quoting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”  (Applause.)  It bends towards justice.  I believe that.  But I also believe that the arc of our nation, the arc of the world does not bend towards justice, or freedom, or equality, or prosperity on its own.  It depends on us, on the choices we make, particularly at certain inflection points in history; particularly when big changes are happening and everything seems up for grabs. 

And, Class of 2016, you are graduating at such an inflection point.  Since the start of this new millennium, you’ve already witnessed horrific terrorist attacks, and war, and a Great Recession.  You’ve seen economic and technological and cultural shifts that are profoundly altering how we work and how we communicate, how we live, how we form families.  The pace of change is not subsiding; it is accelerating.  And these changes offer not only great opportunity, but also great peril. 

Fortunately, your generation has everything it takes to lead this country toward a brighter future.  I’m confident that you can make the right choices — away from fear and division and paralysis, and toward cooperation and innovation and hope.  (Applause.)  Now, partly, I’m confident because, on average, you’re smarter and better educated than my generation..You’re not only better educated, you’ve been more exposed to the world, more exposed to other cultures.  You’re more diverse.  You’re more environmentally conscious.  You have a healthy skepticism for conventional wisdom.  

So you’ve got the tools to lead us.  And precisely because I have so much confidence in you, I’m not going to spend the remainder of my time telling you exactly how you’re going to make the world better.  You’ll figure it out.  You’ll look at things with fresher eyes, unencumbered by the biases and blind spots and inertia and general crankiness of your parents and grandparents and old heads like me.  But I do have a couple of suggestions that you may find useful as you go out there and conquer the world.

President Obama gives the commencement address at Rutgers University, May 15, 2016 © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
President Obama gives the commencement address at Rutgers University, May 15, 2016 © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

Point number one:  When you hear someone longing for the “good old days,” take it with a grain of salt.  (Laughter and applause.)  Take it with a grain of salt.  We live in a great nation and we are rightly proud of our history.  We are beneficiaries of the labor and the grit and the courage of generations who came before.  But I guess it’s part of human nature, especially in times of change and uncertainty, to want to look backwards and long for some imaginary past when everything worked, and the economy hummed, and all politicians were wise, and every kid was well-mannered, and America pretty much did whatever it wanted around the world. 

Guess what.  It ain’t so.  (Laughter.)  The “good old days” weren’t that great.  Yes, there have been some stretches in our history where the economy grew much faster, or when government ran more smoothly.  There were moments when, immediately after World War II, for example, or the end of the Cold War, when the world bent more easily to our will.  But those are sporadic, those moments, those episodes.  In fact, by almost every measure, America is better, and the world is better, than it was 50 years ago, or 30 years ago, or even eight years ago.  (Applause.)

And by the way, I’m not — set aside 150 years ago, pre-Civil War — there’s a whole bunch of stuff there we could talk about.  Set aside life in the ‘50s, when women and people of color were systematically excluded from big chunks of American life.  Since I graduated, in 1983 — which isn’t that long ago — (laughter) — I’m just saying.  Since I graduated, crime rates, teenage pregnancy, the share of Americans living in poverty — they’re all down.  The share of Americans with college educations have gone way up.  Our life expectancy has, as well.  Blacks and Latinos have risen up the ranks in business and politics.  (Applause.)  More women are in the workforce.  (Applause.)  They’re earning more money — although it’s long past time that we passed laws to make sure that women are getting the same pay for the same work as men.  (Applause.)

Meanwhile, in the eight years since most of you started high school, we’re also better off.  You and your fellow graduates are entering the job market with better prospects than any time since 2007.  Twenty million more Americans know the financial security of health insurance.  We’re less dependent on foreign oil.  We’ve doubled the production of clean energy.  We have cut the high school dropout rate.  We’ve cut the deficit by two-thirds.  Marriage equality is the law of the land.  (Big applause.)    

And just as America is better, the world is better than when I graduated.  Since I graduated, an Iron Curtain fell, apartheid ended.  There’s more democracy.  We virtually eliminated certain diseases like polio.  We’ve cut extreme poverty drastically.  We’ve cut infant mortality by an enormous amount.  (Applause.)   

Now, I say all these things not to make you complacent.  We’ve got a bunch of big problems to solve.  But I say it to point out that change has been a constant in our history.  And the reason America is better is because we didn’t look backwards we didn’t fear the future.  We seized the future and made it our own.  And that’s exactly why it’s always been young people like you that have brought about big change — because you don’t fear the future. 

That leads me to my second point:  The world is more interconnected than ever before, and it’s becoming more connected every day.  Building walls won’t change that.  (Applause.)

Look, as President, my first responsibility is always the security and prosperity of the United States.  And as citizens, we all rightly put our country first.  But if the past two decades have taught us anything, it’s that the biggest challenges we face cannot be solved in isolation.  (Applause.)  When overseas states start falling apart, they become breeding grounds for terrorists and ideologies of nihilism and despair that ultimately can reach our shores.  When developing countries don’t have functioning health systems, epidemics like Zika or Ebola can spread and threaten Americans, too.  And a wall won’t stop that. (Applause.)

President Obama gives the commencement address at Rutgers University, May 15, 2016 © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
President Obama gives the commencement address at Rutgers University, May 15, 2016 © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

If we want to close loopholes that allow large corporations and wealthy individuals to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, we’ve got to have the cooperation of other countries in a global financial system to help enforce financial laws.  The point is, to help ourselves we’ve got to help others — (applause) — not pull up the drawbridge and try to keep the world out.  (Applause.)

And engagement does not just mean deploying our military.  There are times where we must take military action to protect ourselves and our allies, and we are in awe of and we are grateful for the men and women who make up the finest fighting force the world has ever known.  (Applause.)  But I worry if we think that the entire burden of our engagement with the world is up to the 1 percent who serve in our military, and the rest of us can just sit back and do nothing.  They can’t shoulder the entire burden.  And engagement means using all the levers of our national power, and rallying the world to take on our shared challenges. 

You look at something like trade, for example.  We live in an age of global supply chains, and cargo ships that crisscross oceans, and online commerce that can render borders obsolete.  And a lot of folks have legitimate concerns with the way globalization has progressed — that’s one of the changes that’s been taking place — jobs shipped overseas, trade deals that sometimes put workers and businesses at a disadvantage.  But the answer isn’t to stop trading with other countries.  In this global economy, that’s not even possible.  The answer is to do trade the right way, by negotiating with other countries so that they raise their labor standards and their environmental standards; and we make sure they don’t impose unfair tariffs on American goods or steal American intellectual property.  That’s how we make sure that international rules are consistent with our values — including human rights.  And ultimately, that’s how we help raise wages here in America.  That’s how we help our workers compete on a level playing field.  

Building walls won’t do that. (Applause.)  It won’t boost our economy, and it won’t enhance our security either.  Isolating or disparaging Muslims, suggesting that they should be treated differently when it comes to entering this country — (applause) — that is not just a betrayal of our values — (applause) — that’s not just a betrayal of who we are, it would alienate the very communities at home and abroad who are our most important partners in the fight against violent extremism.   Suggesting that we can build an endless wall along our borders, and blame our challenges on immigrants — that doesn’t just run counter to our history as the world’s melting pot; it contradicts the evidence that our growth and our innovation and our dynamism has always been spurred by our ability to attract strivers from every corner of the globe.  That’s how we became America.  Why would we want to stop it now?  (Big cheers, applause.)   

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Four more years!

THE PRESIDENT:  Can’t do it.  (Laughter.)

Journalist Bill Moyers receives honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Rutgers President Robert Barchi © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
Journalist Bill Moyers receives honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Rutgers President Robert Barchi © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

Which brings me to my third point:  Facts, evidence, reason, logic, an understanding of science — these are good things.  (Applause.)  These are qualities you want in people making policy.  These are qualities you want to continue to cultivate in yourselves as citizens.  (Applause.)  That might seem obvious. (Laughter.)  That’s why we honor Bill Moyers or Dr. Burnell.  We traditionally have valued those things.  But if you were listening to today’s political debate, you might wonder where this strain of anti-intellectualism came from.  (Applause.)  So, Class of 2016, let me be as clear as I can be.  In politics and in life, ignorance is not a virtue.  (Applause.)  It’s not cool to not know what you’re talking about.  (Applause.)  That’s not keeping it real, or telling it like it is.  (Laughter.)  That’s not challenging political correctness.  That’s just not knowing what you’re talking about.  (Applause.)  And yet, we’ve become confused about this.    

Look, our nation’s Founders — Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson — they were born of the Enlightenment.  They sought to escape superstition, and sectarianism, and tribalism, and no-nothingness.  (Applause.)  They believed in rational thought and experimentation, and the capacity of informed citizens to master our own fates.  That is embedded in our constitutional design.  That spirit informed our inventors and our explorers, the Edisons and the Wright Brothers, and the George Washington Carvers and the Grace Hoppers, and the Norman Borlaugs and the Steve Jobses.  That’s what built this country. 

And today, in every phone in one of your pockets — (laughter) — we have access to more information than at any time in human history, at a touch of a button.  But, ironically, the flood of information hasn’t made us more discerning of the truth. In some ways, it’s just made us more confident in our ignorance. (Applause.)  We assume whatever is on the web must be true.  We search for sites that just reinforce our own predispositions. Opinions masquerade as facts.  The wildest conspiracy theories are taken for gospel. 

Now, understand, I am sure you’ve learned during your years of college — and if not, you will learn soon — that there are a whole lot of folks who are book smart and have no common sense.  (Applause.)  That’s the truth.  You’ll meet them if you haven’t already.  (Laughter.)  So the fact that they’ve got a fancy degree — you got to talk to them to see whether they know what they’re talking about.  (Laughter.)  Qualities like kindness and compassion, honesty, hard work — they often matter more than technical skills or know-how.  (Applause.)

But when our leaders express a disdain for facts, when they’re not held accountable for repeating falsehoods and just making stuff up, while actual experts are dismissed as elitists, then we’ve got a problem.  (Applause.)

You know, it’s interesting that if we get sick, we actually want to make sure the doctors have gone to medical school, they know what they’re talking about.  (Applause.)  If we get on a plane, we say we really want a pilot to be able to pilot the plane.  (Laughter.)  And yet, in our public lives, we certainly think, “I don’t want somebody who’s done it before.”  (Laughter and applause.)  The rejection of facts, the rejection of reason and science — that is the path to decline.  It calls to mind the words of Carl Sagan, who graduated high school here in New Jersey — (applause) — he said:  “We can judge our progress by the courage of our questions and the depths of our answers, our willingness to embrace what is true rather than what feels good.”

The debate around climate change is a perfect example of this….climate change is not something subject to political spin.  There is evidence.  There are facts.  We can see it happening right now.  (Applause.)  If we don’t act, if we don’t follow through on the progress we made in Paris, the progress we’ve been making here at home, your generation will feel the brunt of this catastrophe. So it’s up to you to insist upon and shape an informed debate…

Look, I’m not suggesting that cold analysis and hard data are ultimately more important in life than passion, or faith, or love, or loyalty.  I am suggesting that those highest expressions of our humanity can only flourish when our economy functions well, and proposed budgets add up, and our environment is protected.  And to accomplish those things, to make collective decisions on behalf of a common good, we have to use our heads.  We have to agree that facts and evidence matter.  And we got to hold our leaders and ourselves accountable to know what the heck they’re talking about.  (Applause.) ..

President Obama gives the commencement address at Rutgers University, May 15, 2016 © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
President Obama gives the commencement address at Rutgers University, May 15, 2016 © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

Point four:  Have faith in democracy.  Look, I know it’s not always pretty.   Really, I know.  (Laughter.)  I’ve been living it.  But it’s how, bit by bit, generation by generation, we have made progress in this nation.  That’s how we banned child labor.  That’s how we cleaned up our air and our water.  That’s how we passed programs like Social Security and Medicare that lifted millions of seniors out of poverty.  (Applause.)

None of these changes happened overnight.  They didn’t happen because some charismatic leader got everybody suddenly to agree on everything.  It didn’t happen because some massive political revolution occurred.  It actually happened over the course of years of advocacy, and organizing, and alliance-building, and deal-making, and the changing of public opinion.  It happened because ordinary Americans who cared participated in the political process.  

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Because of you!  (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT:  Well, that’s nice.  I mean, I helped, but — (applause.)

Look, if you want to change this country for the better, you better start participating.  I’ll give you an example on a lot of people’s minds right now — and that’s the growing inequality in our economy.  Over much of the last century, we’ve unleashed the strongest economic engine the world has ever seen, but over the past few decades, our economy has become more and more unequal.  The top 10 percent of earners now take in half of all income in the U.S.  In the past, it used to be a top CEO made 20 or 30 times the income of the average worker.  Today, it’s 300 times more.  And wages aren’t rising fast enough for millions of hardworking families.  

Now, if we want to reverse those trends, there are a bunch of policies that would make a real difference.  We can raise the minimum wage.  (Applause.)  We can modernize our infrastructure. We can invest in early childhood education.  We can make college more affordable.  (Applause.)  We can close tax loopholes on hedge fund managers and take that money and give tax breaks to help families with child care or retirement.  And if we did these things, then we’d help to restore the sense that hard work is rewarded and we could build an economy that truly works for everybody.  (Applause.)  

Now, the reason some of these things have not happened, even though the majority of people approve of them, is really simple. It’s not because I wasn’t proposing them.  It wasn’t because the facts and the evidence showed they wouldn’t work.  It was because a huge chunk of Americans, especially young people, do not vote. 

In 2014, voter turnout was the lowest since World War II.  Fewer than one in five young people showed up to vote — 2014.  And the four who stayed home determined the course of this country just as much as the single one who voted.  Because apathy has consequences.  It determines who our Congress is.  It determines what policies they prioritize.  It even, for example, determines whether a really highly qualified Supreme Court nominee receives the courtesy of a hearing and a vote in the United States Senate.  (Applause.)    

And, yes, big money in politics is a huge problem.  We’ve got to reduce its influence.  Yes, special interests and lobbyists have disproportionate access to the corridors of power. But, contrary to what we hear sometimes from both the left as well as the right, the system isn’t as rigged as you think, and it certainly is not as hopeless as you think.  Politicians care about being elected, and they especially care about being reelected.  And if you vote and you elect a majority that represents your views, you will get what you want.  And if you opt out, or stop paying attention, you won’t.  It’s that simple. (Applause.)  It’s not that complicated.

Now, one of the reasons that people don’t vote is because they don’t see the changes they were looking for right away.  Well, guess what — none of the great strides in our history happened right away.  It took Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP decades to win Brown v. Board of Education; and then another decade after that to secure the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.  (Applause.)  And it took more time after that for it to start working.  It took a proud daughter of New Jersey, Alice Paul, years of organizing marches and hunger strikes and protests, and drafting hundreds of pieces of legislation, and writing letters and giving speeches, and working with congressional leaders before she and other suffragettes finally helped win women the right to vote.  (Applause.)

Each stage along the way required compromise.  Sometimes you took half a loaf.  You forged allies.  Sometimes you lost on an issue, and then you came back to fight another day.  That’s how democracy works.  So you’ve got to be committed to participating not just if you get immediate gratification, but you got to be a citizen full-time, all the time.    

And if participation means voting, and it means compromise, and organizing and advocacy, it also means listening to those who don’t agree with you.  I know a couple years ago, folks on this campus got upset that Condoleezza Rice was supposed to speak at a commencement.  Now, I don’t think it’s a secret that I disagree with many of the foreign policies of Dr. Rice and the previous administration.  But the notion that this community or the country would be better served by not hearing from a former Secretary of State, or shutting out what she had to say — I believe that’s misguided.  (Applause.)  I don’t think that’s how democracy works best, when we’re not even willing to listen to each other.  (Applause.)  I believe that’s misguided.

If you disagree with somebody, bring them in — (applause)— and ask them tough questions.  Hold their feet to the fire.  Make them defend their positions.  (Applause.)  If somebody has got a bad or offensive idea, prove it wrong.  Engage it.  Debate it.  Stand up for what you believe in.  (Applause.)  Don’t be scared to take somebody on.  Don’t feel like you got to shut your ears off because you’re too fragile and somebody might offend your sensibilities.  Go at them if they’re not making any sense. Use your logic and reason and words.  And by doing so, you’ll strengthen your own position, and you’ll hone your arguments.  And maybe you’ll learn something and realize you don’t know everything.  And you may have a new understanding not only about what your opponents believe but maybe what you believe.  Either way, you win.  And more importantly, our democracy wins.  (Applause.) 

President Obama greets Rutgers University class president Matthew Panconi at the 250th anniversary commencement © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
President Obama greets Rutgers University class president Matthew Panconi at the 250th anniversary commencement © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

So, anyway, all right.  That’s it, Class of 2016 — (laughter) — a few suggestions on how you can change the world. Except maybe I’ve got one last suggestion.  (Applause.)  Just one.  And that is, gear yourself for the long haul.  Whatever path you choose — business, nonprofits, government, education, health care, the arts — whatever it is, you’re going to have some setbacks.  You will deal occasionally with foolish people.  You will be frustrated.  You’ll have a boss that’s not great.  You won’t always get everything you want — at least not as fast as you want it.  So you have to stick with it.  You have to be persistent.  And success, however small, however incomplete, success is still success.  I always tell my daughters, you know, better is good.  It may not be perfect, it may not be great, but it’s good.  That’s how progress happens — in societies and in our own lives. 

So don’t lose hope if sometimes you hit a roadblock.  Don’t lose hope in the face of naysayers.  And certainly don’t let resistance make you cynical.  Cynicism is so easy, and cynics don’t accomplish much. 

Is it any wonder that I am optimistic?  Throughout our history, a new generation of Americans has reached up and bent the arc of history in the direction of more freedom, and more opportunity, and more justice.  And, Class of 2016, it is your turn now — (applause) — to shape our nation’s destiny, as well as your own.  

So get to work.  Make sure the next 250 years are better than the last.  (Applause.)

Good luck.  God bless you.  God bless this country we love.  Thank you.  (Applause.)

See slideshow of Rutgers University’s 250th anniversary commencement

_________________

News & Photo Features Syndicate, a division of Workstyles, Inc. For editorial feature and photo information, email[email protected]. ‘Like’ us onfacebook.com/NewsPhotoFeatures, Tweet @KarenBRubin

Obama Administration Launches New $100 Million Competition to Expand Tuition-Free Community College Programs

Exuberant optimism of High School graduation. The Obama Administration is taking steps to ease access to community college, recognizing that most decent-paying jobs today require a degree © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
Exuberant optimism of High School graduation. The Obama Administration is taking steps to ease access to community college, recognizing that most decent-paying jobs today require a degree © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

“Every American, whether they’re young or just young at heart, should be able to earn the skills and education necessary to compete and win in the 21st century economy.” – President Barack Obama

Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have both made college affordability an issue of their campaigns, while the Republican candidates have ignored the issue entirely. And with the media’s obsessive focus on the presidential contest, and the Republican-controlled Congress’ insistence on obstructing any positive action President Obama might take, Americans are generally unaware of what Obama has been doing to make college affordable and ease the student debt crisis. The White House just issued a Fact Sheet on efforts to break down financial barriers to obtaining a college degree:

The Obama Administration announced a new $100 million investment for America’s Promise Job-Driven Training grants (America’s Promise Grants) to connect more Americans to education and in-demand jobs, in addition to 27 new free community college programs that have launched in states, communities and community colleges designed to make access to higher education available regardless of the ability to pay.

Details of the various programs were outlined by Vice President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden at the Community College of Philadelphia, which modeled a free community college program after the President’s America’s College Promise plan this time last year.

The Obama Administration has focused on America’s more than 1,100 community colleges because they are “the backbone of the nation’s postsecondary education and training system. They serve over 7 million undergraduates, including many older, low- or moderate-income, minority, first-generation, and rural Americans an opportunity to earn a quality, affordable degree or credential that meet the demands of a competitive global economy,” the White House stated.

“That is why President Obama has challenged communities to take action to grow the momentum for America’s College Promise, a plan to make two years of community college free for responsible students, letting students earn the first half of a bachelor’s degree and the skills needed in the workforce at no cost. And, in order to help communities accept this challenge, he is calling on Congress take action on the America’s College Promise Act, introduced by Senator Baldwin and Congressman Scott, which would expand access to higher education for our nation’s students.

“Companies are choosing to grow in the U.S. in part because we have the most educated, creative, and adaptable workforce. Over the last six years, American businesses have created over 14 million new jobs. Of the new jobs the economy is expected to generate over the next ten years, around half will require postsecondary education or training. The President’s Job-Driven Training agenda has made federally supported education and training programs more responsive to employer needs. As part of this approach, community and technical colleges are playing a critical role in helping Americans get the skills to get good jobs. The $100 million America’s Promise Grants will help communities catalyze new and strengthen existing partnerships and programs to offer more Americans access to the knowledge and skills they need to pursue their educational and career goals, particularly in high-growth sectors like technology, manufacturing, and health care.”

These investments build on the Obama Administration’s record of investing in students and the workforce. Since 2009, the Obama Administration has invested more than $70 billion dollars in support of community colleges including over $66 billion in over 19 million Pell scholarships to help students and families pay for college; $2 billion in Job-Driven Training Community College Grants to strengthen education and training programs that lead to in-demand employment and provide a ticket to the middle class at nearly half of the nation’s community colleges; and $1.6 billion in Title III and Title V to strengthen institutions’ capacity for providing students an affordable, high-quality education. These critical investments have helped transform the role of community colleges as leading providers of high-quality, affordable, pathways for all Americans to work hard in pursuit of skills employers seek and of knowledge.

Highlights  from the recent announcements:

  • $100 Million America’s Promise Grants. Early this summer, the Administration will launch an H-1B funded grant competition by the Department of Labor to create and expand innovative regional and sector partnerships between community colleges and other training providers, employers, and the public workforce system to create more dynamic, tuition-free education and training programs for in-demand middle and high-skilled jobs across the country. Built off the model of shared responsibility for educating this nation’s students and workforce, America’s Promise Grants continue to build on the Administration’s investments to strengthen education, training, and employer engagement.
  • More than $70 million in New Investments Building Progress on America’s College Promise for 40,000 Americans. Since the launch of America’s College Promise, state and local elected officials, community college leaders, non-profits, business, and philanthropy have come together across the country to expand free community college programs. Since President Obama announced America’s College Promise, at least 27 new free community college programs have launched in states, communities, and individual community colleges. Collectively, these new programs add over $70 million in new public and private investments to serve nearly 40,000 students at community colleges.
  • $100 Million for America’s Promise Grants:

Vice President Biden announced a commitment to make $100 million available through the Department of Labor to expand high quality education and training programs that give Americans the skills most in-demand from regional employers for middle- to high-skilled jobs. Grants will be awarded to pilot and scale innovative tuition-free partnerships between employers, economic development, workforce development boards, community and technical colleges and systems, training programs, K-12 education systems, and community-based organizations that will strengthen the pipeline of Americans ready for in-demand jobs, bridge students’ educational opportunities and employer needs, attract more jobs from overseas, and create more pathways for Americans to reach the middle class through the following activities:

o   Increase opportunities for all Americans. With the rising costs of higher education, post-secondary education may feel out of reach for many Americans. Grantees will develop strategies to increase tuition-free opportunities for unemployed, underemployed, and low-income workers to enter skilled occupations and industries. Grantees will use and align existing resources to help sustain and scale up programs.

o   Expand employer engagementThese regional partnerships from employers to support program design and delivery and identify skills and competencies needed to meet businesses’ needs. Employer partners will offer innovative ways for skills attainment through work-based learning and customized ‘upskilling’ strategies to move low-skilled individuals up a career pathway with registered apprenticeship, paid-work experience, and paid internship opportunities.

o   Strengthen education and training performance. Grantees will reduce the need for remediation, and increase skills development through evidence-based interventions. Grantees are encouraged to use evidence-based designs that can increase the employability, employment, earnings, and educational outcomes of students, while supporting employers’ economic growth.

  • More than $70 million in New Investments Building Progress on America’s College Promise for 40,000 Americans.

In his 2015 State of the Union, the President announced a vision for America’s College Promise to make two years of community college free, letting responsible students earn the first half of a bachelor’s degree or earn skills needed in the workforce at no cost by creating a new partnership with states. The program would require everyone to do their part: community colleges must strengthen their programs and increase the number of students who graduate, states must invest more in higher education and training, and students must take responsibility for their education, earn good grades, and stay on track to graduate.

Since then, state and local elected officials, community college leaders, non-profits, business, and philanthropy from across the political spectrum and from all corners of the country are taking action, including through a new PSA from the Heads Up America campaign. At least 27 new free community college programs launched in states, communities, and individual community colleges since the President’s 2015 State of the Union address. Collectively, those new programs add over $70 million in new public and private investments to serve nearly 40,000 students at community colleges.

  • Statewide programs include: Oregon, Minnesota and Rhode Island.
  • Local efforts span at least 12 states and include: College of the Siskiyous (CA), Community College of Philadelphia (PA), Dabney Lancaster Community College (VA), Detroit (MI), Gateway Technical College (WI), Harper College (IL), Ivy Tech (IN), Lone Star College (TX), Los Angeles (CA), Manistee County Commitment Scholarship (MI), Milwaukee Area Technical College (WI), Madison Area Technical College (WI), Mid-north Promise (IN), Mohave Community College (AZ), Oakland (CA), Richmond County (NC), Salt Lake Community College (UT), San Diego Community College District (CA), Santa Barbara City College (CA), Scotland County (NC), Sinclair Community College (OH), Wichita Area Technical College (KS), Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College (WI), and Vance-Granville Community College (NC).

Additionally, a number of new legislative proposals have been made to expand free community college programs. At the Federal level, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (WI) and Rep. Bobby Scott (VA) proposed America’s College Promise Act of 2015 for the country’s community and technical colleges – including Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions –while 17 other states have proposed legislation to make community college free state-wide. Additionally, survey data from the American Association of Community Colleges shows that a quarter of community college presidents believe it is likely that their institutions will offer a tuition-free (or nearly free) program within the next two years, which would double the number of available tuition-free options.

States and communities are demonstrating that there is a range of thoughtful and effective ways to design a tuition-free Promise program customized to address local and state knowledge and skills needs, funding opportunities, and shared community goals. Nearly all these announced programs have features that ensure hard-working students have a fair shot and stay on track to graduate successfully. Key designs include:

o   Supporting responsible high school graduates by requiring participants to have graduated from high school and maintain at least a minimum grade point average (GPA). America’s College Promise designates a 2.5 GPA requirement, which is comparable to many of these programs.

o   Promoting more credit accumulation through full-time or at least part-time enrollment to ensure that students are making progress towards completion, which can increase the likelihood of completing on time and save students tuition.

o   Requiring FAFSA completion to help students access federal, state, institutional, and private financial aid. Over 39 percent of community college students do not complete the FAFSA, even though they are likely to qualify for some form of aid. These provisions help ensure students receive the financial support they need to pursue their education and stay on track to complete a degree or credential. Tennessee Promise’s FAFSA requirement helped lead to the greatest year over year increase at the state level, and helped Tennessee lead the country in FAFSA completion.

o   Ensuring credits fully transfer so that students are more likely to cut down on redundant courses, reduce remediation, and stay on track to earn half of the credit they need for a four-year degree on-time if they choose to transfer.

Building on the Obama Administration’s Investments in Community College to Strengthen Education and Job-Driven Training

  • Increasing Investments in Scholarships for Students. This Administration has invested over $66 billion in community colleges, providing over 19 million Pell scholarships to students attending community colleges; this funding to community colleges represents over one-third of all Pell grants. To continue improving and expanding these important investments, the Administration will soon announce selected pilot sites who for the first time will offer up to $20 million in Federal Pell Grants for over 10,000 high school students to pay for college courses typically provided by community colleges and put themselves on a fast-track to college completion before even setting foot on campus. Evidence shows that dual enrollment programs help high school students earn better grades and increase their likelihood of college enrollment, persistence and completion. In addition, to further strengthen community colleges, particularly for traditional underrepresented students, this Administration has invested $1.6 billion in Title III and Title V programs.
  • $2 Billion for 2,300 In-Demand Education and Training Programs at Community Colleges in all 50 States. The Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) program, provided more than half of our nation’s community colleges and other eligible institutions of higher education with funds to partner with nearly 2,500 employers to expand and improve education and career training programs that help job seekers get the skills they need for in-demand jobs in industries such as information technology, health care, energy, and advanced manufacturing. To date, nearly 300,000 participants have enrolled in these programs, earning 160,000 credentials. 40 states received grants that supported state-wide systematic change by including all or most community colleges in the state. Select examples of successful partnerships, which have reached more than 4,500 individuals, include:

o   Motlow State Community College (MSCC) (TN). MSCC received $3.3 million and partnered with Bridgestone Tire Company to develop a new mechatronics training facility on-site at Bridgestone in Smyrna, TN.  In addition to contributing to curriculum development, Bridgestone has contributed over $4 million towards renovations and equipment.

o   Piedmont Technical College (PTC) (SC). As part of a consortium consisting of 10 of the 16 public, two-year colleges in South Carolina and funded at nearly $20 million, PTC partnered with 37 employers to redesign a new advanced manufacturing certificate program.  Sixteen of the partnering companies and local county organizations collectively contributed $1.4 million to create the PTC Center for Advanced Manufacturing to support the program.

o   Alpena Community College (ACC) (MI): ACC received $2.8 million to implement the Sustainable Solutions for Northeast Michigan: Green Jobs and Clean Energy project to build a statewide energy partnership network, which included the Michigan National Guard and DTE Energy and Consumers Energy, the two largest energy employers in Michigan as well as the state workforce development board. This partnership network designed and implemented a “Gas Energy Bootcamp,” targeting unemployed people and returning veterans. Program completers had a 96 percent employment rate.

  • Launch of New Health Career Pathways Initiative:  Business-Led Effort to Expand Career Pathways in Healthcare Industry.  One of the key goals of the America’s Promise grants and other federal funding is to spur longer-term, industry led efforts to prepare more people from all backgrounds for in-demand jobs. Today, leading healthcare employers are building on a career pathways framework developed with a $19.6 million Job-Driven Training Community College Department of Labor grant to better match up training with their needs at a more national scale.

o   Business-Led Task Force on Core Skills and Career Pathways.  The Advisory Board Company will convene employers to agree on common ways to describe and measure the skills needed for healthcare jobs to focus training on in-demand skills and help workers to translate the skills they already have to move between roles and employers.  Initial members include: University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Sutter Health, New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, Mercy Health West Michigan/Trinity Health, and Fairview Health Services

o   Partnership with Communities to Adopt Common Skills and Career Pathways for Healthcare Workers.  Brought together by Hope Street Group, seven founding “Health Career Pathway Communities” composed of 15 healthcare systems, 11 community colleges and systems, 7 workforce boards, and 12 community-based organizations will adopt common skill and career pathways and support more than 1,000 disadvantaged Americans with training and placement into healthcare jobs with paid internships, career counseling, etc.  HPCs include: Grand Rapids and Muskegon, MI; Denver, CO; Minneapolis, MN; Charlotte, NC; Bronx, Westchester and Hudson Valley, NY; New York City, NY; and Sacramento, CA.

  • Scaling Up What Works Across Federal Programs with A Job-Driven Checklist Applied To Billions Of Training Dollars. In July 2014, the Administration laid out a Job-Driven Checklist of seven elements that matter most to get Americans into better jobs (e.g., strong employer engagement, work-based learning, better use of labor market information, accountability for employment outcomes). Since then, agencies have awarded over 15 competitive job-training grants that total more than $1.5 billion, with an additional 12 competitive grants of more than $800 million to be awarded over the remainder of 2016 that incorporate the job-driven training elements.  More details on progress can be found here.
  • Expanding “learn and earn” training opportunities through apprenticeships:In September 2015, the Department of Labor awarded $175 million in American Apprenticeship Grants to 46 public-private partnerships that will help train more than 34,000 new apprentices in high-growth industries like health care, IT, and advanced manufacturing while scaling up proven programs. Earlier this month, DOL announced the newest investments for expanding apprenticeship through the $90 million ApprenticeshipUSA grants which will fund state, industry, and non-profit efforts to expand apprenticeship and increase the diversity of industries and workers in apprenticeship.  Since the President’s 2014 State of the Union call to action, the US has added more than 75,000 new apprenticeship opportunities, the largest increase in nearly a decade.

Budget Proposals to Connect More Americans to Training for In-Demand Jobs 

  • Expand Innovative Tuition-Free Training Programs at Community Colleges. Building on the TAACCCT program,the President’s Budget request includes $75 million for a new American Technical Training Fund, which are competitive grants that support the development, operation, and expansion of innovative, evidence-based, short-term, or accelerated job training programs that enable students, particularly from low-income backgrounds, to access tuition-free education and training leading to career pathways for jobs in high-demand fields. Projects would emphasize strong employer partnerships, work-based learning opportunities, accelerated training, and flexible scheduling.
  • Strengthening Partnerships between Businesses and Community Colleges to Grow the Middle Class. The Administration has proposed a new tax credit to incentivize employers to strengthen community and technical colleges through contributions like designing curriculum, donating instructors and equipment, and creating job-based learning opportunities. Employers can earn a one-time $5,000 tax credit for hiring a qualifying community college student graduate full-time. Altogether, this could help half a million students access the training and jobs they need to succeed over the course of five years.
  • Helping More Americans Complete College Affordably. Along with Continuing To Index The Pell Grant To Ensure It Keeps Pace With Inflation, the Administration is calling for significant new investments in the federal Pell Grant program—the cornerstone of college affordability – with two new Pell proposals that will help students accelerate progress towards their degrees and increase their likelihood of on-time completion. These two proposals include Pell for Accelerated Completion, which would allow full-time students to take courses in a third semester, and On-Track Pell Bonus, which offers $300 for students to take 15-credits, which would accelerate progress towards a degree. In fiscal year 2017, these changes would mean an additional $2 billion in Pell Grants for students working toward their degrees.
  • $3 Billion Talent Compact to Keep and Attract Jobs to the U.S. The President’s Budget proposes competitive funding to create over 50 “Talent Hotspots.” These would consist of employers, training programs, and workforce leaders that prioritize one sector and make a commitment to recruit and train the workforce to help businesses grow and attract more jobs from overseas. This proposal would produce a pipeline of about half a million skilled workers over five years.

See also: White House Announces New Actions to Help More Americans Manage Student Debt

White House Announces New Actions to Help More Americans Manage Student Debt

The Obama Administration is implementing programs to ease the student debt crisis © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
The Obama Administration is implementing programs to ease the student debt crisis © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

The issue of student debt has been a key one on the Democratic side of the presidential campaign (not the Republicans who like to accentuate the stress without actually doing anything about it), but the Obama Administration has been taking what actions it can – in face of Republican obstruction in Congress to accomplish anything that would improve the lives of working Americans- to help Americans manage their student debt. The White House issued a Fact Sheet detailing these actions.

Higher education is one of the most important investment individuals can make for themselves and for our country. Today, 11 of the 15 fastest-growing occupations require a postsecondary education. That’s why the President has made historic investments to help millions of Americans afford college by doubling investments in grant and scholarship aid through Pell grants and tax credits, keeping interest rates low on federal student loans, and creating better options to help borrowers manage debt after college like the Pay as You Earn (PAYE) plan.

As detailed in a new post on student debt trends and state-by-state data being released by the Council of Economic Advisers, these efforts are paying off. More students are graduating college than ever before. More than four of five Direct Loan recipients with loans in repayment are current on their loans. Delinquencies, defaults, and hardship deferments are all trending downward, with nearly three million borrowers successfully accessing a pathway out of default through loan rehabilitation since 2010. And more students are taking action on their student debt when they need support, with nearly five million Direct Loan borrowers taking advantage of repayment options like the President’s PAYE plan, which caps monthly student loan payments at 10 percent of income, up from 700,000 enrolled in 2011.

Many students access student loans to help finance their education; typically, that investment pays off, with bachelor’s degree recipients earning $1 million more in their lifetime and associate’s degree recipients earning $360,000 more, compared to their high school counterparts. But for some, burdensome student loan debt can present a challenge as they seek to start a career, raise a family, purchase a home, start a business, or save for retirement.

Guaranteeing strong consumer protections and building a system of high-quality customer service are important components of a federal student loan system that expands college opportunity and provides reassurance to American families that pursuing a college degree and responsibly borrowing to pay for college will not threaten their future financial security.

The White House has just announced new actions while highlighting the progress already made to help ensure the more than 40 million Americans with student loan debt understand their repayment options and access high-quality customer service, strong consumer protections, and targeted support to repay their student debt successfully.

New Actions on Student Debt 

Over the past few years, the Administration has stepped up efforts to ensure that flexible repayment options are available to support Americans with federal student debt. Today’s actions build on that progress and provide a roadmap to guide and support borrowers as they seek to manage and repay their debt successfully:

  • New Goal to Enroll 2 million More Borrowers in Plans like Pay As You Earn (PAYE).The President’s PAYE and related income-driven repayment plans are available to help borrowers who may be struggling to manage their debt effectively. Yet, too many borrowers still do not know about this important option. Leveraging key improvements in loan servicing and customer service, better tools and resources, targeted outreach to borrowers, and partnerships with key external organizations under the Student Debt Challenge, the Administration is announcing a new goal to enroll two million more borrowers in plans like PAYE by this time next year. 
  • Launch of StudentLoans.gov/Repay. To help borrowers easily navigate the complexity of student loan repayment options, the U.S. Digital Service and the Department of Education’s Office of Federal Student Aid have launchedStudentLoans.gov/Repay to help drive students to their best repayment option in five steps or less. Built mobile-first, and using human-centered design,StudentLoans.gov/Repay was designed to make repayment information as easy to understand as possible. 
  • Strengthening Consumer Protections through New Standards for Student Loan Servicing. The Department of Education and Department of the Treasury – after consulting with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and their work with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and other state attorneys’ general – have developed clear student loan borrower rights and protections in three key areas: (1) providing accurate and actionable information about account features, borrower protections, and loan terms; (2) establishing a clear set of expectations for minimum requirements for communication and services provided by student loan servicers, including adequate and timely customer service; and (3) holding servicers accountable for fixing errors, being responsive to borrowers, and resolving problems by ensuring that borrowers, federal and state agencies and regulators, and law enforcement officials have access to appropriate channels of recourse when violations of federal or state consumer financial laws occur. The Department of Education will ensure all borrowers with federal Direct Loans can rely on high-quality service in line with these standards and protections. The Department of Education will implement this effort as part of its new vision for servicing student loans.    
  • Better Information to Help Borrowers Take Action on their Debt: CFPB Prototype Student Loan Payback Playbook. The CFPB is seeking comment on a new set of student loan servicing disclosures—a student loan Payback Playbook – that provides borrowers personalized information to better understand their repayment options and find a monthly payment they can afford. To help borrowers choose the best repayment plan with the most up-to-date information based on their circumstances, borrowers would see a plain language Playbook on their monthly bill, in regular email communications from their student loan servicer, or when they log into their student loan account. The Department of Education, working with the CFPB, will be finalizing and implementing these disclosures for federal loans borrowers. 
  • Ensuring Effective Student Loan Counseling. The Department of Education will work to improve the timing and content of current loan counseling efforts, including statutorily required entrance and exit counseling, to help students make better borrowing decisions, increase college completion, promote successful loan repayment, and reduce delinquencies and defaults. Specifically, the Department will upgrade and redesign its Entrance and Exit Counseling tools on StudentLoans.gov – which serves 6.5 million students a year – based on user analytics and direct input from more than 500 borrowers, financial aid administrators, policymakers, and higher education organizations. The Department is also developing a loan counseling experiment to rigorously evaluate the effectiveness of different counseling tools and the impact of offering borrowers more frequent information and guidance beyond the statutorily required one-time entrance and one-time exit counseling.
  • Leveraging Research to Drive Better Student Outcomes. The Department of Education will pilot Advancing Insights through Data (AID), a research partnership program that will offer other federal agencies and affiliated researchers data access to conduct research that can inform and advance policies and practices that support students’ postsecondary success and strengthen repayment outcomes for borrowers. Starting with Federal Reserve Board researchers this fall, the program will allow experts to apply to securely access and match administrative student aid data files with other survey and administrative data, while ensuring safeguards are in place to protect the privacy of students and families. AID builds on the Administration’s recent efforts to leverage government data in ways that can improve service delivery, promote transparency, and strengthen accountability, particularly through the College Scorecard, which includes the most comprehensive, reliable data ever published on students’ post-college earnings and repayment outcomes. The Department is also exploring future opportunities for new research partnerships.
  • Modernizing Credit Reporting for Student Loans To Ensure Fair Treatment Of BorrowersThe Department of Education and the Department of the Treasury, in consultation with the CFPB, are working collaboratively with the credit reporting industry to develop guidance for servicers, lenders, and others who furnish data to the credit bureaus to determine how best to report student loan data so that it is fair, consistent, and accurately reflects repayment activity. This effort is another critical part of the Department’s new vision for servicing student loans.
  • Over 40 new student debt challenge takers.Earlier this month, the White House issued a call to action for colleges, universities, non-profits, businesses, state and local governments, and other employers to help more borrowers better understand their options, and to take action to enroll those borrowers in PAYE and related plans so they can manage their monthly payments and avoid delinquency and default. There is a growing list of commitments from organizations working to inform their employees and members about PAYE and related plans, train human resources (HR) staff on the importance of helping borrowers understand their student loan repayment options and the steps individuals must take to enroll, and use digital platforms to highlight PAYE and related plans. In the few short weeks since the Debt Challenge was launched, there have been over 40 commitment makers, and the Administration is encouraging more colleges, businesses, non-profits to take action. As of April 26, the list of commitments includes:

o   ACCESS College Foundation

o   AFSCME

o   Achieving the Dream

o   American Student Assistance

o   American Sustainable Business Council

o   California State University, Long Beach

o   California Association of Nonprofits

o   The Century Foundation

o   College Advising Corps

o   College Forward

o   College Greenlight

o   Dyersburg State Community College

o   Florida International University

o   Friendship Public Charter School

o   Indiana University

o   Iowa State University

o   Jobs for the Future

o   Lake Area Technical Institute

o   Lone Star College

o   Marcus Foster Education Institute

o   Marks and Associates

o   Montana State University Bozeman

o   Morgan State University

o   National Housing Resource Center

o   Natixis Global Asset Management

o   New Haven Promise

o   Operation HOPE, Inc.

o   Parkway School District

o   Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Independent School District

o   Rutgers University – Newark

o   Tennessee Technological University

o   University of Pittsburgh

o   University of Memphis

o   University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville

o   The Institute for College Access and Success

o   The State University of New York

o   University of Michigan – Ann Arbor

o   University of Northern Iowa

o   United Tribes Technical College

o   Valencia College

o   Young Invincibles

Obama Celebrates Great Teachers, Cites Nation’s Progress in Public Education

President Obama promotes education reform during visit to PTech, an innovative high school program, in Brooklyn, NY © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
President Obama promotes education reform during visit to PTech, an innovative high school program, in Brooklyn, NY © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

On National Teacher Appreciation Day, May 3, President Obama stood with hundreds of educators from across the country to recognize their contributions and celebrate the progress this country has made toward increasing educational opportunity and outcomes for all students since he took office.  The President not only honored the National Teacher of the Year, Jahana Hayes, a veteran history teacher at John F. Kennedy High School in Waterbury, Connecticut, but also celebrated remarkable educators across the country who have helped achieve extraordinary progress over the past seven and a half years.

“President Obama recognizes that America’s future is written in our classrooms, and that our teachers and educators deserve our support,” the White House stated. “That is why, throughout his Administration, the President has not only supported our educators, but also promoted a bold vision for improving our education system to give all students the fair chance they deserve. Today, the White House will underscore the change underway in America’s schools, and announce progress toward reaching the President’s goal of preparing an additional 100,000 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers for America’s classrooms by 2021.”

The White House is also highlighting new efforts to support great educators.TEACH – a public-private collaboration led by the U.S. Department of Education and Microsoft, with support from organizations including Facebook, College Football Playoff Foundation and MyCollege Options – will launch new commitments to attract a strong teacher workforce.  The Department of Education will collaborate with the ASCD, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Foundation Charitable Trust, and Carnegie Corporation of New York in their work to support teacher-led initiatives that strengthen teachers’ professional learning and improve student outcomes.  And organizations like Spotify and the College Football Playoff Foundation will launch new efforts to support and encourage great teaching.

Progress to Support Great Teachers and Help All Students Succeed 

Today, the White House and the Department of Education are releasing a report highlighting the nation’s educational progress since the President took office – from reducing the number of dropouts, to raising academic standards to prepare students for college and career in nearly every state, to expanding the availability of high-quality preschool and digitally connecting America’s classrooms.  The pace and scale of change in America’s educational system would have been impossible to achieve without the committed work of educators at every level of school governance – from the classroom teacher to state superintendents.

The report released today details the steps President Obama has taken since the Recovery Act to support education, showing results under efforts such as the Race to the Top – which catalyzed a profound wave of education reform across the country – and the Investing in Innovation program – which has contributed to testing, validating, refining and expanding new solutions and strategies to close achievement and opportunity gaps in America’s schools.  The report underscores the steps the Obama Administration has taken to increase equity and give teachers the tools they need to help students succeed.

Below are a few highlights of the progress achieved over the last seven and a half years:

  • High Academic Standards that Prepare Students for Success in College and Careers: Today, 49 states and the District of Columbia (D.C.) have adopted and are implementing college- and career-ready standards and aligned assessments for their students. In the future, with the recent passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), every state will hold all of their students to such standards. 
  • Record-High Graduation Rates: In 2008, a quarter of our high school students did not earn a high school diploma on time. Since President Obama took office, the graduation rate has increased steadily and students in the United States are graduating from high school at a higher rate than ever before, at 82 percent. Some of the greatest progress has been made by African American and Latino Students. Since the 2010-2011 school year, African American high school students experienced a 5.5 percentage point increase in graduation rates while Latino students experienced a 5.3 percentage point increase.
  • Stemming the Tide of School Dropout: The number of schools where 40 percent or more of students do not graduate on-time has gone down sharply during this Administration. In 2008, there were roughly 1,800 of these schools across the country; by 2014, the number of these schools was reduced to 1,040.The percentage of young people who drop out of high school altogether has decreased.  In 2008, before the President entered office, the dropout rate among Hispanic students was 18 percent. That percentage shrunk to just below 12 percent in 2013 – a marked improvement from before President Obama entered office and a significant shift from more than two decades before, when the share of Latino youth who were dropouts was 35 percent.
  • Advancing High-Quality Preschool: In 2009, only 38 states offered students access to state-funded preschool, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University. Today, all but four states offer access to state-funded preschool, and since the President called for universal access to high-quality preschool in his 2013 State of the Union Address, 38 states and D.C. have invested more than $1.5 billion in support of preschool. Beyond these state investments, the Obama Administration has dedicated $750 million toward the development and expansion of high-quality preschool, enabling 230 high-need communities to provide more than 100,000 additional children with access to preschool.
  • Investing in our Great Educators:When President Obama took office, the U.S. economy was in free-fall, and state and local government budgets were in trouble and facing significant cuts – jeopardizing our education system. The President took action, signing into the law the Recovery Act, which saved or created more than 400,000 jobs, most directly in education – keeping teachers, principals, librarians, and counselors on the job. In addition, since 2009, the Obama Administration has invested more than $2.7 billion in grants to develop educator talent through the award of competitive grants for better recruitment, training, support, and rewards for our educators, particularly those in high-need and rural districts.
  • Transforming Education Technology: In 2013, only 30 percent of school districts had access to high-speed internet, leaving 40 million students without access to that connectivity.  In 2013, the President launched his ConnectED initiative with the goal of unleashing education technology in schools and connecting 99 percent of America’s students to high-speed broadband in their schools and libraries by 2018.   Today, we are on track to meet that goal – 77 percent of school districts and an additional 20 million students now have access to high-speed broadband. This transformation is supported by 2,200 superintendents who have committed to President Obama’s Future Ready vision to help teachers and principals unleash new models of teaching and learning that make use of technology and digital tools like Open eBooks.
  • Inspiring STEM Education and Computer Science for All:  The Obama Administration’s efforts have resulted in an unprecedented all hands-on-deck effort in support of STEM education and STEM teachers, including securing more than $1 billion in private investments in support of STEM education. Additionally, the President has advanced efforts to inspire and recognize young inventors, discoverers and makers by hosting the first-ever White House Science Fairs and the first-ever Maker Faire in 2014.  Earlier this year, the President announced a bold new call to action: to empower every American student from kindergarten through high school to learn computer science and the computational thinking skills needed to succeed.

New Announcements in the Effort to Support Great Educators

In addition to highlighting the progress under this Administration, the White House and Department of Education are also announcing the following actions being taken to support excellent educators:

Reaching the President’s Goal of 100,000 new and Excellent STEM Teachers

To meet the challenges of the 21st century, more of our students will need to be prepared with strong STEM skills in order to succeed. The need is real — last year, there were more than 600,000 tech jobs open across the United States. But there are large disparities in student access and engagement in STEM courses, with only half of high schools nationwide offering calculus and only 63 percent offering physics. One quarter of the high schools with the highest percentages of African-American and Latino students do not offer Algebra II and a third of these schools do not offer chemistry. To address these challenges, President Obama issued a call to action in his 2011 State of the Union address to put 100,000 new STEM teachers in the classroom in ten years to equip a new generation of problem-solvers with the STEM skills they need to revitalize our economy, lead our nation, and solve the globe’s most pressing challenges.

In response to that call to action, 100Kin10, a network of 280 organizations, including school districts, universities, foundations, corporations, museums, nonprofits, and government agencies, was formed to mobilize commitments to achieve the ambitious 100,000 excellent STEM teacher goal by 2021.

Today, at the critical halfway point in the ten-year effort, 100Kin10 is announcing that its network has already trained more than 30,000 teachers, and that its partners have made commitments to recruit and train an additional 70,000 by 2021 – meaning they will meet the President’s goal and yield more than 100,000 excellent STEM teachers by the ten-year mark. These projections have been verified by the American Institutes for Research, which has concluded that 100Kin10’s estimates are reasonable.

Making an Impact: Teacher Impact Grants

Today, the U.S. Department of Education is announcing that it is working with ASCD, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (“National Board”), The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Foundation Charitable Trust, and Carnegie Corporation of New York to provide direct support to teacher-led initiatives to strengthen professional learning and improve student outcomes. These Teacher Impact Grants will cultivate the robust expertise of teachers to accelerate positive change in professional learning at the classroom, school, and district levels.

The program will be administered by ASCD and financially supported by The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Foundation Charitable Trust and Carnegie Corporation of New York. The funding will provide $5,000-$15,000 grants with the goal of supporting and empowering teachers in their work, so they may enhance the impact our schools have on the well-rounded success of each child. The commitment from the Helmsley Charitable Trust and Carnegie Corporation of New York will provide the resources needed to make teacher innovations a reality.

The private grants build on work by the Teach to Lead initiative, which was founded in 2014 by the Department of Education and the National Board to help advance student outcomes by expanding opportunities for teacher leadership. As part of Teach to Lead, the Department, ASCD, and National Board have hosted Teacher Leader Summits and Teacher Leader Labs across the country where hundreds of educators have created locally-driven plans to help improve student outcomes. 

Encouraging More Great Individuals to TEACH

TEACH is a public-private collaboration led by the U.S. Department of Education and Microsoft.  TEACH’s public service campaign, in partnership with the Ad Council, aims to inspire the next generation of teachers by reaching millions of college students who are considering career choices and providing them with information about how the teaching profession matches the criteria they have for their ideal career, including many opportunities for innovation and creativity, leadership and skill development, and personal fulfillment. Today TEACH is announcing that the following organizations are taking steps to support its work:

  • Microsoft will renew its financial support with an additional two-year $3 million commitment and continue to provide leadership and strategic guidance to TEACH.
  • Facebook is providing pro-bono creative work and donated media on Facebook’s platform and leveraging the platform’s detailed targeting capabilities to directly reach college students and recent graduates who have demonstrated an interest in STEM subjects.
  • MyCollege Options, the nation’s largest college planning platform, is partnering with TEACH to access over 6 million high school and college students nationwide and identify those with the highest propensity to become teachers. 

The College Football Playoff Foundation: Lifting Up Excellent Educators

The College Football Playoff Foundation is announcing that it will make a $100 million impact on teacher-related initiatives over the next ten years. The Foundation and its media affiliates will work with TEACH over this year to develop a campaign that supports and enhances the status of the teaching profession throughout the United States. In only two years, the College Football Playoff Foundation’s “Extra Yard for Teachers” initiative has impacted more than 5,000 schools, and funded 6,000 classroom projects, reaching over 1.2 million teachers and students. Extra Yard for Teachers specifically seeks to increase the recruitment and retention of quality teachers in the United States by supporting the efforts of organizations including the U.S. Department of Education, TEACH, Teach for America, DonorsChoose.org and Educators Rising.  The College Football Playoff Foundation and universities across the country will also pay tribute to teachers during Extra Yard for Teachers Week from September 17-24 and again during the College Football Playoff bowl games. 

Spotify: Supporting Educators Through Music and Stories

Spotify is committing to celebrate the creativity of America’s teachers and supports programs that bring music to all students. Spotify will create a series of initiatives that highlight creativity in education.  Launching this week, it will encourage its community to share songs and stories about influential teachers using #ThankATeacher. Throughout the year, Spotify will leverage its platform and community to showcase the importance of providing creative tools for educators and the power of music education for students. Spotify will also be collaborating with organizations like Girls Rock Camp and Music Mural & Arts Project in 2016 to ensure that more students have access to the power of music.

Obama Administration Launches New Initiatives to Expand STEM Education Opportunities for Youngest Learners

Let’s Talk, Read and Sing about STEM tip sheets provide fun, concrete resources and recommendations for families, caregivers, and infant, toddler, and preschool educators on easy ways to incorporate STEM concepts and vocabulary into everyday routines, and suggestions for activities to engage young children in STEM learning © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
Let’s Talk, Read and Sing about STEM tip sheets provide fun, concrete resources and recommendations for families, caregivers, and infant, toddler, and preschool educators on easy ways to incorporate STEM concepts and vocabulary into everyday routines, and suggestions for activities to engage young children in STEM learning © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

WASHINGTON, DC – The White House, in partnership with the U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services and Invest in US, hosted an event April 21 to highlight the importance of promoting active science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) learning for our youngest children and to celebrate a broad range of public- and private-sector leaders committed to promoting STEM learning across the country.

The White House received over 200 submissions of innovative STEM work from leaders across the country, representing state and local entities, foundations, non-profits, media organizations, technology companies, research institutions, and museums. Collectively, the commitments of these leaders have the potential to bring new active STEM content for our youngest children to millions of households across the nation. The early STEM learning announcements also mark progress on the President’s My Brother’s Keeper Initiative and the efforts of the Council on Women and Girls to ensure that all young children can reach their full potential, including students underrepresented in STEM. (You can learn more about the full set of commitments being made HERE.)

New Steps Being Taken by the Administration

In addition to the public and private sector groups that are stepping up, Federal agencies are deepening the resources and support they provide for early active STEM Learning. New actions being taken by the Obama Administration include:

  • New Research Grants to Improve Early Elementary Science Outcomes: The U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) Institute for Education Science (IES) announced a new funding opportunity that will support a network of interdisciplinary research teams in exploring how early elementary school science teaching can improve education outcomes for children, especially those from low-income backgrounds and from communities underrepresented in science professions.  IES will fund up to four research teams and a network lead to coordinate the work.
  • New Suite of STEM Tip Sheets and Resources for Families and Early Educators: The Department of Education (ED), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and Too Small to Fail (TSTF) have created a set of early STEM resources for families and educators of young children called Let’s Talk, Read and Sing about STEM!These tip sheets provide fun, concrete resources and recommendations for families, caregivers, and infant, toddler, and preschool educators on easy ways to incorporate STEM concepts and vocabulary into everyday routines, and suggestions for activities to engage young children in STEM learning. The tip sheets and “Let’s Talk about the World” poster are available in English and Spanish. 
  • Policy Statement on the Role of Technology in Early Learning: ED and HHS will release a joint policy statement later this year on the role of technology in early learning. ED is inviting the public to commenton a series of questions that will inform the development of the statement.
  • New Research on the U.S. Department of Education’s Ready to Learn Program: This month, grantees from ED’s Ready to Learn program will be featured in reports that share findings and lessons learned about utilizing television and digital media to support math learning for young children.  The reports include six papers by grantees and evaluators that will appear in a special section of an issue of The Journal of Children and Media, and a new report entitled “The Ready to Learn Program: 2010–2015 Policy Brief” released by the Center on Media and Human Development at Northwestern University.
  • USDA and NASA Creating New 21st Century CompetenciesLearning Activities: The U.S. Department of Agriculture is partnering with NASA to create modules for students, based on NASA astronaut training.  Activities will be introduced with a video by a NASA astronaut and will consist of children engaging in mission-based activities.

Private sector groups from across the country are committing to the following actions today to increase access to high-quality early STEM education:

  • The Bay Area Discovery Museumis launching Empowered Engineering, an initiative designed to bring high-quality engineering experiences to young children. Empowered Engineering will reach underserved children through partnerships with Title I schools and community-based organizations. Over the next five years, the Bay Area Discovery Museum will reach an estimated 11 million students and teachers, in their community and throughout the country.
  • The Early Math Collaborative at Erikson Institute, in partnership with the City of Chicago and with support from the National Science Foundation, will launch Collaborative Math, a new professional development model designed to establish excellence in early math teaching in early childhood programs. The Early Math Collaborative will roll out at 28 Head Start sites in Chicago.
  • Girl Scouts of the USAwill promote Girl Scout National programming that connects to early STEM education through targeted communications, such as blog posts and social media, which have the potential of benefiting more than 45,000 young girls. Girl Scouts of the USA will also distribute resource guides for parents on engaging young girls in STEM activities.
  • The Heising-Simons Foundationwill establish a partnership with The Fred Rogers Company, to support the production of 25 episodes of Odd Squad, a math-focused television show on PBS Kids, and create accompanying games and apps. They will also hold free summer math camps in 14 U.S. cities serving more than 400 children.
  • Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network (HITN)will donate 10,000 STEM-focused Family Kits to national organizations that serve low-income families, including home visitation programs, informal learning settings, and community-based organizations, to promote STEM learning at home. 
  • The Jim Henson Company with $3M of support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will launch a new PBS series, Splash and Bubbles, for children ages four to seven, with a marine biology curriculum that will inspire children to care about the ocean, learn about its “citizens,” and understand that it is a vital part of our planet.  The series will be supported with free online destinations and digital apps, printed resources, and local events.
  • The Lawrence Hall of Sciencein partnership with a local community college, supported by the National Science Foundation, is developing and piloting an undergraduate course on teaching science and mathematics to young children. The course will be made available online.
  • The National Head Start Association and Lakeshore Learningwill increase access to Recycle Your Way to STEAM to every child and family enrolled in a Head Start program—growing from serving 20,000 children, educators and families to serving over one million nationwide. Recycle Your Way to STEAM is a set of activities that use recycled materials to introduce STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) concepts to early learners.
  • Nickelodeon, through their kindergarten readiness initiative – Beyond the Backpack– will distribute 50,000 toolkits in English and Spanish and increase exposure to STEM concepts in underserved areas through the Beyond the Backpack On-the-Go SMS text program and Kindergarten Readiness Block Parties featuring Blaze and the Monster Machines.
  • Project Lead The Way (PLTW) will form new partnerships with more than 400 elementary schools for the 2016–17 school year to expand their curriculum and teacher training, which immerses students in hands-on activities and projects that relate to the world around them. This expansion will grow PLTW’s elementary STEM-based program to 1,700 elementary schools across the United States.
  • Sesame Workshop, the creators of Sesame Street, will develop Make Believe with Math, a research-based online course for educators which, along with other training resources, will be made freely available online.

At White House Science Fair, President Obama Calls on this Generation of Students to Tackle the Grand Challenges of Our Time

 

President Obama hosted the sixth and final White House Science Fair of his Administration and celebrate the student competitors and winners from a broad range of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) competitions © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
President Obama hosted the sixth and final White House Science Fair of his Administration and celebrate the student competitors and winners from a broad range of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) competitions © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

On April 13, President Obama  hosted the sixth and final White House Science Fair of his Administration and celebrate the student competitors and winners from a broad range of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) competitions. The event was the largest White House Science Fair to date, with more than 130 students from more than 30 states, as well as student alumni from each of the prior five White House Science Fairs.

Highlighting the powerful stories of ingenuity, social activism, teamwork, and civic engagement evident in the projects, President Obama called on this generation of students—those in elementary, middle, and high schools today—to actively participate in solving the toughest challenges facing our world, from combating climate change to setting foot on Mars.

President Obama at a Brooklyn High School.  At the 6th and final White House Science Fair, he announced new programs and initiatives to expand STEM education  © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
President Obama at a Brooklyn High School. At the 6th and final White House Science Fair, he announced new programs and initiatives to expand STEM education © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

President Obama established the tradition of the White House Science Fair at the start of his Administration to personally celebrate our Nation’s top young scientists and innovators. The President created the Science Fair with a simple credo: “If you win the NCAA championship, you come to the White House. Well, if you’re a young person and you produce the best experiment or design, the best hardware or software, you ought to be recognized for that achievement, too.”

The President  also highlighted the growing community of education, business, and nonprofit leaders who have responded to his State of the Union call to give every child the opportunity to learn computer science (CS), as well as his overall “Educate to Innovate” campaign to ensure all students have the tools to be innovators and problem-solvers. New programs announced included: 

  • New Department of Education guidance to states, school districts, and other education organizations on the many ways they can use existing Federal funds to advance Pre-K–12 STEM and CS learning.
  • A $200 million investment by Oracle to support CS education for an additional 125,000 students in the United States.
  • More than 500 K-12 schools committing to expand access to CS, with support from Code.org.
  • Commitments to expand STEM learning for more of our youngest learners, from family engagement to innovative use of media.
  • A new online matching platform, supported by US2020, to help more STEM professionals who want to volunteer and mentor.

The STEM announcements also marked progress on the President’s My Brother’s Keeper Initiative and the efforts of the Council on Women and Girls to build ladders of opportunity for all young people, including populations underrepresented in STEM; incorporate STEM into the Administration’s push to expand high-quality early-childhood education; and advance the Climate Education and Literacy Initiativeto help connect all American students and citizens with the best-available, science-based information about climate change. Full details on all of today’s announcements can be found here.

The White House Science Fair is part of a week of Administration activities celebrating science and technology, featuring the President’s participation as a guest presenter throughout this week on the Science Channel’s nightly science news segment. In addition, the White House Science Fair will be immediately followed by the USA Science & Engineering Festival, the nation’s largest celebration of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, with more than 350,000 students and adults expected to engage in more than 3,000 hands-on activities over 3 days. More than 70 Federal agencies will participate in the Festival.

A Generational Call to Action 

Students today have the potential to be one of America’s greatest generations. Though each generation of Americans brings with them new ideas and energy, today, because of unprecedented access to cutting-edge physical and digital tools, online and in-person communities, and information about the grand challenges we face, American students are even better equipped to harness their passions towards developing solutions that confront our toughest challenges.

They can be the Mars generation, the explorers who first step foot on another planet. Their skills, perseverance, and collaboration can help seed new technologies and solutions to tackle the climate crisis. They can collaborate to harness rapid advances in information technology and nanotechnology to understand the human brain, forge new solutions to cancer, and embrace the American spirit of discovery, invention, and entrepreneurship.

As the President highlighted in this year’s State of the Union Address, everyone in the United States can harness technology to help solve our toughest challenges. The 2016 White House Science Fair shines a spotlight on the contributions that the Nation’s students are making now, and the potential they have to help make our country and our world a better place.

The more than 130 students at the 2016 White House Science Fair represented more than 40 different STEM competitions and organizations. Forty student teams had the opportunity to exhibit their projects at the White House, and the President personally viewed some of these projects. Additional information on the projects, students, and competitions being recognized at the Fair can be found here.

A Sustained Record of Accomplishment 

This White House Science Fair is only the most recent example of President Obama’s sustained and historic focus on giving every child the opportunity to excel at STEM education. In the past 7 years:

  • The Administration has secured more than $1 billion in private investment for improving STEM education as part of the President’s Educate to Innovate campaign.
  • Our Nation is more than halfway towards achieving the goal the President set in 2011 of preparing 100,000 new math and science teachers by 2021.
  • Compared to when President Obama took office, 25,000 more engineers are graduating each year from American universities.
  • STEM education has been incorporated into the priorities of the Department of Education (ED)—as illustrated by the Administration’s signature Race to the Topcompetition—and into the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act that the President signed last year.
  • This White House has announced more than 350 commitments from college and university leadership and others to provide pathways for students underrepresented in STEM to attain degrees.
  • President Obama has started traditions such as the White House Science Fair to honor young people using STEM to improve their communities and the world.

And in his final budget announced in February, the President seeks to sustain this impressive track record with an investment of $3 billion for STEM-education programs, as well as a historic $4 billion proposal in support of CS education for all students. (The Republican-controlled Congress has refused to consider the President’s budget and has yet to pass its own.) 

New Steps Being Announced by the Administration 

Federal agencies are announcing new steps to empower local communities with the tools, people, and support they need to expand their STEM efforts. These include:

  • Federal guidance on advancing STEM education. Today, the Department of Education (ED) Office of STEM is releasing a Dear Colleague Letter providing guidance for states, school districts, and other education organizations on how they can use Federal funds to support innovative STEM-education strategies and ensure equitable STEM-education opportunities and outcomes for all students in the 2016-17 school year. In particular, this guidance outlines how Federal money can be used to support high-quality, hands-on active STEM learning.
  • The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), along with the STEM Funders Network and the Afterschool Alliance, are collaborating to support vibrant STEM ecosystems in as many as 14 communities, where local schools, out-of-school programs, business, higher education, museums and local institutions will work together to expand STEM learning opportunities for local students. To support the effort, CNCS will place up to 28 AmeriCorps VISTA members, who will be full-time staff on the ground. In addition, CNCS is expanding STEM AmeriCorps VISTA through a new partnership with theNew York Academy of Sciences that will place more than 10 AmeriCorps VISTA members over the next 2 years in afterschool STEM-mentoring programs, which will serve students who reside in 60 of the poorest neighborhoods in New York City, NY, and Newark, NJ.
  • The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), in collaboration with theYMCA of the USA, will help 10 new host cities around the country expand Thingamajig, a program developed by the YMCA of Metropolitan DC. These cities will create programs, seminars, and tools that assist students in connecting STEM education with real-world problem solving skills. This partnership builds on the last 2 years of expansion across YMCA of the USA, which reaches over 100,000 youth—with a focus on low-income and underrepresented youth—in 48 states and Washington, D.C. Additionally, this year, USPTO will expand its collaboration with the JAMTECH program to more sites across the country. JAMTECH is a hands-on educational experience that gives students with little or no exposure to computer programming the opportunity to build and program their own video games over the course of a day—teaching the principles of game design, coding, and programming in a way that allows students to expand their competencies in areas such as math, physics, analysis, logic, and strategy.
  • Over 200 Federally supported citizen-science projects for students and adults are now accessible from a single place—CitizenScience.gov. The General Services Administration (GSA) is collaborating with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (WWICS), a Trust Instrumentality of the U.S. Government, to launch CitizenScience.gov, a new central hub for citizen science and crowdsourcing initiatives in the public sector. CitizenScience.gov will provide information, resources, and tools for government personnel, students, and adults who are actively engaged in or looking to participate in citizen science and crowdsourcing projects. The development of this catalogue follows the September 2015 memorandum to Federal departments and agencies issued by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).
  • ED, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and Too Small to Fail (TSTF) are releasing a series of tip sheets entitled “Let’s Talk, Read and Sing about STEM!” These tip sheets provide concrete resources and recommendations for families, caregivers, and educators of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers on easy ways to incorporate STEM concepts and vocabulary into everyday routines, and suggestions for activities to engage young children in STEM learning. These new resources build on an existing suite of materials co-created by ED, HHS, and TSTF focused on early brain and language development.
  • The National Science Foundation (NSF) will celebrate a Day of Active Learning. A robust foundation of evidence shows that while active engagement enhances learning for students of all demographics, it has an especially beneficial effect on women and underrepresented students, likely due to a greater sense of belonging that can be achieved in active classrooms. Today, NSF is announcing that it will hold an Active Learning Day later this year, with the goal of empowering and encouraging educators nationwide to use active learning in their classrooms.

Private-Sector Commitments in Response to the President’s Call to Action 

More than 100 different organizations announced new commitments, showcasing the strong response to the President’s State of the Union call to give every child the opportunity to learn CS, as well as his overall “Educate to Innovate” campaign to ensure all students have the tools to be innovators and problem-solvers. These announcements included:

  • New partnerships to train teachers and help more than 500 K-12 schools expand access to CS. Code.org has established partnerships with seven local organizations to deliver professional-learning programs aimed at preparing up to 550 new high-school and middle-school CS teachers over the next 2 years. In addition, Code.org will help support more than 500 K-12 schools expand their CS offerings. This includes:

o   Nine school districts surrounding Chicago have grouped together to begin offering AP CS Principles in 21 high schools.

o   Dallas Independent School District will be offering beginning CS courses districtwide for the first time in the majority of their high schools and all of their middle schools in the 2016-17 school year.

o   Georgia’s Department of Education and Governor’s Office of Student Achievement committed to expand AP CS Principles to 60 high schools and integrate CS into preexisting courses at 60 middle schools across the state.

o   Mississippi’s Department of Education will host 6 summer workshops this year to prepare approximately 170 new CS teachers in grades K-5.

o   Northeast Florida School Districts, representing Clay, Duval, Nassau, and St. Johns Counties, have combined efforts to spread opportunities for CS instruction to over 200,000 students served collectively by their 330 schools.

o   In Washington State, Educational Service Districts 123, 171, and 112 (serving 82 school districts) have partnered with Code.org to bring CS professional-learning opportunities for elementary- and middle-school teachers as well as for middle-and high-school counselors and administrators. 

  • A $200 million investment from Oracle over the next 18 months in direct and in-kind funds to support CS education in the United States. The investment will allow an additional 125,000 K-12 students to learn CS through the free Oracle Academy program. Oracle is also expanding access to emerging CS fields for interested teachers and students, through opportunities such as their free Big Data Science Boot Camps. To complement its direct CS offerings, Oracle will invest more than $3 million in nonprofit organizations focused on inspiring young girls and engaging other underrepresented students in pursuing STEM and CS degrees.
  • A new online matching platform, created by US2020, to connect more STEM professionals to volunteer opportunities, setting an initial goal to serve 20,000 students this year. The new platform will enable any nonprofit organization or classroom teacher to connect easily with a STEM professional. In 2016, US2020 will use the platform as a central hub to engage more than 1,000 corporations and civic organizations and serve more than 20,000 students with a focus on girls, traditionally underrepresented minority students, and children from low-income families.
  • Commitments to expand STEM learning for young learners nationwide. In response to the Administration’s broader push to expand early-childhood education, private-sector organizations are stepping up and making new commitments to build statewide early STEM programs, equip every Head Start center across the country with STEM tools, and engage families with new media and cultural options. A full list of new commitments will be released as a part of a White House event on early learning and STEM later this month. These include:

o   100Kin10 is awarding $1.7 million to partners in New York State and has leveraged additional support from Motorola Solutions to develop ways to increase the reach and quality of engineering and CS teaching in Pre-K–12 schools.

o   Common Sense Education will produce a set of early STEM-education resources and tools, covering themes like Coding for Early Readers. These resources have the potential to reach more than 300,000 teachers in 100,000 schools, and 65 million households across the country.

o   The Heising-Simons Foundation will partner with The Fred Rogers Company to support the production of 25 episodes of “Odd Squad,” a math-focused television show airing on PBS Kids, create games and an app, and hold free week-long summer math camps in 14 U.S. cities serving more than 400 children.

o   The Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network (HITN) will donate 10,000 STEM-focused Spanish/English Family Kits to informal learning settings (libraries and museums), community-based organizations, and national organizations—including home visitation programs—that serve low-income families in order to help expand young children’s access to STEM at home.

o   Learning Point Alaska, Inc. is partnering with multiple Alaska Native organizations to deliver informal, technology-based STEM programming to elementary-school students and build capacity for local teachers in Native Villages throughout Alaska.

o   The Museum of Science, Boston is launching a 3-year initiative to create a research-based Pre-K-Kindergarten engineering curriculum, which will build on the museum’s Engineering is Elementary curriculum, for schools to use to teach children ages 3-5.

o   The National Head Start Association and Lakeshore Learning will set a goal to reach the one million children who are enrolled in Head Start programs with their “Recycle Your Way to STEAM” program.

o   Sesame Workshop, the creators of Sesame Street, will develop “Make Believe with Math,” a research-based Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) for educators, which, along with other training resources, will be made freely available online.

Full details on all of the new programs and initiatives can be found here.

International Women’s Day: Obamas Point to Progress on ‘Let Girls Learn’ Initiative

First Lady Michelle Obama, discussing her "Let Girls Learn" initiative © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
First Lady Michelle Obama, discussing her “Let Girls Learn” initiative © 2016 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

“Today, on International Women’s Day, we recommit ourselves to achieving a world in which every woman and girl enjoys the full range of rights and freedoms that is her birthright,” President Obama stated.

“Women and girls make extraordinary contributions every day across all fields of human endeavor, including in business, education, sports, art, science, agriculture, parenting, and governance.  Without these contributions, economies would collapse, communities would fail, and families would fall apart.  And yet, in too many places around the world, women still struggle to rise out of their status as second-class citizens.  They are denied opportunities for full economic and political participation.  Some are forced to marry and have children when they are still children themselves, while abusive practices, such female genital mutilation/cutting, still persist in too many places.  Moreover, secondary education-arguably the most powerful tool for helping girls escape cycles of poverty and abuse and take control of their lives–remains beyond the reach of tens of millions of girls around the world.

“That is why I am proud that my Administration launched the Let Girls Learn initiative, which is already helping adolescent girls around the world to surmount the barriers that stand between them and a quality education.   It is also why I am pleased to announce that, in the coming days, Secretary of State John Kerry will be releasing the U.S. Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls, which lays out a whole-of-government approach to provide the next generation of women the tools they need to pursue their aspirations.

“We know that when we invest in women and girls, we are not only helping them, we are helping the entire planet.  A future in which all women and girls around the world are allowed to rise and achieve their full potential will be a brighter, more peaceful, and more prosperous future for us all.”

Meanwhile, the White House issued a fact sheet on the progress made after one year of the “Let Girls Learn” initiative.

FACT SHEET: FIRST LADY MICHELLE OBAMA CELEBRATES ONE YEAR OF LET GIRLS LEARN, AND ANNOUNCES NEW COMMITMENTS TO THE INITIATIVE

 In March 2015, the President and the First Lady launched Let Girls Learn, a U.S. government initiative aimed at helping adolescent girls attain a quality education that empowers them to reach their full potential. The recently released FY 2017 President’s Budget has requested more than $100 million in new funds for the initiative, building on the $250 million in funds requested in the FY 2016 President’s Budget to launch the initiative. Additionally, foreign governments, including JapanSouth Korea and the UK, have collectively pledged nearly $600 million towards global girls’ education programming. Domestically, the First Lady is galvanizing students to become global citizens, from launching the #62MillionGirls social media campaign last September, to releasing the Let Girls Learn toolkit at last summer’s Girl Up Summit, to talking directly to girls at the Apollo Theater at last fall’s The Power of an Educated Girl town hall with Glamour Magazine.  Another key approach to making Let Girls Learn a success is through public private partnerships.  The independent commitments described below build upon commitments announced at last year’s Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit.  For the latest update on Alex and Ani’s commitment, click HERE. 

Private Sector Commitments to Let Girls Learn:

JOHNSON & JOHNSON will support global fundraising efforts in support of the girls’ education through Global Moms Relay and Donate a Photo App, totaling more than $200,000 over two years.  In addition, Johnson & Johnson will contribute $50,000 to the Peace Corps Let Girls Learn Fund.

PROCTER & GAMBLE is making a $100,000 donation to the Peace Corps Let Girls Learn Fund to enable adolescent girls’ education programming with a focus on Africa and Asia.  For International Women’s Day, Always will promote Let Girls Learn by proposing girls’ education-emojis, including a Mrs. Obama Let Girls Learn emoji. In addition, P&G and Peace Corps will explore expanding Always Confidence Teaching Curriculum to help more girls build and maintain confidence through education.

STARWOOD HOTELS & RESORTS WORLDWIDE, INC. will produce original promotional video content to run on SPG TV, an in-hotel TV network reaching upwards of 12 million consumers a month, as well as distribution across its many social media channels. Starwood will also designate Let Girls Learn as an official SPG charity partner, designing a promotion which allows members to donate Starpoints® to benefit Let Girls Learn.

JETBLUE will produce an original seatback video about Let Girls Learn for all flights during a key amplification month, raising awareness and inspiring all around international girls’ education. Additionally, JetBlue will provide a financial donation to the Peace Corps Let Girls Learn Fund.

LYFT will drive donations to the Peace Corps Let Girls Learn Fund through their tip-matching program, which will match funds when passengers tip their drivers. Lyft will identify key moments to activate this collaboration throughout the year.

J.CREW will support Let Girls Learn through their Garments for Good initiative and will design specific items to be released later this year. Garments for Good is a J.Crew initiative to lend support by selling items in their stores and online, with all profits being donated to the selected charity.

CSOFT INTERNATIONAL will translate Let Girls Learn materials, including the Peace Corps training literature, from English into multiple languages.

THE GIRLS’ LOUNGE is helping raise awareness around Let Girls Learn by commissioning a Let Girls Learn mural at Union Market and bringing a Let Girls Learn bus to Washington, DC to celebrate International Women’s Day. The Girls’ Lounge, in collaboration with partner Rubicon Project will also provide digital media campaigns to drive awareness and messaging for Let Girls Learn throughout 2016.

SALESFORCE.ORG will financially support Room to Read’s expansion of girls’ education in Cambodia and Sri Lanka. This commitment will support the work the First Lady has done to shed light on the importance of girls’ education in Cambodia, where she visited Room to Read’s work as part of the Let Girls Learn launch.

Public Sector and NGO Commitments to Let Girls Learn: 

DINING FOR WOMEN is a global giving circle dedicated to transforming lives and eradicating poverty among women and girls in the developing world. They will support the Peace Corps Let Girls Learn Fund with a $100,000 grant to fund community projects that address barriers to girls’ education and promote empowerment. 

RTI INTERNATIONAL, a nonprofit institute that provides research, development and technical services worldwide, will donate to the Peace Corps Let Girls Learn Fund.

CONNECTHER is raising awareness about access to education and schooling in the developing world through Girls Impact the World (GITW) Film Festival. Connecther is launching the GITW Global Chapters to screen short films from the Film Festival about the education of girls, economic independence for girls, redefining beauty and other critical issues.  Each screening will include a session about girls’ education.

AMY POEHLER’S SMART GIRLS, along with the Peace Corps, will share educational resources such as video and classroom correspondence activities to give “Smart Girls” the opportunity to learn about the world and connect with other “Smart Girls” eager to engage and support girls’ education.

See also:

First Lady Michelle Obama suggests will make ‘Let Girls Learn’ her work after WH and slideshow

Cuomo: NYS Will Overhaul Common Core, Retreat from High-Stakes Testing

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo announced recommendations from his Common Core Task Force including a moratorium on using high-stakes tests for student, teacher evaluation © 2015 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo announced recommendations from his Common Core Task Force including a moratorium on using high-stakes tests for student, teacher evaluation © 2015 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

 

 In a dramatic turnaround, New York State will abandon using high-stakes testing to evaluate students, as well as teachers until the 2019-2020 school year, will move to overhaul the Common Core system and restore some measure of local control over how new standards and curriculum are implemented. It is a repudiation of the “one-size fits all” framework which emerged out of the No Child Left Behind/Race to the Top Accountability Movement that had been driving education.

The new policy emerges out of the final report and recommendations of Governor Cuomo’s Common Core Task Force, consisting of a diverse group of educators, parents, education officials and state representatives, which was charged with comprehensively reviewing and making recommendations on reforming the current Common Core system and the way students are taught and tested.

The Task Force recommended “overhauling the current Common Core system and adopting new, locally-driven New York State standards in a transparent and open process to make sure all students are prepared to succeed in an increasingly competitive 21st century economy,” the Governor’s office stated. “The new standards, curriculum and tests and must uniquely developed for New York students with sufficient local input.” The Task Force also recommended that current Common Core aligned tests should not count for students or teachers until the start of 2019-2020 school year to ensure the system is implemented completely and properly to avoid the errors caused by the prior flawed implementation.

“After listening to thousands of parents, educators and students, the Task Force has made important recommendations that include overhauling the Common Core, adopting new locally-designed high quality New York standards, and greatly reducing testing and testing anxiety for our students,” Governor Cuomo stated. “The Common Core was supposed to ensure all of our children had the education they needed to be college and career-ready – but it actually caused confusion and anxiety. That ends now. Today, we will begin to transform our system into one that empowers parents, teachers and local districts and ensures high standards for all students. I thank the Task Force members for their thorough work. Together we will ensure that New York’s schools provide the world-class education that our children deserve.”

The Task Force was chaired by Richard Parsons, Senior Advisor, Providence Equity Partners, LLC and former Chairman of Citigroup.

“While adoption of the Common Core was extremely well intentioned, its implementation has caused confusion and upheaval in classrooms across New York State,” stated the Task Force chairman Richard Parsons, Senior Advisor, Providence Equity Partners, LLC and former Chairman of Citigroup. “We believe that these recommendations, once acted on, provide a means to put things back on the right track and ensure high quality standards that meet the needs of New York’s kids. The recommendations will provide the foundation to restore public trust in the education system in New York and build on the long history of excellence that preceded this period.”

The Task Force heard from more than 2,100 students, parents, teachers, administrators and other education stakeholders through public forums held across the state, thousands of pages of testimony and outreach to educators.

The Task Force affirmed the importance of maintaining the highest quality standards and performance measures in education. However, the Task Force found that over the past decade there has been rapid change in education, including the 2009 federal Race to the Top and Common Core which has created confusion and disruption in states across the nation, including New York. Moreover, the original process to adopt and implement the Common Core standards, curriculum and tests in New York had implementation issues and failed to include sufficient input from educators, parents and local districts and was not open and transparent.

The Task Force made 20 recommendations, including:

1: Adopt high quality New York education standards with input from local districts, educators, and parents through an open and transparent process.

2: Modify early grade standards so they are age-appropriate.

3: Ensure that standards accommodate flexibility that allows educators to meet the needs of unique student populations, including Students with Disabilities and English Language Learners.

4: Ensure standards do not lead to the narrowing of curriculum or diminish the love of reading and joy of learning.

5: Establish a transparent and open process by which New York standards are periodically reviewed by educators and content area experts. Develop Better Curriculum Guidance and Resources

6: Ensure educators and local school districts have the flexibility to develop and tailor curriculum to the new standards.

7: Release updated and improved sample curriculum resources.

8: Launch a digital platform that enables teachers, including pre-service teachers, and teacher educators, to share resources with other teachers across the state.

9: Create ongoing professional development opportunities for teachers, teacher educators, and administrators on the revised State standards. Significantly Reduce Testing Time and Preparation and Ensure Tests Fit Curriculum and Standards

10: Involve educators, parents, and other education stakeholders in the creation and periodic review of all State standards-aligned exams and other State assessments.

11: Gather student feedback on the quality of the new tests.

12: Provide ongoing transparency to parents, educators, and local districts on the quality and content of all tests, including, but not limited to publishing the test questions.

13: Reduce the number of days and shorten the duration for standards-aligned State standardized tests.

14: Provide teachers with the flexibility and support to use authentic formative assessments to measure student learning.

15: Undertake a formal review to determine whether to transition to untimed tests for existing and new State standardized tests aligned to the standards.

16: Provide flexibility for assessments of Students with Disabilities.

17: Protect and enforce testing accommodations for Students with Disabilities.

18: Explore alternative options to assess the most severely disabled students.

19: Prevent students from being mandated into Academic Intervention Services based on a single test.

20: Eliminate double testing for English Language Learners.

The Task Force found that to implement the new system would require significant work including a comprehensive review of the current Common Core Standards in order to adopt new New York State Standards and create new curriculum and assessments in an open and transparent manner for the nearly 700 school districts, 5,000 schools, 200,000 plus teachers and 2.65 million students. Therefore, the Task Force believes that in order to finally get the system right there must be adequate time to implement the system. Given all of the work and time required to review and adopt new standards, improve and adapt curriculum, and create new assessments, any current Common Core aligned tests should not count for students or teachers until the start of 2019-2020 school year when the new statewide standards developed through this process will be put into place.

The Task Force has adopted many if not most of the Board of Regents’ recommendations for improving the implementation of the higher standards we’ve set for our students,” stated New York State Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch. “The most important message in the Task Force report is the renewed commitment to adopting and maintaining higher standards. We cannot turn our backs on our students at a time when the world is demanding more from them – more skills, more knowledge, more problem-solving.”

New York State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia said, “In my first few months as commissioner, I’ve traveled across the state and heard a large cross section of New Yorkers — our teachers, parents and educators –share their deep concern for improving the education of our children. And as a member of the Common Core Task Force, I’ve heard those same stakeholders express those same concerns. Likewise, the Department’s AimHighNY survey unfolded the same passionate call for clear learning standards to serve as guideposts to future success for our children. Now it’s time to move forward and deliver on the promise we’ve made to our students and give them the best schools possible.”

The comprehensive report provides the history and context of learning standards and specifically, a review of the Common Core Standards in New York; a summary of testimony and stakeholder feedback across several categories and specific Task Force responses; and a full description of Task Force Recommendations.

The Education Transformation Act of 2015 will remain in place, and no new legislation is required to implement the recommendations of the report, including recommendations regarding the transition period for consequences for students and teachers. During the transition, the 18 percent of teachers whose performance is measured, in part, by Common Core tests will use different local measures approved by the state, similar to the measures already being used by the majority of teachers.

The Governor’s office pointed to his longstanding commitment to education reform, including the recent laws banning standardized testing for students in pre-kindergarten through 2nd grade, capping test preparation to two percent of learning time, not counting the Common Core scores against students and requiring the State Education Department to help districts eliminate unnecessary standardized tests for all other students.

See also:

Hate over-testing? NYS’s Common Core Task Force needs to hear from you

Back to the drawing board for nation’s schools wrestling with Common Core