Double The Numbers Conference

October 5, 2007
Remarks by Vicki Phillips, director, Education initiative

Thank you, Hilary. I am delighted to be able to work hand in hand with Hilary at the Foundation. I have admired her work at Jobs for the Future for many years. Rarely have I found in one person her depth of entrepreneurship and experience combined with such vibrant commitment and imagination. The task of doubling the numbers goes well beyond education to the full range of U.S. programs, and I cannot imagine a better partner than Hilary Pennington in pursuing this work.

One of the things that has struck me about this conference is the fact that whether you are at Jobs for the Future, a school district, a foundation, a national policy think tank, a university, a community college or high school, we are all working together toward similar goals.

Working together is crucial. To double the number of low-income young people earning an associate's or bachelor's degree is a commitment that requires team work—a shared vision, a unified goal, and a dogged determination to provide the kinds of opportunities that will secure a brighter future for America's youth. I want to recognize Jobs for the Future and the leaders in this room for both the vision to see what is needed and the courage to set an ambitious goal.

As you know, I am just two months into my new role as Director of Education at the Gates Foundation. Today I want to talk about our work and how I am beginning to approach this tremendous new opportunity ahead of me. But before I do I'd like you to understand where I come from—what motivates me in this work?

Over the course of my career I have been able to take on a number of roles and have worked in a variety of places—in rural farming communities, in urban settings like Philadelphia, at the statewide level as a chief state school officer and most recently as a superintendent in Portland, Ore. I have seen what our young people—no matter their geographic location or circumstances—can do when given the chance, and for me this work is a personal as well as a professional passion. I grew up in rural poverty. Our family home had no indoor bathroom, and my stepfather worked two jobs (the rock quarry and our small farm) so we could make ends meet.

Growing up, no adult—at home or in school—encouraged me to do more than finish high school. An affluent friend I met in a high school business class insisted that I was going to college and did all she could to make it happen. Otherwise, I would probably not be standing here today. I am grateful for every opportunity to give back. I believe, and I know that the foundation believes, that all young people, not just a few of them—deserve that opportunity to succeed by design, not by luck as was my case.

I have not forgotten what it felt like to be that kid and student growing up in Falls of Rough, Ky. As an educator and in my new role at the foundation, I've learned that we are most successful when we remember what it is like to be a student, to see school and the future through students' eyes. Viewing our work from this perspective—gaining insights into what motivates and engages young people to learn at high levels—emboldens us to make decisions that are in their best interest.

When people ask me what will change now that I lead education at the Gates Foundation, I am quick to say that it will take time to answer that completely. But I can tell you that keeping the voice and the perspective of the student front and center in our work will be a big priority as long as I am around.

I know that the voice of those you serve is also a big priority at JFF. Your first conference was a significant milestone in our efforts, galvanizing leadership in secondary and post-secondary levels of education to increase college-readiness. The real change since that conference is a testament to what is possible in the face of some very troubling realities. As someone who has spent years in the classroom, I am struck by the exponential impact of both the accomplishments and the challenges. And those challenges are many:

• The dropout rate for low-income minorities is far more than double the rate for white, affluent students
  
  
• The number of young people in adult prisons has more than doubled in the last decade.
  
  
• The percentage of minority children who live below the poverty line is more than double that of whites.
  
  
• The percentage of whites at or above the proficient level in reading on the NAEP test is more than double that of Hispanics and African Americans.

There are challenges, but there also are accomplishments. In the three short years since Double the Numbers 2004:

• The number of states committed to policies that increase graduation and college-readiness rates has more than doubled thanks to the leadership of the National Governors Association, Achieve and other state leaders.
  
  
• Growth in early college high schools, a cornerstone of JFF's work and an enormously successful school model for increasing graduation rates, has doubled.
  
  
• The number of students graduating from New York City’s small schools are almost double the high schools they replaced
  
  
• Here in our nation's capital, DC schools, higher education, and city government have made a commitment to doubling the number of college graduates.

The leaders in this room are energized by this progress and more focused than ever on meeting the national challenge to double the number of low-income students earning a college degree.

Similarly, in the wake of the generous gift from Warren Buffet, which will more than double our foundation's endowment, we've been inspired and empowered to deepen and accelerate our work. As you know, today our foundation invests in improving global health and global development. And in the United States we work to ensure that all people—especially those with the greatest need and potential—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Our efforts in the United States include making the information accessible to everyone through our public libraries and, in the Pacific Northwest, ending family homelessness in the Pacific Northwest and helping young children succeed as they enter school. 

But the core of the foundation's work in the United States is ensuring that young people graduate from high school prepared for success in college, career, and life. That commitment remains unwavering.

We have been privileged to work with 1,800 schools in 47 states and the District of Columbia. The foundation has committed more than $1.7 billion in investments over the last six years in a focused and determined effort to improve our nation's graduation rate and have the diploma mean something.

It is this steadfast commitment to kids that attracted me to the foundation in the first place. 

To meet this goal of every student requires a change in "business as usual" and it requires seeing school from the students' eyes. Success stories–whether it is the 130 early college high schools around the country, or the phenomenal graduation rates at New York City’s small schools–encourage all of us to be optimistic.

We all have stories to tell. I will forever hold in my head and heart a picture of Shireen Sherman, now a college sophomore majoring in biotechnology. As a high school senior Shireen fought passionately for dramatic changes in her low-performing high school–looking out not just for herself, but for the students who would come after her. She and a group of community leaders helped set a dramatically different course for the school, and Shireen continues to devote time and energy to helping students find their voice in the fight for equitable opportunities.

Like Shireen, our work will not be done until all young people have the opportunity to achieve equitable outcomes. To create the kind of lasting change we imagine, at the scale we imagine, takes bold people, bold solutions and the willingness to take risks. This is required of all of us, at every level and in every community. The foundation, like you, believes the payoff for our young people and their future is huge, and the consequences for not taking those risks untenable.

I have the privilege of leading the foundation's education work, and like you, we are redoubling our own commitment to increasing graduation rates and college and work readiness. But I have learned and the foundation has learned over the years, just as you have, that you must always ask hard questions and assess and reassess your work.  The stakes are too high for anything less. Although I am only a few months into my new role, I'm happy to share some of the areas we are exploring further—all with the goal of learning more. Here are a few:

College-ready policies – Widespread impact will likewise require significant changes in policy and solutions that are scaleable and sharable. Without supportive policies at the state and national levels, our work will not bring about the wholesale change necessary to ensure every child graduates from high school prepared for success. Our work with the National Governors Association, Achieve, Ed Trust, and others has helped advance policies that raise standards for learning and the value of a high school diploma. 50 states have signed on to the graduation rate compact–agreeing to dispel the fiction that a graduation rate is the number of 12th graders who start and the number of 12th grader who finish–but rather the number who enter in 9th grade and those who graduate 4 or 5 years later. 

To take this work to the next level, we will need to be increasingly clear about what we mean by college and career-ready to understand more clearly what skills and capacities are really essential. One of the most productive things I did as the State Secretary of Education in Pennsylvania was to identify anchor standards which gave educators and students throughout the state a much clearer idea of the core things they needed to know and be able to do to meet expectations for graduation.

Fewer, clearer, higher standards that serve as an anchor and an enabler for both policy and practice–can we find that common ground?

Curriculum, instruction, assessment, and student engagement – This truly is the center of power in our work, driving our ability to tap into students' interests and aspirations and transform their thinking about their futures. We've learned that we can't simply expect good instruction and curriculum to show up at our schools, we must be deliberate about creating it and then constantly nurture it. This is particularly true in literacy, math, and science.

If we are going to double the numbers, teachers will need to take a greater level of personal responsibility for the success of their students. Today we have organized secondary schools so it is often hard for teachers to know their contribution to a student's overall success. We need an assessment system that enables teachers to understand how their students have grown. And we need one that aligns with the skills and capabilities required for college entry.

If we are going to double the numbers, students also will need to take direct responsibility for their learning. We need to better understand both the positive and the negative incentives that encourage students to sustain a commitment to their work and success. We need to better understand how they learn and get engaged—how to truly be college ready; producing high quality work, under demanding conditions, independently and productively. And we must figure this out using their technologies and in the face of their personal as well as academic demands.  

What are the right starting points for significantly improving curriculum, instruction, assessment, and student engagement in secondary schools? How can we stimulate the development of powerful but scaleable tools?

Ensuring continual learning based on data - The work that we are collectively undertaking is hard. We need to be intentional about learning from both our successes and our mistakes and from the unintended consequences that sometimes result from even the best laid plans. We must be as unwavering about candor as we are about action. Although some lessons are harder than others—I have had my share of those—every learning, good or bad, is a stepping stone to the next significant improvement.

Good data in schools is so important to ensuring that our action has impact. We will be stepping up efforts to improve data available to policymakers, educators and the public. Only through real transparency can we know we are making progress. The Data Quality Campaign is an important first step. It is a consortium of organizations dedicated to enact and implement the 10 essential elements of quality data systems—I won't dive into them here—but the most crucial are simply common sense—a unique student ID and a unique teacher ID and mechanisms to ensure accuracy of data. Then we can truly recognize great teachers and effective practice. At the heart of professionalism is performance accountability.

How can we make the collection, review and analysis of school and student performance data a matter of routine? How can we use those tools to truly focus education on its ultimate goal—measurable improvements in student learning over time?

Public and political will – While we've made progress in drawing attention to America's startlingly low graduation rates, there is still limited will for dramatic change in America's schools.  Parents with kids in low-performing schools rarely mobilize to demand equitable outcomes and parents in more affluent schools still believe that the math and science their kids are currently taking is enough. The Strong American Schools Campaign is charged with using the power of the presidential campaign to elevate education in the national conversation.

While the Campaign has made some progress, the challenge is considerable. Education doesn't rank in our nation's highest priorities and in our presidential debates, candidates are rarely asked what they will do to improve our schools.

How we can build a national urgency for change when education is largely viewed as a localized, personal issue?

Increasing the capacity in the field – We know that excellent teachers and school staff are the lifeblood of schools that prepare students for success in college and career. Unfortunately, our ability to recruit and retain high-quality teachers has been more a matter of chance. Our track record for matching teachers with the highest needs is sketchy at best and a culture of performance accountability is still the exception rather than the rule.

How can we build a reliable pipeline of high-quality teachers (and school leaders) capable of success with the most challenging students? How do we reward great teachers and how do we create the conditions in which quality teaching can thrive?

Increasing college access – While most of America's high school students want to go to college to earn a degree, less than a third actually do. Among the greatest barriers are preparation and affordability. Skyrocketing costs make it increasingly difficult for millions of students to pursue higher education, particularly low-income and minority youth. The foundation awards scholarships to promising students who don't have the financial means to attend college, and we are in the beginning stages of supporting some other intriguing and potentially elegant solutions. For example, Case Western and H&R block are making it possible to transfer families' tax information into the complicated federal financial aids forms—in a matter of minutes not hours. And our Achievers model that ties rigorous prep to financial aid is gaining traction.

How can we continue to remove financial barriers to higher education AND recognize the variety of other supports required for low-income students to complete college and earn a degree?

New school design and school improvement - A hallmark of our work thus far has been new school design and the improvement and redesign of existing schools. Charter schools, alternative schools, new start-ups, conversions, district-sponsored, CMO-sponsored—we believe that the challenges are enormous and that there is room in this work for all who seek to improve the opportunities and outcomes for kids. The work of our school, community, and district partners has provided tangible results, a glimpse of what's possible and some powerful lessons. If anything, it has made us more determined to take their good work to new heights and to stretch them and ourselves toward the next horizon. 

So let me throw out one more challenge for all of us. At the same time that we commit to double the number of low income students who gain college degrees—let's double the number and diversity of students who achieve exceptional performance in high school and college. Let's double the number of diverse students at the highest level of SAT achievement and all other measures of academic excellence. Let's see far more than double the numbers of girls becoming leaders in math, science and engineering. Let's at once have multiple pathways to graduation and multiple pathways for far more students to achieve breakthrough performance.

What will it take for all kids to be successful in college, career and life—now and in a yet unknown and rapidly changing future?

These are among the questions we are asking ourselves and the learning we are striving to do in order to make the highest leverage investments. Like JFF, we are focused on achieving enduring, sustainable, high impact. If we can double the number of low-income students who earn college degrees—expanding from 90,000 to 180,000 a year within the next ten years, we could also imagine a day when our nation doubles:

• Job opportunities
• Earning power
• Civic participation

It is fitting that this gathering is during the anniversary of the launch of Sputnik. Sputnik not only led to the passage of the first national education reform legislation—the National Defense Education Act, it created a host of new math and science curricula. It also created unprecedented cooperation and collaboration across sectors. Remarkably, for the first time educators began to consider the importance of math and science being taught together with lessons focusing on real-world applications. Many of these lessons brought math and science to life with exciting projects and experiences that tapped into students' natural curiosity about the world around them.

Sputnik was a profound motivator and changed the way math and science is taught. Still 50 years later, we haven't done nearly enough.

The people in this room are just the leaders to change this. We share a healthy sense of outrage and knowledge of the great things our young people are capable of when they are challenged and nurtured.

Our nation's failure to ensure all young people have the knowledge and life skills they need to be successful undermines America's most fundamental values of equality and opportunity. It is true that our schools did not cause problems like the rise in joblessness and poverty or the decline in health and productivity. But America's schools can help produce a new generation of students prepared to deliver the solutions that increase prosperity, enhance our lives, and protect and advance our freedoms. 

I am convinced that together we can and will unleash the next generation of discovery, invention, and growth. 

Thank you!