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katharine gallogly: andwe're thrilled to have you all at this second annual,and let's make it annual, white house summit on nextgeneration high schools. i am pleased to kick thingsoff by welcoming to the stage my boss, robertorodriguez, deputy assistant to the presidentfor education. (applause) roberto rodriguez:thank you katherine. good morning everyone.
multiple speakers:good morning. roberto rodriguez: it's mydistinct pleasure to welcome you here to the white houseand to the second white house summit on nextgeneration high schools. it's wonderful to seeyou all this morning. i hope everybody got a bigcup of coffee and is ready to get to work today. you know, among the manydomestic issues before the president today, educationremains at the top of
his priority list. we know that educationcontinues to be the surest rung on the ladder ofopportunity up into the middle class. and over this past sevenand a half years, our administration has maderemarkable progress in really driving greatereducational opportunity and improved outcomes across theeducational pipeline from the president's visionto deliver high quality
preschool for each andevery one of our youngest learners, to the work toopen the doors of higher education for millionsmore across the country in service of his goal to leadthe world with the highest proportion of collegegraduates by the end of this decade. we've launched effortsto drive research and development and scaleinnovation through investing in innovation fund.
we've launched new effortsto bring high speed broadband to each and everycommunity and classroom across our country, andwe've more than doubled the amount of funding in thepell grant to really provide college opportunityfor millions more. today also marks the finalyear of our administration's education bus tour , whichi'm sure you'll hear from -- shortly from our secretaryof education, john king, to highlight these andother investments.
and now we're gatheredhere again to focus on the imperative of nextgeneration high schools. last november, we gatheredhere with our philanthropic, nonprofit, and otherpartners to celebrate the need for a more -- for adifferent and more focused approach to supporting thelearning of america's high school students. it was a great day. it galvanized over $375million in commitments to
next generation high schoolsacross the country and it -- and today we celebrate againthat commitment and also the renewed focus that we knowwe need on teaching and learning for our youngpeople and in really reshaping and supporting adeeper of experience around learning in our youngpeople's lives. we know that we need a newset of experiences to make sure that our students havethe knowledge, the skills, and the preparationthat they'll need to be
successful in today'seconomy and in their communities. we know that we need greateropportunities to link their learning to college andcareer more actively in more tangible ways, a deeperunderstanding of the competencies and the skillsand the knowledge that will drive them to be strongcommunicators and collaborators and problemsolvers and innovators in today's economy.
we know we need a greaterfocus on personalized learning to support ourstudent's interests, to meet them where they are in theirlearning and development and help them get ahead. we know we need a renewedfocus on the social and emotional foundationsalongside the cognitive foundation for learningfor our students and we're learning more and more aboutthe brain science there each and every day and that'shelping to shape new
solutions and strategies tohelp our students succeed. and we know we need to domore to really challenge and redesign the notion of --and moves away from the traditional notion of seattime to support mastery and focus instead on theknowledge that we know our students need tohelp move them ahead. so ultimately this requiresa new national approach and a new national movementto embrace designs and opportunities that willconnect our classrooms and
learning for our students tothe real world, will bridge that learning to hands ontraining for college and career. so i'm happy to welcome anumber of you back that were with us innovember last year. since that time, we have anew national law, the every student succeeds act thathas galvanized a new goal of college and careerreadiness for all students. that's an opportunity that'sat the backdrop of today's discussion.
we want to welcome a numberof new leaders and partners here with us today. you've each asked to be heretoday because you're leaders in this work in yourrespective communities and in your field. we've tried to structuretoday to share lessons, to share learnings around nextgeneration learning and next generation high schools, andultimately our goal here is, and this work is, aboutdemocratizing the solutions
and strategies that we'lldiscuss today so that those are available not just tosome or a few students, but really availableto all students. before we begin, i'd liketo extend thank you, in particular a special thanks,to a number of individuals who were instrumental inhosting today's event and in organizing today's event, inparticular, our tremendous hosts, mario cardona andkatharine gallogly, on my team. secretary king, thank youand undersecretary mitchell
and the entire team at thedepartment of education for their continued leadershipon this work, my colleagues, tom kalil, megan smith,kumar garg, and others in office of science andtechnology policy here at the white house have beentremendous colleagues and partners in this work, joanferrini-mundy, who you'll hear from shortly at nsf andher team for continuing to drive this work forward. without further ado, we'llgo ahead and get started and
it is my distinct pleasureand honor to welcome our outstanding secretary ofeducation, john king, to the podium. john king: morning,everybody. john king: it is good tobe here with all of you. thank you roberto forthe warm introduction. thank you to our white housecolleagues for hosting us today and for yourcontinuing partnership in this work.
i want to especiallyrecognize tony evers, who chairs the council chiefstate school officers and chris minnich from ccsso forthe -- i want to thank them for being here because weneed an -- a leadership environment that supportsinnovation and they are both committed to that innovationin service of equity and so i want to especiallyappreciate their leadership and their presence. thank you all for beinghere, our local and state
leaders, our school leadersand teachers, our parents and students whoare in the room. this is an important momentto celebrate progress that we've made over the lasteight years and also to think together aboutthe work ahead. as roberto mentioned, todayalso kicks off our bus tour, six states, 11 cities andtowns over the next five days. so after this, i head backover to the department to kick off the tour and thenboard of big yellow bus
that's going to take usthrough those states across the south. and throughout that tripwhat we're going try to highlight again are theachievements and the work ahead. we're going to celebratethe fact that we have the highest graduation ratewe've ever had as a country, at 82 percent, because ofwork the folks in this room and educators and familiesacross the country are doing. we're going to celebrate thefact that we have a million
more african american andlatino students in college today than when thepresident began. that's right. we're going to celebrate thefact that we have millions more students who go toschools that now have access to high speed internet. we're going to celebratethe fact that there are thousands upon thousandsmore students getting access to high quality earlylearning because of
investments that thisadministration has made. and as we do that, we aregoing to celebrate the progress we've made towardsthe president's commitment in 2013 to rethink highschool and the work that all of you have been doing tocreate next generation high schools that not onlyprepare students to get a high school diploma, buttruly prepare them for success in college,careers, and life. many of you all are criticalto our national effort to
ensure we have the workforcewe need in the stem fields, but too often i think weboil down our work in education innovationto being stem work. it -- yes, it is stem work,but ultimately preparing all students for success isabout more than english and math. it is about more than stem. it is about helping everystudent find their passion, the thing that engages them,the thing that excites
them about learning. it is about helping everystudent build strong relationships andconnections with adults in their -- in their school andin their community, and it is about giving students theopportunity to have a vision for their ownpersonal future. now it's aboutenglish and math. it's about science. it's about computer science,but it's also about the arts.
it's also about careerand technical education. it is also aboutsocial studies. i think of my experienceteaching high school. when i was a high schoolteacher, one of the things we did was a city project. we called it a researchproject that required students to apply what theywere learning in social studies to meaningful civicaction in the community. students were engaged inresearch, but they were also
engaged in service projects. i can think of students whoworked with dudley street neighborhood initiativein boston, which has been working for years to try toget rid of transfer stations where folks were literallydumping trash in low income communities and leaving itthere, ruining the quality of the air and of the soilthroughout the community. dsni has worked to changethat and to build affordable housing and watching highschool kids get engaged in
that work and not only get adeeper sense of the need for social justice work, but geta sense of their own ability to impact the futureof their community. that was powerful. that's what thiswork is about. it is about how we engageyoung people in a vision for their future and that'swhat's happening across schools in this room. and as roberto mentioned, ithink we now enter a period
where we can have thepotential for a state and district environment thatis even more conducive to innovation. and every student succeedsact that the president signed right here indecember gives us a new set of tools. it gives states theopportunity to broaden the definition ofeducational excellence. it gives states theopportunity to rethink some
of the prescriptiveineffective one size fits all solutions of no childleft behind and replace them with efforts to innovate onbehalf of equity justice people in thisroom are doing. it gives us the chance tobuild on evidence about what works, the importance ofhaving teachers who are well prepared and well supported,the importance of ensuring that all students haveaccess to rigorous course work that prepares them forcollege and careers, the
importance of environmentsthat support high expectations that ensurethat students just don't get to postsecondary education,but through postsecondary education with the skillsthey need for success. there are many greatexamples in this room and i hope there's an opportunityover this time together to learn from each other, tolearn from the example of the highline public schoolsin washington state and the work that they've done toraise graduation rates
through the strategicinvestment of race to the top dollars, an opportunityto learn from change the equation and the work thatthey are doing in oakland to match young people with stemmentors and to ensure that that stem leaders arecommitting resources to ensure the long-termdiversity and success of the stem workforce. at change the equation,they've already put in over 57,000 hours of volunteertime from folks in the stem
fields and look forward inthe next year to reaching 112,000 hours of mentoringand that's the kind of work i hope folks will share. i hope folks fromchesterfield county public schools will talk abouttheir commitment to ensure equity in stem access tofocus on achievement gaps for low income studentsand students of color. and i hope as theconversation evolves today, you will ask tough questionsabout how we ensure that the
innovation we're engaged inreaches the students who are most at risk andmost in need. despite our progress, weknow we face substantial achievement gaps for ourstudents of color, our low income students, ourenglish learners. we know that in too manyschool communities, students who are homeless or infoster care are invisible. we know that in too manyplaces students leave high school thinking they have ahigh school diploma that'll
be a ticket to college andcareer success only to find that they get to college andare told to go down the hall to the remedial class whichis a euphemism for high school. in too many places, we knowthat our students of color don't have access torigorous advanced course work. our civil rights datacollection data show that in too many places students whoattend schools that serve large numbers of africanamerican and latino students, they aren't justless likely to have a.p
classes and internationalbaccalaureate classes. they're less likely to haveaccess to calculus and physics and algebra ii. and so i hope today'sconversation will be grounded in the work thatwe need to do to ensure equitable opportunities. i hope today's conversationwill confront the painful truth that there are 1.6million students in this country who go to schoolevery day in a school that
has a sworn law enforcementofficer and no school counselor. i hope today's conversationwill grapple with the reality that over the lastfew decades, we've actually seen our country backtrackon the goal of diverse schools. we see places around thecountry that are more segregated by race and classtoday than they were 10 or 20 years ago. when we think aboutinnovative high schools that create unique opportunitiesfor our students
academically, we also needto create opportunities for students to learn acrossdivisions of race and class. i hope that will informtoday's discussion. i hope today's discussionwill grapple with the reality that although todaya majority of the students in our public schools arestudents of color, only 18 of our teachers areteachers of color. only two percent of ourteachers are african american men.
i hope the conversationwill ask how can innovative schools help to build a morediverse pipeline of teachers that is prepared to supportstudents' academic success. so i'm excited about thissummit and the opportunity to both rethink whatstudents experience is like in the classroom, but alsoto challenge ourselves to ensure that schools aretruly the engines of equity and opportunitythat we intend. innovative high schools havethe opportunity not only to
strengthen the long-termsuccess of our economy, but to strengthen the long-termsuccess of our democracy by being places that equipstudents with the skills they need, but also theopportunities to build relationships that are thefoundation of a strong civic culture. we want tosupport that work. there are a series of policybriefs that we've developed based on learning from folksin the room that we will --
that we will make availableso that others can learn from your example. there is research evidenceand you'll hear about it. joan and others will talkabout that, that we want to make sure that we lift up,about what works in high schools. and as we move forward withimplementation of the every student succeeds act, we areever vigilant in the notion that we need more placesthat are expanding
opportunity for kids in theway that many of you are. so i'm grateful for yourbeing here for the summit, but more than that, i amgrateful for the work that you do on behalf of youngpeople in our communities every day. please continueyour efforts. please redoubleyour efforts. please learnfrom each other. please expand this room.
we ought to have a roomtwice as large, three times as large, five times aslarge, over the next few months as we keep bringingpeople together to say how can do better on behalf ofour kids and communities? thank you foryour leadership. thanks for the opportunityto be with you today. mario cardona: as robertomentioned earlier, the national science foundationhas been such a critical partner to us in this nextgeneration high school work
and as evidence of thatcommitment, last week they had a convening on nextgeneration high schools with a strong focus on stem andthey gathered together researchers and educatorsto talk about the different breakout topics that you allwill be discussing today. and so it's my pleasureto introduce joan ferrini-mundy, assistantdirector of education and human resources from thenational science foundation to share some of thelearnings from that convening.
joan ferrini-mundy:good morning, everyone. joan ferrini-mundy: it'sterrific to be a part of this exciting event, thissecond white house summit on next generation highschools, and i'd like to offer my thanks as well tothe white house, to roberto , to secretary king, osdpstaff, and most of all, to you in the audience who areconvening here to continue to advance what is the mostcritical conversation for our nation.
as you may know, eachyear the national science foundation investsapproximately $1.3 billion in education efforts andindeed many of these are focused on stem, but i amstruck by secretary king's remarks that we also needto think about how the nsf investment reaches beyondsimply preparing the next stem workforce. it reaches beyond thatand in many ways, in part because it offers new waysof better understanding
equity an opportunityfor all students and for enabling people to havechoices for career options and for fulfillment indaily life in society. among the $1.3 billionin education are many investments that are relatedto new visions for stem education in the k through16 arena, but i'd like to note that as a basic scienceresearch agency whose main mission is about promotingthe progress of science, we also are constantly focusedon the future of science
which i think is aconsideration to keep in view as we think about nextgeneration high schools. the nsf has just released aset of 10 new big ideas for science that i think offergreat promise for helping us as we also think about thefuture of high school. i'll mention justa couple of these. one of these is about datascience, and this is an area where we would expect to beinvesting seriously going forward, harnessing data forthe 21st century of
science and engineering. the idea being to generatea worldwide data enabled future for the united statesthrough a fundamental research and educationin data science. so one can imagine theimplications this may have for secondary education,both for stem and for improving learningmore generally. a secondary that i'd like tomention is work at the human technology frontiershaping the future.
the idea here is that wewould be developing and investing in the developmentof smart technologies and environments to enhance thehuman experience and assess the impact of thoseenvironments on human behavior and social systems. so again education can be acentral beneficiary as we think about these kinds ofbroad ranging investments in science. the other thing that we needto think about of course is
how this -- the people willwork in that science, who will work in data richscience fields, who will work in technology intensivescience, how their educational will progress. what pathways will be madeavailable to them and how can that at thepre-college level? in august 2016, presidentobama named 213 k through 12 mathematics and scienceteachers as recipients of the prestigious presidentialaward for excellence in
mathematics andscience teaching. as part of the celebrationsfor those awardees last week, nsf held a forumlast thursday focused on principles of activelearning and focused on conversation with theseteachers from around the country about better waysthat government can support their engagement inpromoting active learning. on friday, we held a forumfocused on next generation stem schools, similarconversations where we
listened to our practitionercolleagues, paired them with researchers, talked abouthow we can together advance and scale what's known, andimprovements -- what's known about improvements for stemeducation at the high school level. i'd like to just mention afew areas that were central in those discussions andgive very quick summaries, thumbnails of what happened. there are many folks inthe audience who were
participants in those eventslast week and they will be here through theday to elaborate. first was our focuson active learning. while this is not a new wayof thinking about learning or about designinginstruction, it is an area whose potential to engagediverse learners and to promote equity is verystrong and so we're interested at the nationalscience foundation not only in understanding differentways that active learning
can be best implemented, butalso in promoting it through our investments in research. this is an evidence basedway to increase stem interest, performance,and in retention. so at the meeting last week,bill penuel of university of colorado boulder focused ona number of evidence based recommendations and thesewere discussed in our breakouts last week. first of all, the importanceof anchoring learning in
meaningful problems, thenotion of using student questions to driveinstruction, the notion of having students assist withteaching, and then most importantly i thinkexpanding accessible visible pathways into stem at thelevel of the community. a secondary that i'll justhighlight had to do with personalized learning, againa goal that has been in education for some time. we're really beginningto see from research and
education the powerof digital learning environments to providetargeted diagnostic feedback to students to identifytheir interests and to help motivate them to exploretheir interests more fully. nsf has invested in avariety of work and we can provide summaries of this toyou as that goes forward. third area that had someattention last week, maker spaces and fab labs,fabrication labs. we've been pleased to beinvesting with our partners
across government in theseareas to understand their potential, these outof school learning opportunities, to understandtheir potential for teaching us about how to engagestudents, support rigorous stem learning, and preparestudents for a variety of pathways. the focus on rigorouscourse work continues. how do we create opportunityto learn that is equitable across the schoolsof our nation?
and one very interestingfocus on that through our meetings last week had to dowith the notion of inclusive stem high schools, the workof sharon lynch and barbara means and others, where thefindings are beginning to show great promise for theimprovement of stem schools in general, the notion thatimmersing students in stem over four years truly canlead to success and more career opportunity and morechoices, and the notion that student's goals and selfperceptions and identities
can shift because of thatkind of immersion are very promising sorts of findings. we're investing in work onsocio emotional learning, on the measurement of thatkind of learning, and its relationship to stemprogress in general. and then the last thing iwould like to mention is our longstanding nsf focus onthe topic of broadening participation. at the active learningsession, dr. jo handelsman
of ostp noted that 70percent of our students are not white and male. they are ethnic minorities,racial minorities, or women. we need to be reaching thestudents who are most left out of stem classrooms, thatother 70 percent inside and outside of the classroomsand she advocated for active learning as one approach. nsf has taken a systemicapproach to this notion of broadening participationwith a new initiative called
nsf includes, and later thismorning at 11:00 i'm told, our press release will goannouncing the first 37 awardees in our includesprogram which is focused on improving the preparation,participation, advancement, and potential contributionsof those who've been traditionallyunderserved in stem. a number of these effortsthat will be announced today are focused on pathways, onthe k through 12 experience, on its relationshipto preparation for
undergraduate education, andfor career, and we're very excited about partneringwith our colleagues across government in continuing toadvance the cause of equity and democracy instem education. thank you very much. katharine gallogly: thankyou so much and thank you to the national sciencefoundation for their tremendous partnershipin this work. up next, i'm pleased towelcome chris minnich,
executive director ofcouncil of chief state school officersto the stage. states have been a reallyimportant partner in this work ccsso has been a leaderin organizing them and making sure that we'reexcited and aligned about this work together. so thank you chris andwelcome to the stage. chris minnich:good morning. chris minnich: i, about sixyears ago, was talking with
my wife and we saw onlinethat our local high school had the opportunity tomentor students and we didn't know what we weresigning up for, but we decided to go downthere and do this. we were paired with a kid,javier, who nobody in his family had ever been tocollege and he sort of was trying to figure out why wewere there and what we were doing. and so we began thisconversation about whether
or not he wanted to go tocollege, and he wanted to go to college, but his parentsreally wanted him to go and get a job rightafter high school. and i will save you the sixyear story about this, but the biggest thing was thishigh school that he's in in virginia prepared himacademically for college, but when he ended up, and weconvinced his parents that it was a good idea to go tocollege, when he ended up in college, he didn't make itfor the first two years.
he made it through about sixmonths and he didn't have the skills todeal with failure. he didn't have the skills todeal with the deep type of academics that he was goingto need to get through college. so i think while the --while his grades were fine, his sat scores were goodenough to get into that school that he went to, hewasn't prepared for what he was going to experience. i'm excited to tell you now,six years after we met him,
he just graduated from jamesmadison this past year which is really exciting for us,other than his parents have now moved back to elsalvador so he's living with us so -- (laughter) -- i only have a -- i onlyhave a four and a one year old so parenting a 22 yearold is a -- definitely a big different experience for me. but i didn't know whati was signing up for.
but as an aside, if youhave an opportunity to get involved in your communityin your schools with even one kid, it really gives youa good perspective on the work we're trying to dowith next generation high schools. at the council of chiefstate school officers, we're really honored to bepartnering with the white house. thank you roberto andsecretary king for the opportunity to do this work.
i see many of our membershere in the audience today and we're excited about thework we're doing to advance this conversation. we also have our innovationlab network which is a group of ten states that isworking together and it's led by jenny poon, whois -- where's jenny? she was juststanding over here. oh, there, she'sin the back. so jenny's leading that workfor us at ccsso and if you
have any questions aboutwhat we're doing with these states in terms of statepolicy that can further the conversation of nextgeneration high schools, please have a conversationwith her during this summit today. so my main responsibilitytoday is to introduce our president of ourorganization, tony evers, and i could tell you thathe's a teacher and a principal and asuperintendent.
he is all those things, butmore importantly, for the past year he's been focusedas the president of our organization, of leading anagenda of equity for the country. and it was really uniquewhen he came in last november for him to say tous, "you know what i really want to do is put equityfront and center for the country and forour membership." and it hasn't beenan easy conversation.
we've had to deal withconversations about race, about poverty, things thatour organization has not had to deal with in the pasteven though we should have dealt with them. so for tony to have thecourage to put that front and center for ourmembership, and we are moving forward now with anagenda to close gaps across the country, i thinkis really admirable. so please welcome to thestage superintendent tony evers.
tony evers: thanks, chris. good morning everybody andchris, i've got a handful of grandkids that -- you'vegot some room for them? anyway, thanks for that kindintroduction and your good work as ccso president. it's a real honor for me tobe here today and especially around the importantdiscussion, but most importantly for me andmy chief of staff, emily amundson, who is here, ishaving our friends and
colleagues from milwaukeepublic schools here. darienne driver,superintendent from mps and her great colleagues aredoing wonderful work in milwaukee and it'sgreat to have them here. and darienne is someone thatis absolutely committed to equity and excellence in themilwaukee public schools which is clearly the largestand most diverse school district in thestate if wisconsin. so it's been a while sincei've been in high school.
i was just tryingto figure that out. it's probably 50 some yearsi'd say and you do forget, but i'm really pleased inour state of wisconsin. you travel across thestate as i do as state superintendent, you see fablabs in school districts that have maybe 300 kids,k through 12, and you have milwaukee public schools,high school taking on agriculture and urbanagriculture, and of course everything in between.
we've got personalizedlearning. we've got dual enrollmentoptions, community schools, and so on. so we feel proud of whatwe're doing and i can tell you that wisconsin has ahistory of having festivals and farmer's markets, andevery time i go to one of these events, people willcome up to me, strangers, either want to harass meabout something, but most of the time they're talkingabout great things that are
going on in theirlocal high schools. and the -- it's clear thatthe love of learning around those comments and aroundwhat's going on in our schools is reallycontagious. so there's a commonalityamong all these great schools and great programsand you know this. and i know there are someactual teachers in the audience, but the excellenteducator connecting in meaningful ways, and we'vetalked about off-- the
speakers all before me,in meaningful ways with students, is buildingrelationships no matter what the type of innovativepractice you're proceeding with. and it's the secret sauce,the -- in making sure the kids learn at ahigh, high level. so i want to share a couplestories with you this morning and the first one isone that strikes with me as -- at me core, anddarienne's heard it before so i apologize, but the bestpart of my job is getting in
the classrooms and gettingout of the political realm. and it -- and this one storyi have, it really gets at me because it really epitomizeswhat a love for learning actually looks like. and i see this all the time,but this one stands out. this spring, i was on avisit to milwaukee and it was a school that focusedon fine arts and that's not necessarily my wheelhouse. and it's a different type ofschool where students have
the opportunity to infusethe arts and to all their -- all their academic learning. and so i don't get into manyschools that focus on fine arts or even regular artclassrooms so when i do, i spend a lot of timeinteracting with kids so i can understand what's goingon in that classroom. and in this particular trip,i spotted a young lady with really, really red hair andwhen i say red, i mean it was red enough that i wantedto walk over and talk to her
about what she was doing,and her name was leslie. she came to the unitedstates at the age of five. she is an immigrant i willsay and she navigated me through her portfolio andexplained how her art kind of followed the journey ofher life, the good times and the bad times. and she talked about therole her teachers played in her success, and sheexplained how over time the art -- the way she lookedat art grew and needless to
say, i was really impressed. and then she shared with methat she is a senior and secured over $90,000 inscholarships to attend a four year university in thestate of wisconsin, in the city of milwaukee. and she was so confidentin her description of what she'd learn that i felt icould push her a little bit and i hope she wasn'toffended when i asked her this question.
i hope i didn't ask it thisway, but i asked what in the world are you going to dowith an art degree, leslie? and she smiled and she toldme she's not going to become an artist. she's going to become abiologist and she -- what she learned --she told me this. what she learned as anartist, as a -- as a skilled artist, was things likeperseverance, illustration, precision, determination,grit, all those things that
we don't -- we don't want torecognize, but those things translate perfectly tothe study of biology, and frankly, leslie had beenprepared in that school to persevere in any fieldwith those -- with those particular skills. so while we talk aboutinnovation, i believe one of the constants in thisequation is to determine -- is the determination of allour educators to make sure that they supportkids like leslie.
so across the state ofwisconsin, i find that there's 60,000 people thatare in our public school classrooms that give theirhearts and souls to kids, work on those relationshipsevery day, in and out. so i believe we can andshould be able to provide the same high schoolexperience as leslie has received for all kids in theunited states, but we have to -- have to commitourselves to an honest conversation around equity,of opportunity, access to
those relationshipsthat leslie got. and i'll give you an exampleof where i can go crossways with this particular issue. it's people wentcrossways with me. we have a number ofdistricts in the state that do real well in the area ofpersonalized learning, all across the state, and theywork hard, especially in southeast wisconsin,more of our urban area. in this -- in this pastyear, we gathered with a
group of people from acrossthe country to talk about personalized learning andone of the discussions that sprung up around the groupwas around equity and why more students of color, ourdisadvantaged students, were not involved inpersonalized learning. and the discussion lingereda long time around the issue of the question ispersonalized learning for every single kid? and i have to tell youthat in this particular
conversation, noteverybody said yes. this was extraordinary. it -- i thought about thisall the way home and many times since. i know each person in thatdiscussion cared about kids, cared about all kids, butthat story sticks with me as an example of the deeptype -- deep thinking that secretary of education justtalked about and others have talked about that we haveto look at the nexus of
innovation and equity, andthey can't be separate conversations. and if we don't take a lookat this nexus, achievement gaps won't shrink. they're going to be biggerand i can tell you as a -- as a morale conundrum, wehave to do that work now and today's opportunities todo that work is really important. so i'm confident with ourcollaboration and time
together, we can find waysto ignite that contagious thinking around innovationand equity that will lead to all kids achieving athigher, higher levels. i want to say we have thegreat partners with ccsso. i know they are committed toequity, not only because of my work around that aspresident, but the work of all the -- all thechief school officers. and i also -- kudos to ccssofor the innovation lab network that we have beenpart of for many, many
years, and the work thatjenny and others have done to make sure that equity ispart of that conversation. so thanks very much for yourconversation that you're going to have today. i had an opportunity to meetwith a good group of our philanthropists last eveningand i was so pleased with the work that they're doing,thinking through this issue of innovation, making surethat innovation is for all kids in the united states.
so thank you very muchand enjoy the conference. mario cardona:thanks so much. and so in addition to thegreat work and leadership that dr. evers has beendoing, i just want to take a moment to say thank you tothe other state leaders who took the time out of theirbusy schedules to be here, folks from pennsylvaniaand from ohio, from new hampshire, in additionto wisconsin, also rhode island, and just thank youso much for taking the time
out of your day in the -- inthe thick of back to school which i know isvery, very difficult. and in addition to that,more than 25 district school leaders who are here andtheir teams, thank you so much for being with us. so we have the great benefitof being able to hear from a lot of you today and so thenext part of our program will be just to hear alittle bit about how important this work is ata district level
and for students. and so it's my pleasure tocall up susan enfield to talk a little bit about someof the work that she is leading in highline and toshare some of the learnings there and the workthey're leading. thank you so much. susan enfield: good morning. it's an honor to be hereespecially since there are so many familiar faces andpeople i admire in this room.
i'm joined today by oneof our talented dedicated teacher leaders at our highschool, our academy for citizenship and empowerment,james boutin, and we work for the richly diversestudent population in highline public schoolslocated just south of seattle. and i'm starting my fifthyear in highline and as i was thinking about today andthinking about the work that we're doing at high school,and i am a former high school teacher, i thoughtabout my interview day when
i was a finalistfor this job. and one of the parts of thatinterview, it's really -- when you're -- when you'rea superintendent finalist, it's really just a gauntlet. i think it's a stamina testmore than anything else. so of the many, many peopleand things i did that day, one was to visit a group ofhigh school students at one of our schools. and i asked these young menwhat is it that the
next superintendentneeds to know? and hands shot up and thefirst one said, "they need to know that just because wedon't have a lot, doesn't mean we don't want to knowhow to be successful." another hand shoots ups. "we want more advancedplacement classes." another hand shoots up. "if you keep raising pay forplay, i have friends who were going to drop outbecause sports is what keeps
them coming to school." i went home and i toldmy husband, "this is it. this is where i want to be,"and i haven't looked back since and each day it is aprivilege for me to serve the students andfamilies of highline. i will say though that wheni entered the district four and a half years ago or so,it became really clear that we had not set a very highbar for our kids and in fact at my initial kickoff withteachers, principals, i
don't know if this wasstupid move or a gutsy move on my part. i actually said, "in mytalking with people in the community and others, it'sclear that there's a massive pity party happening for ourkids and we need to shut it down because pity doesour kids no service. we need to raise the bar,have a high standard of excellence, and then doeverything we can as the adults in the system and thecommunity to help our
kids get there." so we were able to embark ona on a strategic planning process that engaged notjust staff, students, teachers, peoplein the community. and rather than really sortof land on a vision or a mission statement, which ifind too often turn into mere platitudes, wedeveloped a promise and that promise guides everythingthat we do in highline, and the promise is that everystudent is known by name,
strength, and need, andgraduates prepared for college, career,and citizenship. and that strength piece isimportant because we refuse to approach the work wedo with our students in highline from a deficitperspective because that's how too many peopleapproach them. as i said, we're a richlydiverse school system. over a hundred languages arespoken and our students come to us with myriad challengesthat certainly can be
barriers to their learning,but we don't allow to be an excuse for themnot learning. so we developed a strategicplan with very, very bold goals, goals that i sayare worthy of our kids. so for example we'veset a minimum 95 percent graduation rate. we've set a minimum 95percent algebra passage rate by grade nine. we've committed toeliminating out of school
suspensions and expulsionsexcept when critical for staff and student safety. it's a bold plan. we are in our fourth yearright now and it really though has helped galvanizea lot of the work that we did. concurrent with thatstrategic plan, we were also the beneficiaries of aregional race to the top grant which really allowedus to propel our work significantly.
one example, we now canprovide the sat for all students during the schoolday and it's paid for. so that was a gatekeeperthat was preventing too many of our kids from graduatingprepared to go on to the college careerof their choice. and we've also at the sametime made a significant investment in early learningand i don't think we do a good enough job in districtsof making the connection between investing in earlylearning to graduation.
they're directly connected. if we do not give our kidsa strong start, they're not going to get across thatstage with a diploma that's a ticket to the futureof their choice. so when i arrived, we onlyhad half of our kids in full day k. we now provide tuition freefull day k for every child who wants it and we'veinvested heavily in our kindergarten, first, second,and third grade teachers
because by the time they getto james, if they don't have that foundation, they'rejust not going to make it and we know that to betrue and it's paying off. so as i said, i thought thatthe expectations for our kids were pretty low when iarrived and our graduation rate was in the low to midsixties, and it was both disheartening and shockingto me that the response i got from too many people inthe community was meh, it's just -- it's thebest we can do.
i refuse to believe that. i just don't believe thatonly six out of 10 of our kids are capableof graduating. i just don't believe that. so we have really focused alot at the secondary level on three things that webelieve are leading to a graduation rate that isimproving: so up until last year, we had not been out ofthe sixties since the state changed its graduationrequirement, how they
calculate that rate. we got to 70.3 last year andpreliminary results for this year that we'll be above 73. it's not 95, butit's also not 65. so we know that we'reheading in the right direction and people say towhat do you attribute this? and i'd say it'sthree things. number one, we've reallytransformed our approach to discipline and if you goonline and see the seattle
times from yesterday, youcan read a wildly inaccurate story about that, whatthat work is really like. they did not portray it inthe way that i would have like them to, but we reallyhave made a commitment to keeping kids in school. when i arrived, the yearbefore i arrived, over 2,100 students had been out ofschool suspended or expelled and defiance was the numberone reason for that. i'm a high school -- or iwas a high school teacher.
i know how annoying thatdefiance can be, but guess what? we're the adults. we need to turn thosemoments into really teachable moments. a kid shouldn't lose thechance at a diploma because they make a bad choice andthat happens way, way too often. so last year, our out ofschool suspension rate was down to 450 from 2,100 justfour years ago and we are still committed to puttinga student off campus when
needed, but we're not goingto do it for the wrong reasons anymore. so number one, we'reshifting our approach to discipline so we'rekeeping kids in school. number two, going back tomy story around hearing directly from kids, more apclasses, more -- this is what they tell me they want. they want more science. they want more ap.
they want more labs. they want more handson learning so we have committed to advancedplacement courses across all of our campuses, computerscience across all of our high school campuseswhich kids are loving. and the third -- the thirdprong that i think is leading us to the successesthat we're having has to do with the fact that we'vemade a serious investment in getting kids a windowinto the world of work:
internships, jobshadows, mentoring. so over the last threeyears, we've had over a thousand students ininternships and it's transforming really sortof the way that they see themselves and their futurebecause now all of the sudden oh, so i do need tostudy this if i want to do that. so giving some meaningto what they're doing in school, i think gives thema window into a future that perhaps theyhadn't seen before.
and so what's next? we are in the midst oflooking at two of our high school campuses andreimagining them for next year and we want that to bea student teacher driven effort. we really want to engage ourteachers and our students in what is the learningenvironment? what does a next generationhigh school look like in highline? and we are committed tomaking sure that yes, equity
is at the forefront of allthat we do, but i would also offer that parity has to bepart of the conversation. because we can be ensuringequity and equitable practices, but the realityis if you, as we do in highline, assign students tohigh school based on where they live, there needs tobe parity of what they have access to. i can't go to bed at nightif i'm assigning a child to a school that has music andadvanced placement and extra
curriculars and all of thatrichness that we -- that we want for every child, andi'm assigning another who doesn't get that by virtueof where they live. so it's not justabout equity. it's about parity as welland i think that's part of the conversation that weneed to be having as -- that we need to be having too. but at the end of the day,it's not about strategy. it's not aboutstrategic plans.
it's not about program,policy, practice. it's about people and sowhat we're really trying to do is build relationshipsbetween central office and schools, between adultswithin schools, and between adults and kidswithin schools. because at the end of theday, it's the positive adult connection that's going topotentially save one of our high school kids from goingdown the wrong path and it's the people in our schoolsthat make that happen, and i
am proud to work withthe best in highline. mario cardona: that's reallyextraordinary work that's happening highline. so i would like to just takea quick moment to introduce dr. bernard mccune fromoakland unified over in california and -- -- you heard a little bitabout some of the work that they're doing from secretaryking in terms of their work with change the equation inmatching up mentors with
students who areinterested in stem. change the equation has beena critical partner in our high school work. mr. mccune. bernard mccune:so good morning. i want to -- wow, thisis like classroom. when you say goodmorning, you get a reply. i want to thank thedepartment of education for inviting me here today.
i want to tell you a littlebit about what we've been doing in oakland, californiaand if you guys don't know a lot about oakland, it is oneof the three cities -- three major cities in the bayarea, the other cities being san francisco and san jose. and so oakland is in themiddle of those two cities and oakland is a place thateven though in san francisco we have this tremendous cityof finance, and then in san jose, in silicone valley,you have this
tremendous innovation. oakland is a city that haseverything around it that says it should succeed, yeteveryone expects us to fail except for in basketball sowe'll be back this year. and the reality that we hadto look at was how do we change that, the perceptionof oakland in our community, in the bay area, andnationally, is just that, and the best way to changeperception is to actually change the reality.
and so what we decided todo is probably three things when you look at education,but our high schools as a whole. number one was to pursueexcellence as our superintendent said at ameeting we were doing with all our educators. we're going to pursueexcellence like it slapped our mother. and so to make sure that weare pursuing excellence for all students and so the waythat we decided to do that
with high schools isthrough linked learning. so for a number of you,linked learning is very similar to career technicaleducation, except linked learning puts in not onlycareer technical education, but it makes sure that thework is aligned and engaging for young people. it includes some things thatwere mentioned before like internships. it includes these tremendouspathways for students.
so we said that everystudent in our district by 2020 will be in a linkedlearning pathway. now the reason we did thatis that we had data to show that students who wereinvolved in linked learning pathways graduate from highschool at a higher level and then they enter and graduatefrom college at higher levels. so one of the huge bets wemade was on linked learning. now this was something forsome parents who understand and just thecommunity as a whole.
when you -- some peoplewhen they think of linked learning or career technicaleducation, it's also one of the things that they saywell, that's not for my child. where our linked learningpathways, when we put a student into a law andpublic safety pathway, the expectation is that studentwill be prepared to become an attorney, a judge, andeverything in between so then multiple on ramps, onand off ramps for students. we have done the samething when we
build health pathways. and doing this, we havemade sure that there was a connection with ourcommunity and our industry because education is notjust the district's problem or something great outcomesfor the district to solve. it is a whole city andcommunity effort so we have engaged deeply with the cityof oakland, our chambers of commerce, and industries allacross the bay area, so much to the tune that we createdwhat is called
the oakland promise. and it is a cradle throughcollege completion strategy that is a partnershipbetween the city of oakland, the school district, andthe east bay college fund. we launched that effort injanuary of this year, the end of january, and weraised about $25 million towards that effort and alot of it is in scholarships for kids, but also makingsure that we have strategies and tangible incentives forparents and students from
birth all the waythrough college. and so you can find outabout the oakland promise at a website,oaklandpromise.org. in terms of some of theother strategies, when i said pursue excellence, notjust for our students, but for our staffs. so a lot of times, whatschool districts -- we invest in students, but wedon't invest in the teachers who are with them.
so we've expandedprofessional development for our teachers because we wantto be able to support them and hold them accountable. if you don't providethe support, then the accountability isactually a futile effort. one of the other things thatwe've done is to really increase the rigor and thatis by providing more ap courses, but we've alsodoubled down on dual enrollment. we have increased the numberof students who participate
in dual enrollment by 300percent since last year. our goal is that everystudent in 2020 who graduates from an oaklandunified school district will have at least a year's worthof college credit through dual enrollment or advancedplacement courses. so that has -- those havebeen the huge investments that we've done in oursystem as well as when you talk about rigor, we haveincreased the number of students who are takingcomputer science courses by
400 percent sincetwo years ago. and then with the goal isthat all our students will have a computer sciencecourse by next year and that is actually kindergartenthrough 12th grade. and so when i talk aboutthis being a project just not for the district, what iwould implore all of you to do is to involve partners. now i talked about theoakland promise and the $25 million to date we haveraised for that, but because
of this strategy onexcellence, we've gotten corporate communitiesto invest. for instance, the intelcorporation gave -- awarded us $5 million to buildpathways in computer science and engineering at twoof our high schools. the citizens of oaklandinvolve your community because they wantto be a part of it. they passed the parcel taxthat gives the district $12 million a year for the next10 years with a focus on
college and careerreadiness, and in that parcel tax, we havestipulated that 90 percent of those dollars go directlyto schools on a per people basis so that we can haveinnovation as we look at college andcareer readiness. so i am so glad to be hereand along with though partners in this work as wechange not only the way that high schools are looked at,but the way education is looked at in the future.
thank you.