Diplomas Now

Robert Balfanz is being honored as a Champion of Change for his efforts in Educational Excellence for African Americans.

My professional work has revolved around figuring out what it will take to enable all our students to graduate from high schools prepared for adult success. I believe our current outcomes are an affront to what America can and needs to be. Far too many of our students, especially students of color who live in poverty, fail to graduate from high school. The good news is that, for the first time in forty years, the nation’s high school graduation rate is improving, and at a significant rate. Over the past four years, the graduation rate has increased by five percentage points. Those gains have been driven by improvements in the graduation rates of African American and Latino students, the very students for whom the dropout crisis has been the most acute. Much work, however, remains in order to insure that all students have the educational experiences and supports they need to graduate from high school prepared for college and career. This is essential because there is no work in the 21st century which can support a family without high school diplomas.

The challenge that remains for African American students is that, even with the progress of the past five years, one in three students do not graduate with their class, and one in four attends a high school where graduation is not the norm. About 11 percent of high schools, 1400 in number, produce half of the nation’s African American and Latino dropouts. Nearly all these high schools, in turn, educate students who live in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. To move forward, we must organize our efforts. We must not only turnaround these schools and insure they provide a quality education which prepares their students for success, but we must also insure that students within the school have the supports they need to overcome the challenges of poverty. Poverty makes it more difficult for students in the nation’s low-graduation-rate high schools to come to school every day, pay attention in class, and get their school work done. Research shows that the best teachers and most evidence-based curriculums will have muted impacts if students are not able to attend, focus, and try.

Fortunately, it is being demonstrated more and more that the hungry bear of poverty can be pushed back. Whole school instructional and teaching improvements can be enhanced through the use of early warning systems and better targeted student supports provided by a growing number of non-profits and community organizations using evidence based strategies. These solutions will keep many more students on the path to high school graduation. The “Our Diplomas Now” program, for example, is showing that chronic absenteeism, behavioral struggles, and course failures in our most challenged schools can be cut in half or more.

Yet to truly provide all students who live in poverty with reliable pathways to adult success, bolder action will be needed. We need an innovation competition to re-design middle and high school so that it will be routine for students who live in high poverty communities to take and succeed in high school credit-bearing classes in eighth grade, and college credit-bearing classes in twelfth grade. This will provide students with direct experience to the expectations of the next level of schooling, while still providing the familiarity and support of their current school, where they are seen as the most advanced rather than the least experienced students. This is critical because we know it is in the transition years – sixth grade, ninth grade and the first year of college – when most of our high poverty students fall off the path to high school graduation and post-secondary success. As importantly, this plan would enable students to complete college in three years, which means financial aid can be spread over fewer years, increasing the amount available each year. Finally, what would have been the fourth year of college can be used as a year of community and national service (in exchange for enhanced financial aid), working in the highest-needs schools to provide the person-power needed to give students the tutoring, mentoring, role models, nagging, and nurturing they will need to overcome the challenges of poverty and succeed in more demanding courses.

There is one final component that will be required. It was driven home to me during a visit to a school we were helping in Chicago. The ninth grade class was reading “A House on Mango Street,” and the teacher, as a discussion prompt, asked the class, “if [they] could, would [they] leave their neighborhood, and, if so, why.” Almost every single student said they would, and almost every one of them said it was because of their near-daily exposure to violence. Part of me at that moment felt that, instead of seeking to improve the school, we should be organizing an evacuation. But then, one student said it was only worth leaving if the violence did not follow them. What we need to acknowledge is that within the sub-set of schools which drive the dropout crisis, there is a further sub-set, which needs to take on a therapeutic role, one that both helps students cope and overcome the negative and often crippling aspects of exposure to violence, and one that shows that alternatives to violence exist. The truth is, in our most impacted neighborhoods, the public school is often the only societal institution with a physical presence in the community. As such, it needs to offer more than just academic instruction; it needs to provide students with the academic and non-academic experience and supports they need to thrive. Right now, schools are not resourced for this mission. To do this, we will need to become much better at integrating the funds and efforts currently housed in other city, state, and federal social service and justice agencies, usually disconnected from the schools, into a set of preventative, therapeutic, and wrap-around supports provided in the schools in our most challenged neighborhoods.

Robert Balfanz is a professor at Johns Hopkins University

African American History Month Weekly Wrap-up

This week, to celebrate African American history month, we held events for civil, community, LGBT and business leaders here at the White House. We had wonderful discussions, highlighting ways to increase equality and opportunity for all and celebrating African American history and opportunities to pave the way forward for the next generation of leaders. These are the groups that came into the White House as part of our week’s events for African American History Month.

Here’s a rundown on all the exciting events that have been happening this past week:

Tuesday: Association of African American Life and History Panel Event 

The Association of African American Life and History is a group of historians and academics who, among other duties, come up with the theme of African American History month every year. The theme this year, “At the Crossroads of Freedom and Equality: The Emancipation Proclamation and the March on Washington,” commemorates the 150^th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 50^th anniversary of the March on Washington. The association came in for a panel, featuring Michael Strautmanis, Counselor to the Senior Advisor for Strategic Engagement, to hear about the Administration’s actions and priorities for the African American community.

Wednesday: Doing Business in Africa Forum

On Tuesday, we welcomed the business and entrepreneurship community to the Doing Business in Africa forum, which featured speakers from the Department of Commerce, the White House, and private and nonprofit sectors to highlight how the federal government can use trade promotion, financing and strategic communications and capabilities to help U.S. businesses identify and seize opportunities in Africa. The goal of the forum was to help give tools to overcome any challenges they face to establishing business relationships with Africa.

Thursday: African American Leaders Meeting with POTUS

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

President Obama met with African American leaders in the Roosevelt Room at the White House. They discussed his plan to strengthen the economy for the middle class and to build ladders of opportunity, through increasing access to job training programs, partnering with high-poverty communities to help them rebuild, and encouraging companies to invest in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Other topics included how to expanding universal pre-K education for every child as a way to significantly decrease the achievement gap, as well as improvements to the voting process. The leaders also highlighted their goals to continue to build momentum for Congress to act in the best interests of the American people by supporting policies that help move our country forward.

Thursday: Black LGBT Emerging Leaders Briefing

At the Black LGBT Emerging Leaders Briefing, 175 young leaders gathered to hear about policies and accomplishments that impact the African American and LGBT communities. We also connected participants with ongoing Obama Administration programs and outreach efforts and with black LGBT Administration officials who can serve as mentors and role models. And we heard from the participants about the opportunities and obstacles they encounter in their campuses, neighborhoods, and communities.

Help Stop The Student Debt Domino Effect

Ed. note: This is cross posted from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Blog

Today, we announced that we’re gathering information to come up with a plan to address the challenges many struggling borrowers face to find a more affordable payment plan on their private student loans. We need your ideas and help to stem the tide of trouble for many student loan borrowers.

Student loans are a critical part of the consumer finance marketplace — a way for millions of Americans to attend college and climb the economic ladder. But rising balances and distress in the student loan market raise questions about the domino effect on the rest of the economy and society. Will young consumers with large amounts of student loan debt be able to start small businesses and buy homes like generations before them?

Policy makers and financial institutions have taken steps to ensure that lending is safer. Many loans of all types made in years leading up to the financial crisis would likely not be made today. But those already stuck with heavy debt burdens and looking for some way to pay it back, want to know: what about us?

Most of the student loan market consists of federal student loans, which allow most borrowers to avoid default through the income-based repayment options in times of hardship. But private student loans – a market which boomed in the years leading up to the financial crisis – generally don’t.

Over the last year, we’ve heard from thousands of private student loan borrowers willing to make good on their debts but seeking a more affordable payment, especially when navigating tough times. One of the top complaints we’ve heard from private student loan borrowers was the inability to refinance or negotiate an alternative repayment plan with their lender or servicer.

This is a familiar story. Since the financial crisis, millions of homeowners have sought more affordable mortgage payments by refinancing and locking in rates at historically low levels. Others pursued loan modifications to avoid foreclosure with mixed success. But for many private student loan borrowers, finding a more affordable payment has been a frustrating experience.

We also hear from lenders, who want customers to be successful and ultimately repay their loans. That’s why we’re looking to put together some creative solutions to find private student loan repayment plans that borrowers can actually afford.

We need your input to help student loan borrowers experiencing distress and default. Learn more about this project and how you can contribute ideas. We want to hear from borrowers, lenders, schools, and everyone with a stake in the success of this market by April 8th.

In the coming months, we’ll release your input and our ideas on how to address this piece of the student debt puzzle. Stay tuned.

Rohit Chopra is the CFPB’s Student Loan Ombudsman.