Panelists discuss solutions to education achievement gap

The panelists identified the education crisis as a fundamental political problem, calling upon interested citizens to get involved in the reform movement rather than watch it unfold.

“All children, regardless of race or background, are capable of achieving at a high level when the adults in the system get it right. It’s our job as future leaders to demand change and take part in creating that change,” Catharine Bellinger ’12, who is executive director of SFER and a campus campaign coordinator for Teach for America, said in an interview after the panel.

“Students will not only be more aware of the problems in our education system today, but also more empowered to take part in actively tackling those problems,” she added.

Joel Klein, chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, opened the discussion by calling to attention the irony that America has arguably the best higher education system in the world, but fails to prepare American children for the system. Klein cited a devastating racial and ethnic achievement gap as a major factor in America’s education crisis.

According to Klein, American spending on secondary education doubled from 1983 to 2010, yet America has fallen to the middle of global rankings in high school and college graduation rates.

In addition to Klein, the panel featured Shavar Jeffries, a law professor at Seton Hall University and chair of the Newark Public Schools Advisory Board, and former USG president Leslie-Bernard Joseph ’06, who is dean of students at Coney Island Prep, a charter school in New York City.

The panel proposed a few solutions for the current system, including setting new standards of accountability and excellence for teachers, offering a wider selection of schools to children in low-income neighborhoods, and bringing schools into the 21st century by providing resources such as distance learning and other new technology. The discussion cited teachers’ and students’ lack of motivation to improve the quality of education and to aim toward higher achievement as a major hurdle.

For low-income students especially, an emphasis on the future is crucial to keeping up that motivation, Joseph said.

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“The missing resources in my classroom were hope and possibility,” he said, describing his first teaching experience in the Bronx with Teach for America. “We’ve forgotten to show students that college is actually real and actually attainable.”

To help achieve some of those goals, Jeffries called for a “door-by-door, block-by-block, church-by-church trenches war,” in which constituents slowly campaign for change.

One network of schools that has implemented some motivation-based learning is the Knowledge Is Power Program, which is dedicated to helping underprivileged children attend college. Several students from KIPP schools in Newark joined the University students in the audience.

Addressing both groups, the panelists encouraged the KIPP students to continue their motivated learning and encouraged undergraduates to teach where there is need and to take advantage of initiatives such as the University’s program in teacher preparation and Teach for America.

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“I think the title of the panel really sums it up,” said Rachel Sverdlove ’11, who is currently applying to Teach for America. “The education gap is really incredible and should not exist. [The discussion] reinforced opinions I was already familiar with, and I realized the responsibility lies with everyone.”

The discussion was a part of the University’s “Education Week,” which was aimed at encouraging undergraduates to get involved in education reform and informing the University community about problems in the public education system.