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National Leadership Summit Focuses on Improving High School
Education
Jan. 25, 2007
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| North Carolina Governor Mike F. Easley asked higher education to
join a partnership with high schools and government to "embrace change
in the high schools." |
More than 120 policy
leaders, college and university presidents, state higher education
executives, higher education association leaders, and college system
heads gathered in Washington, DC on Jan. 22 to discuss higher
education’s role in improving America’s secondary
schools.
The summit was
cosponsored by the American Council on
Education (ACE) and the association of State
Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO),
in partnership with Achieve, Inc. and the National Association of System
Heads (NASH). It was made possible by the
support of the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation.
ACE, SHEEO, Achieve, Inc. and
NASH are partners in the Advancing College Readiness initiative, which
works to engage higher education leaders in the ongoing work of
the American Diploma
Project (ADP) Network.
The ADP Network is designed to help states define clear high school
graduation standards that prepare students to better succeed in college
and beyond.
Achieve President Michael Cohen
set the tone for the summit when he argued that the K-12 system cannot
improve the way it prepares students for college without the active
participation of higher education.
He laid out a four-part agenda
for how higher education could help raise expectations for high school
students and assist high schools in linking their curriculum to the
skills and knowledge students must have to succeed in college and the
workplace:
- Engage faculty in identifying
the knowledge and skills needed for first-year courses and work with
K-12 to determine the alignment of those expectations with high school
standards.
- Work with K-12 leaders to
ensure that college readiness expectations are embedded in high school
courses required for graduation and college admission.
- Help ensure that the tests
students take in high school better measure the level of college
readiness required for placement.
- Provide high school leaders
with data on student performance, particularly in first-year
coursework.
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| Craig Barrett, chair of Intel Corp. |
Keynote speaker Craig R. Barrett,
chair of the board of Intel Corp., compared the state of higher
education today with the state of the integrated circuit industry in the
1980s. Foreign
competitors had taken a significant market share and the industry and
government came together to launch the public-private research
partnership known as SEMATECH. SEMATECH led the drive to develop
standards for raw materials, chemicals, processing, and
other elements that improved the reliability and competitiveness
of U.S. produced integrated circuits.
“The K-12 system is the
feeder stock for the higher education industry,” said Barrett.
However, the K-12 system “is not doing a particularly good job,
according to any number of studies and for any number of reasons
including teacher quality, expectations, and societal
issues.”
Without a common set of
standards, Barrett said the U.S. education system looks much like the integrated circuit
industry of the 1980s. He termed it critically important for higher
education to sit down with K-12 educators to discuss improving the
readiness of incoming students.
“The K-12 education
system does not compete internationally, but higher education
does,” he said. “Higher education needs better prepared
students to maintain our competitive advantage.”
Another keynote speaker, North
Carolina Governor Mike F. Easley, asked higher education to join a
partnership with high schools and government to “embrace change in
the high schools.”
“We must make high school
mean more,” Gov. Easley said.
U.S. Under Secretary of
Education Sara Martinez Tucker called for the creation of a system of
lifelong learning connected to global business as well as alignment
between the K-12 system and higher education. She also called for
increased rigor in the high school curriculum.
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| Under Secretary of Education Sara Martinez Tucker. |
She went on to outline three major
Education Department initiatives that will move forward during the next
six months: reauthorization of both the No Child Left Behind Act and the
Higher Education Act, along with redesign of the federal student aid
programs.
In addition to the plenary
addresses, the agenda included a number of discussion sessions and a
panel discussion that featured Nancy S. Grasmick, state superintendent
of schools for the Maryland Department of Education; Mark G. Yudof,
chancellor of the University of Texas System; Kathleen
Schatzberg, president of Cape Cod Community College (MA); and
moderator Paul E. Lingenfelter, president of SHEEO.
The Advancing College Readiness
partner organizations are working with summit participants to
determine the next steps that are needed to advance this agenda in
each of their states.
| advancing college readiness college preparation leadership summit high school students success |
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