President Obama was in Michigan on Monday to congratulate graduating seniors at Kalamazoo Central High School for reaching one goal. Then he pushed them to go further and succeed in college. He made it clear that their country is counting on them to help meet his goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by the end of the decade.
It’s a message that the president could give at any high school graduation, but Kalamazoo Central’s graduates heard it in person because their school was the winner of the first annual Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge.
The Denver School of Science and Technology was a finalist in the competition. Like Kalamazoo Central, it represents what high schools should become: a place where all students are challenged to complete a college preparatory program and graduate ready for college.
The president’s trip to Michigan follows a 17-month whirlwind of education-reform activity generated by Americans who understand that education is the surest path to a stronger economy and a brighter future. We need more high schools like Kalamazoo Central and DSST in Colorado. Race to the Top set a whole new pace for dramatically improving public education. All but four states have now applied for one or both rounds of Race to the Top, two states have already received grants worth $600 million, and as many as 15 could win this fall.
Thirty states have passed laws around charters, teacher evaluation and other reforms to lay the groundwork for education reform. Forty-eight states are working together on a voluntary basis to develop common standards. Through the Race to the Top application process, stakeholders of every kind have set aside their differences and signed on to bold blueprints for reform that will drive change in the classroom for years to come.
Meanwhile, in communities across America, school administrators and teacher unions are changing the way schools are staffed and the way teachers are compensated and rewarded. They are working together to do the difficult but necessary work of turning around struggling schools with billions in federal school improvement grants.
And more than 1,700 school districts and non-profit partners are jointly applying for innovation funds that will take to scale dozens of proven programs and generate creative new ideas for improving education.
The president also signed into law student lending reforms that provide $40 billion in Pell Grants and billions more for other higher education initiatives — without adding a dime to the deficit. In fact, some of the savings from the shift to direct lending are helping reduce the deficit.
President Obama favors results over ideology. His new plan for reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act reflects his belief in a smarter, more focused federal role by rewarding excellence, providing flexibility in how schools improve, and focusing more closely on the schools and students most at risk.
In the past six weeks, I have addressed graduates at four colleges and two high schools. I have stood before the children of the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless, immigrants, factory workers, professionals, and even the children of high school dropouts who do not want their mistakes repeated.
I tell them all the same thing: Education is America’s best hope and our only hope, and nothing will deter us from our goal to produce the most educated workforce in the world by the end of the decade. This week in Kalamazoo, in Denver and across the nation, America is getting closer to that goal.
Arne Duncan is U.S. secretary of education.
