President Barack Obama gave a speech today to a group of Michigan high school graduates in an effort to call the nation to action to solve our high school graduation epidemic. In his speech, he told students “Don’t make excuses. Take responsibility not just for your successes but for your failures as well.’’
Without question, the stakes are high for our nation when it comes to this issue of our high school drop-out rate. National data tell us that every 26 seconds another student drops out of school -- totaling more than 1.3 million students per year. Even more striking is the fact that, each year, due to more than 20 million high school drop outs, ages 20-67, the United States loses more than $50 billion in potential state and federal income tax revenues. For Cleveland, the story doesn’t get any better. According to the Ohio Department of Education, Cleveland's high school graduation rate is less than 54%, one of the lowest in the United States. The key to Cleveland’s competitiveness in the 21'st century lies in its ability to transform how we think about reforming education.
For far too long, we have had too many status quo conversations about how we fix our schools. Cleveland can’t become a world class city unless we find away to ensure that every child in our community has the tools to be competitive in today’s knowledge based economy. Achieving this goal will require every person in the community to take responsibility for our children’s future. This notion of shared responsibility is the only way to ensure we develop the right interventions to fix such a complex issue. Not one teacher, policymaker, or business leader can do it alone.
Creating meaningful education reform in Cleveland also will require having difficult policy conversations around the role that teachers unions, charter schools, and parents have in empowering our children. Other ideas such as merit-based bay for teachers, school choice, and principal autonomy all need to be a part of the current debate. We can longer afford to shy away from embracing real reform.
Throughout the course of this blog, I will lay out more concrete ideas around education policy. Creating a movement in our city around fixing our schools is perhaps the biggest issue in making Cleveland relevant in the 21st century. Without good schools, our city will not be able to create the right entrepreneurial and creative climate needed for a thriving metropolitan center.
Without question, the stakes are high for our nation when it comes to this issue of our high school drop-out rate. National data tell us that every 26 seconds another student drops out of school -- totaling more than 1.3 million students per year. Even more striking is the fact that, each year, due to more than 20 million high school drop outs, ages 20-67, the United States loses more than $50 billion in potential state and federal income tax revenues. For Cleveland, the story doesn’t get any better. According to the Ohio Department of Education, Cleveland's high school graduation rate is less than 54%, one of the lowest in the United States. The key to Cleveland’s competitiveness in the 21'st century lies in its ability to transform how we think about reforming education.
For far too long, we have had too many status quo conversations about how we fix our schools. Cleveland can’t become a world class city unless we find away to ensure that every child in our community has the tools to be competitive in today’s knowledge based economy. Achieving this goal will require every person in the community to take responsibility for our children’s future. This notion of shared responsibility is the only way to ensure we develop the right interventions to fix such a complex issue. Not one teacher, policymaker, or business leader can do it alone.
Creating meaningful education reform in Cleveland also will require having difficult policy conversations around the role that teachers unions, charter schools, and parents have in empowering our children. Other ideas such as merit-based bay for teachers, school choice, and principal autonomy all need to be a part of the current debate. We can longer afford to shy away from embracing real reform.
Throughout the course of this blog, I will lay out more concrete ideas around education policy. Creating a movement in our city around fixing our schools is perhaps the biggest issue in making Cleveland relevant in the 21st century. Without good schools, our city will not be able to create the right entrepreneurial and creative climate needed for a thriving metropolitan center.
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