Since receiving an Alma Exley Scholarship in 2010, Khalil Graham has had a laser-sharp focus on earning his doctorate in educational leadership. But this summer he is putting students first.

He is working in Sacramento at the national headquarters of StudentsFirst, an education reform organization founded last year by Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of the Washington, D.C., public schools.

Since Mr. Graham moved from the green hills of Kentucky to the palm tree-lined streets of the California state capital, I gave him a call to see how things were going.

I learned that he is immersed in an ambitious drive to build a national organization with a million members in its first year of existence.

He is one of 17 summer associates at StudentsFirst from law schools, business schools, schools of education and the teaching ranks. He serves on the planning team, where he is helping to chart the future direction of the organization – trying to determine where to focus to have the greatest impact.

Meanwhile, Mr. Graham is learning a lot about how politics interfaces with education across the country. It’s essential to understand the political process, he says, in order to succeed in bringing about large-scale changes in the educational system.

“For anyone who wants to be involved in educational reform, it’s important to understand why schools are they way they are,” he told me, “and to see why change hasn’t been as progressive as we want to see it.

“You can’t make changes in the schools until you make changes in the legislatures and Department of Education,” he said.

From his position at StudentsFirst, Mr. Graham is getting a broad view of reform efforts in the states and at the national level.

“Once you see the big picture, it makes it easier to figure out, Where do I need to be in this change process to have the biggest impact?” he said. “Do I need to be somebody who works with the legislatures to make sure the right policies are being pushed? Do I need to be somebody in the schools who can implement these policies? You’ve got to find a place that works for you.”

Michelle Rhee has said she started StudentsFirst because “for too long our educational policies have focused on adults, not kids.” She sees her organization as a catalyst in bringing about change by placing a higher priority on the needs of children.

As Mr. Graham observed, “The adults in the educational system – the teachers, the school boards, the politicians — have been well represented. But the students – those who are being affected by the educational system – don’t have representation.”

He explained that StudentsFirst is focused on making sure that students are represented when legislatures write laws and when various factions negotiate policies affecting kids.

“Hopefully, students’ voices will be heard,” he said, “and students will be represented in terms of what’s best for their education in the future.”

Mr. Graham acknowledged that StudentsFirst has received criticism from some educators, but he said the negativity has come from people who are afraid of changing the status quo.

“This is not an organization that’s trying to fight the unions or fire teachers,” he said. “We want what’s best for the students, and sometimes this means contradicting what’s best for adults.”

Graham will return to the University of Kentucky in September to resume his doctoral program. His ambitious goal is to complete the program by the end of 2012.

His educational journey began in the public schools of Brooklyn, N.Y., where he was raised by his grandmother. He attended Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, Conn., on a scholarship. Then he earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Richmond and a master’s degree from Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn.

Everyone affiliated with the Alma Exley Scholarship Program is proud that he is a member of our “family,” and we wish him the best in his efforts to make a difference for the youth of our country in the years ahead.

– Woody Exley

Posted August 2, 2011

Readers of this website know that Miguel Cardona, recipient of an Alma Exley memorial scholarship in 1998, has emerged as a respected educational leader.

His latest step into the spotlight was his appointment last year to a task force on the academic achievement gap in Connecticut’s schools. Mr. Cardona co-chaired the task force along with State Sen. Toni Harp (D-New Haven). The task force, created by the General Assembly, submitted its report in January. The legislature used several of the committee’s ideas in writing a bill now being considered by the General Assembly’s education committee.

The wide-ranging bill would phase in all-day kindergarten, more preschool programs for Connecticut’s poor children and more attention to students whose first language is not English. The bill also would let districts have longer school days and academic years, and would simplify the process by which out-of-state teachers can get Connecticut certification.

“When you think of all of the generations of people we’ve lost because we have this achievement gap, it’s a moral problem in our state,” said State Sen. Harp.

The bill is awaiting a vote by the education committee on whether to send it to the full General Assembly.

Mr. Cardona, principal of Hanover Elementary School in Meriden, said, “There is that level of predictability when you say children of this ethnic background will more likely achieve as a group, and that’s sad. We felt passion and a moral responsibility to the work that we did, but it does also make financial sense to address the disparities. If we don’t address them, the amount of money needed later to address the results of that will be greater.”

Connecticut’s poorest students are about three grade levels behind their peers in reading and math, according to the National Assessment of Education Progress, an annual review mandated by Congress and overseen by the U.S. Department of Education. The National Assessment also says the gap is the largest among all states, and it says 60 percent of Connecticut’s low-income students graduated from high school in 2009, compared with 86 percent of more affluent students.

The low-income students also are largely black and Hispanic and even among those students, there’s a deeper gap between the male and female students. Those whose primary language at home is not English also often face academic struggles, particularly in reading, when they enter the public schools.

(Former Gov. M. Jodi Rell appointed a separate group last year that reached several of the same conclusions as the task force appointed by the General Assembly.)
– Woody Exley

Posted March 7, 2011

I was pleased to learn that U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has called attention to the need for more teachers of color in our nation’s public schools.

His remarks came during a speech at a gathering of educators from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HCBU) at North Carolina Central University on June 3.

Duncan urged the educators to take the lead in “training a new generation of minority students, especially black males, to teach in our nation’s public schools.”

Acknowledging that most HBCUs were established a century ago to train black teachers, he said that black educators in the South used to have a saying about the importance of teachers: “As is the teacher, so is the school.”

“Our elders were absolutely right,” Duncan said. “As all of you know, talent matters tremendously in the classroom, and that is why recruiting and training a new generation of great teachers is essential to closing the achievement gap.”

He quoted Ambrose Caliver, the first African-American research specialist hired by the U.S. Office of Education, who wrote 75 years ago: “In the hands of the Negro teachers rests the destiny of the race.”

Said Duncan, “Every day, African-American teachers are doing extraordinary work in helping to close the achievement gap. Yet we also know that children of color have too few teachers of color.

“Nationwide, more than 35 percent of public school students are black or Hispanic, but less than 15 percent of our teachers are black or Latino. It is especially troubling that less than two percent of our nation’s 3.2 million teachers are African-American males.

“On average, roughly 200,000 new teachers are hired a year in America-and just 4,500 of them are black males. It is not good for any of our country’s children that only one in 50 teachers is a black man.

“When I was CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, I visited too many elementary schools that did not have a single black male teacher, though most of the students were black and grew up in single-parent families. How can that be a good thing for young children, especially boys?

“The under-representation of African-American men in the teaching profession is a serious problem. And it is not self-correcting. Our children need you. Your schools of education can, and must, help us solve this national crisis.”

Secretary Duncan’s remarks were most welcome. He deserves credit for putting the spotlight on this issue from his highly visible position in the Obama Administration.

The Alma Exley Scholarship Program has been addressing this issue since 1996 by recognizing and supporting outstanding college students of color who are preparing for careers as teachers. Our honorees are making a difference in classrooms in Connecticut and across the country.

Please join us in providing this recognition and support by clicking here to make a tax-deductible contribution. Click here to read the entire speech by Secretary Arne Duncan.
– Woody Exley

Posted August 14, 2010