Three panelists, a moderator and a select group of journalists discuss how communities can end the drop-out crisis and how best to reshape high school education to prepare students for the rigors of life and work in the 21st century. The panelists for this forum are Nidya Baez, Laurene Powell Jobs, Russell Rumberger and moderator David Sibbet.
"There are tons of students out there who have this drive (to succeed) but can't access it because they don't have the resources or adult guidance. My teachers taught me to take ownership of my future and develop a vision. That's what I want to teach others."
In 2002, Nidya Baez and other socially conscious high school students from Oakland, California, created a vision for a new school dedicated to the empowerment of minority youth. Today, their vision is alive at the Youth Empowerment School (YES) where the focus is on authentic lessons and assessment. In 2006, all eleventh grade students at YES took AP Chemistry and AP History. Today, fully 84 percent of YES students are qualified to apply for a four year institution.
Baez graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 2007 with a degree in Latin American Studies. She serves as an English Language coach and substitute teacher at her alma mater, Fremont High School in Oakland. She is preparing to receive her teaching credential and will be teaching Spanish at YES, the school she helped design.
"College Track was founded on the belief that education can change lives. After ten years of watching students grow, mature and excel, I believe it more strongly than ever."
Laurene Powell Jobs is Founder and President of the Board of College Track, an after-school program that prepares under resourced high school students for higher education. Through its three centers in the San Francisco Bay Area, College Track provides a comprehensive program of academic support, leadership training, community service and extra-curricular involvement. Founded in 1997, all of the program's graduates have completed their secondary education and gone on to college.
In addition to her work in education reform, Laurene has a strong focus on non-profit entrepreneurship, with an emphasis on women's human and economic rights. Her board affiliations include Global Fund for Women, NewSchools Venture Fund, Stand for Children and Stanford Schools Corporation. She also serves on the Advisory Board of Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Laurene holds a B.A. and a B.S.E. from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Stanford University. She lives in Palo Alto with her husband and three children.
"The roots of California's dropout crisis form well before students enter ninth grade. In fact, they begin before students enter kindergarten."
A faculty member at U.C. Santa Barbara since 1987, Rumberger, has published widely in several areas of education: education and work; the schooling of disadvantaged students, particularly school dropouts and linguistic minority students; school effectiveness; and education policy.
Rumberger has been conducting research on school dropouts for the past 25 years and has written over 27 research papers and essays on school dropouts. He also served as a member of the U.S. Department of Education's National Institute of Statistical Sciences/Education Statistics Services Institute Task Force on Graduation, Completion, and Dropout Indicators (2004) and as a member of the National Research Council's Committee on Increasing High School Students' Engagement and Motivation to Learn (2003).
As director of the California Dropout Research Project, Rumberger will synthesize existing research and undertake new research to inform policymakers and the larger public about the nature of, and potential solutions to, the dropout problem in California.
Rumberger received his Ph.D. in Education and a M.A. in Economics from Stanford University in 1978, and his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1971.
"Learning to rise above self interest and collaborate in inventing new forms of organization and relationships that will not deplete the planet, but help it thrive, is the challenge of our times. This is nowhere more critical than in how we educate our children."
Mr. Sibbet's explorations in graphic facilitation, strategic visioning, and collaborative process design have revolutionized the field of organization development. For eight years, in the 1970's, he was executive director and director of training for the Coro Foundation, a leadership development institute known for its pioneering work in experience-based education. He regularly designs and leads strategy, visioning, future forces, and large-scale system change processes for clients throughout the world. He is a former Chicago Tribune journalist and the author of several books.
