Five Questions for Marguerite W. Kondracke

Over the past 40 years, Marguerite W. Kondracke has worked in government, business and the non-profit sector. But one thing has remained constant: Kondracke's focus on the needs of children and families.

Since 2004, she has served as President and CEO of the America’s Promise Alliance, which works to make children and youth a national priority — and which, under her leadership, has intensely focused on addressing the nation’s high school dropout crisis.

Recently, Kondracke presided over the release of a much-anticipated report — produced by the Alliance in association with Civic Enterprises and Johns Hopkins University's Everyone Graduates Center — that provides some of the first positive signs that America is making progress in reducing a nationwide crisis in the number of students who drop out of high school. 

But, she warned: "America still faces a dropout crisis."

Kondracke recently sat down to answer Five Questions from NoDropouts.org about the report — and the future of the fight to end the dropout epidemic. 

The Alliance's recent report, "Building a Grad Nation" gives us some reason for optimism about the dropout epidemic — including the fact that the number of "dropout factories" appears to have dropped substantially between 2002 and 2008. Overall, though, the graduation rate increased only slightly, from 72 to 75 percent. In order to meet the goal set out by the Obama Administration to graduate 90 percent of high school students by 2020, we'd have to exceed that rate several fold. Are you confident that we can and will do that?

We’re confident that the country has turned a corner in terms of appreciating the depth of this crisis in a way it hasn’t before, and with that kind of knowledge and understanding, we hope, comes the willingness to do something about it which speaks to the centerpiece of our Grad Nation campaign: inspiring all Americans to act to increase the graduation rate. When we began this work nearly three years ago, most Americans weren’t aware of the current state and consequences of more than one million students not receiving diplomas.  

While we’re thrilled with this progress, we know there’s much work that still needs to be done. Specifically, the Building a Grad Nation report found that to reach this 2020 goal we’ll need to increase the graduation rate by 1.5 percentage points each year. That’s a lot of work, especially when 18 states have had stagnant graduation rates. I believe though that accelerated progress in the next decade is possible and what this report did was also show us that we have the knowledge and tools to do so.

There is a lot to be learned from Tennessee and New York City, Alabama and Richmond, Indiana — the four progress case studies we profiled. All are very different, yet all made significant strides.  What we know: it wasn’t just traditional school reform that drove change. That was a piece of it, but what all had in common was a collective effort by the entire community and/or state to do something. It was from the top down, all sectors. They raised academic standards, partnered with community and business groups, and made the connection about the importance of data and early warning systems in driving change.

Finally, they used this knowledge to bridge those gaps for struggling students and had the support of policy makers because states are adopting Common Core Standards and will be required to measure graduation rates the same. This goes a long way in driving change.  

There has been some suggestion that at least some of the dip in the number of "dropout factory" schools has been a matter of districts moving at-risk students at many schools into a smaller number of schools. That practice would reduce the number of dropout factories, but not the number of dropouts. In other places, the number of students transferring out of public schools, purportedly to attend "home school" has skyrocketed — giving rise to concern that these "leavers" aren't heading into a situation from which they are likely to graduate. Are you concerned that, in some places, the problem has just been moved around?

I don’t believe “the problem” has been moved around per se, but do admit there have been substantial shifts in school districts and states that resulted in positive improvement. What we found in this report was the number of dropout factories decreased from 2,000 to 1,746 for three reasons:

The schools experienced vast improvements; the schools closed; or schools combined to provide better education opportunities for their young people.

According to the report, during 2002 to 2008, high school reform efforts focused on closing large, neighborhood schools, which were no longer seen as effective educational options for students, and replaced them with smaller schools paired with community partners and external support organizations. Based on prior experience, modifications were made to the small school model in hopes that students would have better outcomes. These efforts received much praise and were fully integrated within the existing school system so that their collective impact would be great enough to increase citywide graduation rates.

There's a lot of focus on the dropout fight right now, but this is a long fight. Do you worry about losing the momentum? What's it going to take to keep our nation's sometimes short attention span on this issue?

Our nation tends to have attention deficit disorder about a host of issues, not just this one. So yes, we do worry that folks could get distracted but I am more hopeful that we’ve made such a strong and important case for why this is one of  — if not the — most important issues we’re facing as a country, that people understand the stakes.

It also has been enormously helpful that we have such wonderful partners in this fight who are working to make sure the issue stays in the forefront. With all the record investment in education and the support for keeping young people in school from the President and Secretary of Education, you couldn’t ask for better allies.  

No issue touches so many facets of American life as does the graduation crisis. As we’ve said all along, this is just as much an economic issue as it is a social, moral and educational one. I believe, because of this, and because we’ve shown we are turning a corner, Americans will understand we cannot go back for the sake of our nation’s future.

One of the things that we've learned — and the Alliance's report bears this out — is that there is no one-size fits all solution to preventing dropouts. But is there something you've seen that has a positive effect everywhere it is tried? 

What our report found was that in the true cases of progress, the solution was one that involved the entire community. It started with states and school districts raising standards and having clear goals for students, challenging them to earn a diploma and skills that mean something in the 21st century.

Furthermore, this approach was targeted and involved extra support from outside groups including businesses, youth-serving organizations, and the faith community, among others, with the goal of supporting those students who needed help the most.

Finally, it was sustained over time so the work had a chance to resonate and make the kind of change that’s long-term. There is no silver bullet here, but a series of coordinated community involvement with targeted work and high standards. Our young people will rise to the standards we give them and we need to be prepared to help them reach higher and make the connection between their lives, success and the broader global community—that’s what the progress case studies we highlighted in this report are doing.

Congratulations! We're hereby giving you absolute control of all 50 state legislatures for the next 24 hours. Don't ask what kind of deal we had to cut to make this happen — you don't want to know — just smile and nod. What new laws will be on the books tomorrow that will help students get to graduation day?

Our Building a Grad Nation report lays out a Civic Marshall Plan—a strategy and set of recommended steps—that we believe is essential in helping turn the tide on this crisis. In addition to targeting dropout factories, their feeder schools and surrounding communities, and raising standards and engaging community and nonprofit partners, there is a component for policymakers.

In addition to reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and ensuring all states raise their compulsory graduation ages to 18, some other pieces of legislation that we think are good and merit consideration include: the Graduation Promise Act; Graduation for All Act; Success in the Middle Act; Keeping PACE Act and DIPLOMA Act.

Of course, we also believe that a continuation of the Race to the Top Challenge would be essential as it has already shown itself to be a powerful tool to prompt reforms to address the dropout crisis. 

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What questions would you ask Ms. Kondracke? Leave your comments here or contact us at NoDropouts.org. For more information on The America's Promise Alliance, visit AmericasPromise.org.