Mentoring Works: The Missing Message on the Listening & Learning Tour

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and his senior staff have traveled the country over the last seven months on a “Listening and Learning” tour, asking for input on the Obama administration’s education agenda. Their endgame is to restore America’s position of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.

Secretary Duncan and President Obama both realize that helping our children succeed in school and graduate from college is the ticket to restoring America’s position as a global leader. They know, too, that the problem is not so much across America as it is across low-income America where we are losing ground at an alarming pace.

As the fastest-growing segment of our population, low-income children now account for 41 percent of all children, and that number will likely hit 50 percent in a dozen years. What’s more, the education gap between our low-income children and their wealthier peers has widened every year since 1980. A child born into the lowest economic quintile is four times less likely to graduate from high school and 10 times less likely to graduate from college than a child from the top economic quintile.

By cutting today’s dropout rate in half, we would generate a $45 billion increase in tax revenues.

The challenge before us is stark: If we do not move significantly more underserved youth to college and ensure that they have the skills required in the 21st-century marketplace, we will face a diminished tax base, a generation that’s undereducated and unemployable, and the total erosion of America’s position in the global economy.

Duncan and Obama understand what’s at stake. It just seems they can’t figure out what to do about it.

In their effort to listen and learn, they missed what works to reverse this trend -- mentoring.

College For Every Student (CFES), has 8,500 students involved in peer mentoring across 20 states. Older students mentor younger ones, or seek out peers who are struggling and find a way to provide guidance. Four years ago, one Harlem high school increased its college-going rate by 50 percent when classmates, led by Shameka – a remarkable young woman who grew up in abject poverty – supported one another in the arduous tasks of completing college applications and financial aid forms. (Against all odds, Shameka will be heading to medical school in the fall.)

In other schools, students tutor their peers, read to younger children, and launch clean-up drives that restore their playgrounds, parks, and communities. By serving, they learn to lead – and they fulfill President Obama’s goal of integrating service into education.

In Boston, New York City, and Washington, DC, hundreds of young professionals not only mentor our students, they have also raised resources to fund college access programs. In October, 35 of these young professionals ran in the Marine Corps Marathon, raising $60,000 to help launch programs to support college access and awareness.

Corporate America is stepping up as well. Employees from Ernst & Young mentor monthly in nine cities, while volunteers from GE, New York Life, and Colgate-Palmolive are helping our students in Denver and New York City down the pathway to college.

The impact of mentoring is staggering. Over the last four years, 95 percent of the more than 3,000 CFES students (almost all low-income) who graduated from high school have gone on to college. Recent data placed one of our school districts – Gulf County, Florida – in the state’s No. 1 spot for its high school graduation and college-going rates for students of color. Tim Wilder, Gulf County’s superintendent of schools, celebrates the extraordinary success of his students from Wewahitchka and Port St. Joe: “When they were in the fifth grade, all the indicators predicted they would drop out, but we didn’t buy it. We got them mentors. We exposed them to college.” Those Gulf County students not only made it through high school, they enrolled in college last fall.

If we listen, we can learn a lot from Tim Wilder and his students and from the thousands of mentors out there who are helping to transform our fastest-growing population of children from a looming liability to our greatest asset.

Rick Dalton is the president & CEO of College For Every Student, a nonprofit based in Cornwall, Vermont that helps underserved students nationwide gain access to college.