Reaching Alabama's Top Students: Problems in Education

Three years ago, I left Alabama after attending public schools all my life and headed to Washington to attend college at Georgetown University. Last month, I was able to walk across the stage as a college graduate. The experience taught me several lessons about the educational world in which we live. Having the ability to look at my undergraduate education as a completed whole, I realized that two major factors allowed me to graduate ahead of schedule and actually excel in college--the ability to take advanced coursework in high school and numerous opportunities to excel in extracurricular academic activities. I also saw firsthand one of the great problems that many states face, that being the issue of retaining top students who leave their home states for college. Most of my peers at Georgetown have either remained in Washington or gone on to work in large cities. In the graduating class before me in 2009, over 60% of graduating seniors who participated in the school's exit survey worked in either Washington, DC, or New York. More students reported working in China (8) than going on to work in over 40 US states. Although these records are just the results of one university, they reflect a broader ideal that graduates from America's top universities stay concentrated in major cities and do not return to the communities from which they come. Thus, states like Alabama have a two-fold problem. They must equip students to excel at top colleges to participate in an increasingly global economy, and they must also work at keeping those top students in Alabama.

Here in Alabama, our education policy often emanates from Paul Hubbert and the AEA, the teacher's lobby. For a long time, conservatives have been pitted against AEA, for many valid reasons. However, I think what has been lost in the debate over the AEA's impact in state politics is an actual debate over how to improve Alabama schools, and that's what we desperately need today. Conservatives believe in facilitating excellence--government is doing its job in part if it can empower individuals to act in their own best interest. Too often, Alabama's education policies have favored the median and not the extremes. In recent years great advances have been made in what is commonly called 'special education,' or the education of students with learning disabilities. While I laud these advances, it is well past time for Alabama to start emphasizing the other end of its educational spectrum and creating more opportunities for its top gifted students.

Gifted education needs in this state break down into two areas--opportunities inside the classroom and opportunities outside the classroom. Inside the classroom gifted students benefit from advanced and honors courses in a wide variety of subject areas taught by experienced faculty as well as opportunities for internships, college course offerings, and innovative programs. Outside the classroom, students benefit from extracurricular activities which include competitive academic clubs and teams, shadowing programs and internships, and other opportunities to reinforce and enhance skills learned inside the classroom. In April 2009, the Department of Education noted a general correlation between students who took Advanced Placement courses in earning higher college GPAs, completing more credits, and attaining higher graduation rates than those who took non-AP courses in particular subject areas. To that end, Governor Riley and Superintendent Morton deserve credit for making Advanced Placement programs more accessible. In 2008, the College Board found that Alabama was outpacing the national average in both participation and performance. Programs like A+ College Readiness, the ACCESS Distance Learning Program, and the Math and Science Initiative have had great success in increasing the ability of students to participate and excel in advanced-level coursework.

Despite these gains, that doesn't mean the state can't do more. During my school years, I often witnessed qualified teachers retiring and new inexperienced teachers taking their place. School systems across Alabama need to develop better systems to guarantee that experienced teachers are ready to take over advanced-level courses and that schools continue to develop better course offerings for top students. From a young age, the state would also benefit from increasing accessibility to and effectiveness of gifted programs. According to the Department of Education, 4.8% of Alabama students participated in gifted programs in 2004 and 5.5% participated in 2006. This is below the national average of 6.7% in both years. Additionally, students who participate in those programs receive different levels of effectiveness. Some enterprising schools have worked out opportunities for high school gifted students to opt out of some elective coursework to pursue internships, lab experience, or other opportunities and projects in their communities. These programs which tie students to their communities play a critical role in student retention, but they should be more widely accessible across the state. Businesses, labs, universities, and other entities across the state should work in closer cooperation with public schools to offer these opportunities to top students.

Finally, Alabama must commit itself to providing students with ample opportunities in competitive academic teams and must invest resources into these programs. The Department of Education noted that student participation in sports in the South region increased from 38.6% in 1994 to 42.1% in 2004. However, participation in academic clubs in the South region decreased from 28.4% in 1994 to 23.5% in 2004. Relatively few high schools in Alabama have competitive academic quiz bowl teams, debate teams, or other programs. During my high school years, I was fortunate to travel across the state and region competing in debate contests. Through that process, I learned the most significant skills which allowed me to excel in college. I spent long nights assiduously researching, learned to present information in a persuasive and organized fashion, and developed an ability to think quickly. Had it not been for these experiences I would have still gone to college, but I would significantly lost on skills needed to succeed while in college. During my years, roughly a dozen Alabama high schools had successful debate programs. Stephen Black of the University of Alabama developed a SpeakFirst program to make debate competition accessible to students from a number of inner-city high schools. The Birmingham News touted the young program in a 2007 piece on accessibility of education resources to top students in Birmingham city schools. Alabama needs more programs like SpeakFirst in counties and towns across the state, and innovative programs such as this one should become more of a reality and less of an exception for Alabama students.

For decades, Alabama politicians have campaigned on the platform that Alabama must race to the top and cannot be last forever. To his credit, Gov. Riley has worked to pursue a number of these objectives at the state level. Back in 2007, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions successfully sponsored and passed a law called the Striving Readers initiative to increase literacy programs across the spectrum at the K-12 level. Frankly, both Alabama and America desperately need now a "Striving Strivers" initiative, for lack of a better term, providing more resources and opportunities for those students who have the strongest love to strive for more learning. As the statistics show, there is a lot of room for educational improvement in this state, and it is time at long last to make the top students a priority. If not, more of our top minds will continue to leave our state and eventually our nation in pursuit of greener pastures overseas.