UC to strengthen K-12, community college ties

As California and the nation grapple with the crisis in K-12 public education, it is clear to me that the University of California must serve a greater role in finding solutions to the challenges our schools are facing.

To provide higher education access to more California high school students, UC must pay attention to those students long before they begin filling out college applications.

To that end, I will be calling together a small group of leading thinkers from around the state and from within UC to discuss ways we can enhance opportunities for all of our young people.

UC has long been involved with these issues. Our campuses and research labs offer professional development programs for teachers. We support academic outreach programs, and our graduate schools of education lead the way in advancing learning methods. Now I'm looking forward to forging even closer relationships with K-12 and community college leaders to bolster UC's participation in all our shared educational missions.

The need is urgent. UC Riverside researchers recently studied standardized test data from the California Department of Education and their findings were grim: Nearly all elementary schools in the state will fail to meet the math and language proficiency goals required by a No Child Left Behind deadline in 2014. An estimated one in four California high school students drops out. And according to a UC Santa Barbara study, two years after they should have graduated with the class of 2004, 34 percent of California's high school dropouts were unemployed. To reverse those trends, we must act now.
 
When California faces challenges, we at the University of California have the ability to gather the best and brightest minds to meet those challenges. Our faculty and students are at work finding solutions to global warming, chronic diseases, natural resource shortages and hundreds of other critical research initiatives.

Now is the time to apply that same knack for discovery and innovation to the crises in our schools: Doing so is one of my top priorities.

In the months ahead, I'm looking closely at ways to strengthen the university's engagement with both the K-12 and community college systems in an atmosphere of mutual respect and cooperation.

What exactly can UC do? Certainly, the university cannot take on the work of the schools and community colleges, but we can contribute our expertise to finding new, results-driven ways to do that work. We can collaborate with school district and community college partners to secure external funding of worthy projects. We can work with community colleges to improve the transfer rates of their students to our campuses.

The future of California depends on the generation of young people sitting in our classrooms today. We must do all in our power to give them the knowledge, the skills, the passion and integrity to lead when their turn comes to run this great state. This is a responsibility we all share, and the University of California is ready to fulfill that responsibility.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Contact me at president@ucop.edu.

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