Over the past 35 years, HSF has been content to fly under the radar, quietly giving out $300 million in scholarship aid to students. With Generation 1st Degree, however, the Fund realized it needed to make more of a splash, and it’s been fascinating to work with them to help raise visibility for their organization and efforts like these.

President Obama is also a fan of HSF’s work, and donated part of his Nobel Peace Prize winnings to the Fund. His support was honored today as well with the announcement of HSF’s first “Obama Scholars.” Check out the coverage some of these scholars received today in this article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The media, however, is interested in more than HSF’s generosity as a scholarship fund. In meetings here in D.C. last week, we found education reporters were particularly interested in HSF’s willingness to tackle cultural barriers.

Though study after study shows that Hispanic students often fail to attend (or graduate) from college because of either familial expectations or obligations, few propose a solution to overcoming these hurdles. The Fund, however, addresses this challenge front and center, most prominently with this current Ad Council campaign:

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In the coming months, be sure to check back here as we feature more video clips showing the creative ways HSF is hoping to effect cultural change within the Hispanic community to boost college attendance.

- Elizabeth Farrell, Client Development Manager

Traditionally, these imperatives have put community colleges in a tough spot. There is a natural tension between their institutional commitments to open-access for all students, and their characteristically low graduation rates.

This challenge has made it particularly gratifying for us to partner with Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count. Since 2008, we have been working with ATD – which has received significant funding from Lumina Foundation for Education and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – to help community colleges stay true to their role while improving their outcomes. What began as a 26-college pilot program in 2004 has blossomed into a network of 130 such institutions spread over 24 states and the District of Columbia.

The success of this initiative receives some much-deserved credit and recognition in this Sept. 6th cover story in Community College Week. By highlighting the practices some “leader colleges” have employed to boost their graduation rates, the article provides ample food for thought for institutions struggling with similar challenges.

A  recent Houston Chronicle article includes further commentary from Jamie Merisotis, president of the foundation, on the urgency of these educational goals.

Lumina Foundation for Education is a public relations client of Lipman Hearne.

- Rodney Ferguson, Managing Director & Principal

But if Secretary Duncan, his lieutenants, and education leaders across the country want to make a case that these spending levels are the new norm and should continue, they’ve got two huge challenges – first, they’ve got to deliver quality results. And second, they’ve got to convince the American people that they’ve delivered. Higher achievement, more and better early education options, and higher graduation rates from both high school and college are the new expectations. And, assuming that educators and their policy colleagues are successful on the ground, they’ve got to make these improvements tangible to the American people.

This is going to require a sea change in attitudes among the education world. American education institutions are notorious for resisting transparency. Lots of people in education are used to using the language of victimization to argue for more money – the “children are our future” argument, “if you don’t give us more money then you must not like children,” etc. etc. Secretary Duncan could help both educators and the American people if he required that public school districts, early education programs, and colleges and universities drop their traditional resistance to transparency and embrace open communication using real data. For K-12 systems, that means making academic progress by group, graduation rates, and income level readily available. For colleges and universities, that includes focusing on measuring the value that tuition money buys as well as being honest about how many students they are graduating.

There’s growing evidence that the successful reform efforts that have been in cultivation since the first Bush Administration are beginning to take hold, and, so far, the Obama Administration seems to be directing these new resources to support many of those efforts. But the second challenge – convincing the American public that it should continue to spend more on education – is going to require a much more targeted, disciplined strategy for communicating success than the education community usually musters. In every state, in every school district, in every school, there’s going to need to be a sea change in the way educators talk to their constituents. Educators are going to have to communicate a simple message – we’re using your money wisely, and here’s the proof of that. Test scores are improving. The achievement gap between minority and white kids is closing. Participation in AP and IB classes is climbing. More kids are graduating from high school, and more of them are going on to (and graduating from) college.

Huge exo-systems such as our own education system are geared to do exactly the opposite. There’s never been an imperative for spreading successful education practices and communicating that success to teh public – until now. The huge increases in federal spending on education put to bed the old standby that the federal government’s spending on education is too miniscule to really drive wholesale change. Even though, on a federal level, we still spend less per capital than most countries do, Secretary Duncan and his colleagues can no longer hide behind the “local control” argument.  The Feds now have lots of skin in the game.   They need to make sure that the folks who are on the receiving end of this enormous federal largesse are forced to talk to their constituents about what is working, what’s not, and the shared responsibilities to ensure success. If they do, democracy, school systems, colleges – and, most important, our kids – will benefit for years to come.

- Rodney Ferguson, Managing Director & Principal

Read more about their work, and a Q&A with Dr. Lubchenco here »

Visit the MacArthur Foundation online here »