Alma Powell Morehouse College of Medicine Keynote for Dr. Roland Scott Lecture
Atlanta, Georgia February 25, 2010
Graduation and the Health of a Nation
Good afternoon. It is an honor to be with you today.
It is wonderful to be here at Morehouse and great to be back in Atlanta.
When I saw that my remarks to you were listed as a lecture — and began thinking about what the word “lecture” implies — I was reminded of what some of our family’s West Indian relatives used to call out when they thought the speaker needed to come to the point: “Brevity, brother, brevity!
So I will strive today not to exceed the bounds of brevity. But in the brief time we have together, I hope I can convey to you the seriousness of a challenge to our nation’s health that we face today. And I hope I can enlist your help, as future leaders of your communities, in reversing this health crisis.
For the past 13 years, I’ve been privileged to serve the largest multi-sector alliance in America that is focused on the well-being of young people.
As physicians in training, you are no doubt familiar with some of the well-being challenges we face.
We face a growing crisis in childhood obesity and juvenile diabetes — and I am so glad that our First Lady is focusing attention on this epidemic.
Too many of our children don’t get regular healthcare because they lack insurance. Along with one of our Alliance partners, the American Academy of Pediatrics, we have worked to ensure that six million children eligible for the CHIP program or Medicaid get enrolled.
After years of steady decline, we’re seeing increases in teen pregnancies. We see an alarming rate of infant mortality.
But I want to speak to you today about another epidemic. It claims another young person every 26 seconds.
It is an epidemic in high school dropouts. And in a very real way it threatens the health of this nation.
Today, one in three of our students fails to graduate high school. Put another way, we lose the equivalent of an entire graduating class every three years.
For 500,000 children in foster care, whose lives are complicated with changing schools and changing families, the odds against graduation are even higher.
The dropout epidemic is compounded by a related crisis: Only about one-third of those who graduate have enough of the skills they will need for success in college and today’s workforce.
Dropouts take a devastating human toll.
If you drop out, you’re twice as likely to be unemployed. You’ll be three times as likely to live in poverty. You’re eight times more likely to wind up in prison. There’s a 4 in 10 chance you’ll depend on public assistance. And you’re twice as likely to become the parent of a dropout and perpetuate the cycle.
Just as surely as any chronic, debilitating disease, dropping out cripples lives and limits futures. And maybe we need to think about it like a disease… because if some disease were crippling 1.3 million young people every year, we would make a national priority of stopping it.
WHY IT MATTERS TO ALL OF US
We all have a direct stake in this because we all pay an awful price when children fail to graduate.
If the dropouts who would have been part of the Class of 2009 had stayed in school and graduated, they’d generate an additional $319 billion in wages, taxes, and productivity over their working lives.
319 billion: That’s what we’re paying every single year. And it’s only part of the total price.
If all of the Class of 2009 had graduated, our nation would save another $174 billion in healthcare costs. That’s because young people who drop out are more likely to suffer health problems and have shorter life expectancies.
If the graduation rate for just male students increased by just 5 percent, we would gain $7.7 billion in crime-related savings.
When the future of so many young people is at risk, America’s economic security is at risk. Our ability to compete globally is at risk. Our national security and strength are at risk. The integrity of our society is at risk.
And I would add one more: Our values are at risk.
THE CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE OF OUR GENERATION
When our Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, came to Atlanta last month, he said that education is the civil rights issue of our time. He’s right.
I come from a family of educators. Far back in our history, my forebears saw that education is how we make a way for ourselves.
My grandfather was born a slave. My grandmother was born one year after emancipation. Both of them went to college. And their education opened a pathway for future generations of our family. Education was our Great Emancipator.
Today, for students of color, the odds of graduating from high school are just 1 in 2.
If, by accident of birth or geography, you come up through the main public school system in one of our 50 largest cities, the chances that you’ll graduate on time are just 50-50.
Hear that again: The odds that you’ll have a real opportunity to share in the American dream are no better than the flip of a coin.
Fifty years ago, students like you said enough was enough, and they refused to budge from segregated lunch counters. They made the nation confront a great moral wrong, and refused to stop until their neighbors did what was right.
Today, we must rekindle that spirit of urgent determination.
We must refuse to take no for an answer until the whole nation gets involved in emancipating the young people who are waiting to graduate into the American Dream.
Americans must all be in this struggle together.
Now, I know that you have full plates, and the pile of your responsibilities will only get higher as you go through residencies, work hard to repay student loans, and try to establish a medical career.
But I believe that you, as African American students in a great African American university — and as future physicians who will become leaders of your communities — have a special calling.
Dr. Roland B. Scott, whose work inspired this lecture series, is a great example of how the pressing needs of the day may call us to move beyond our familiar comfort zones.
Dr. Scott was trained as an allergist. But in the emergency department at the Howard University Hospital, he noticed a frightening number of children with complications of sickle-cell disease. And so he redirected his career. He became the nation’s foremost expert on the disease.
But not only that: Dr. Scott also became a relentless advocate. Like those students in Greensboro and Nashville, he would not take no for an answer.
He was the driving force behind the passage of the Sickle-Cell Anemia Control Act of 1971, leading the government to invest tens of millions of dollars each year in search of a cure.
Dr. Scott could have enjoyed a rewarding career as an allergist. He could have rationalized that sickle-cell disease was not his specialty and was someone else’s problem. He could have followed his preference to practice medicine rather than spend so much time prodding the government to act.
But we know he didn’t follow that easy path. He saw a disease that was ravaging his people. He got out of his professional silo and took action.
And so I challenge you today to follow Dr. Scott’s example. I am not asking you to change your planned medical specialty. But I am challenging you to change your thinking and to get involved.
The dropout epidemic is insidiously stalking our youth — and none more disastrously than Hispanic and African American children.
We know it has long-term consequences to their physical health. And even more, we know that this cancer, if left to grow, will consume the vitality of our nation.
This is our fight. It is not a struggle we can delegate to someone else… to a specialist. There is no “they” in this. There is only “we.”
For the past two years, America’s Promise Alliance has been raising awareness about how high dropout rates and low readiness for college and work undermine our nation’s future.
In nearly all 50 states and 55 cities, we have convened high-level Dropout Prevention Summits that brought together over 20,000 mayors and governors, business and community leaders, school administrators, students and parents. They have committed to concrete action plans to improve graduation rates in their states and communities.
Now, as the next phase of our work, we are refocusing from the problem to solutions.
This year, we are launching a long-term campaign called Grad Nation — to mobilize the nation against the dropout crisis.
Together, we intend to see that 90% of today’s fourth-graders graduate from high school on time. And we will realize President Obama’s goal of restoring America to global leadership in college graduation by 2020.
Toward our goal, we are engaging nearly 400 national Alliance partners and their local affiliates to work together like never before. Our partners represent every sector of the American community:
non-profits…
the business community…
the faith community…
educators…
policymakers…
philanthropic organizations…
and, yes, the medical community. In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics is one of our most committed partners.
Young people themselves have a powerful voice in our work.
Just 2,000 high schools — that’s a mere 12% of the total — account for 50% of the dropouts. So, through collaborations involving our partners, we are bringing unprecedented support to the schools and neighborhoods where the need is greatest
We are harnessing the power of community partnerships to support our teachers and principals and parents in ways that change the odds, change lives and change futures.
Improving graduation rates and readiness for success is not just an education issue; it’s a community issue. And we cannot expect more from our schools until we are prepared to be more involved ourselves, because so many of the building blocks that make for success in school involve things beyond the hours and walls of schools.
We have always described these building blocks as the Five Promises. An effective education is one.
But children also need caring adults across their lives. They need safe places, a healthy start, and opportunities to help others and learn the value of service. When children have a critical mass of these Five Promises in their lives, the odds of success swing dramatically in their favor, regardless of race, location or income level.
And we know that many of the roots of the dropout crisis can be found in the shortage of the Five Promises in children’s lives. Those who are most likely to become casualties of the dropout epidemic are also the least likely to have enough of the Promises.
Here’s just one example of how it’s all connected.
Children who come to school hungry aren’t prepared to learn. Children lacking access to regular care are more likely to be sick, which means they’re more likely to be absent from school. Absenteeism is a telltale warning sign that a child may drop out. We also know that children covered by health insurance tend to miss fewer school days and do better in the classroom.
Because it really is all connected, it takes the entire American community, living out the meaning of community, to keep these Promises.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
So the question is: What can you do? What will you do?
As future doctors, the most obvious contribution you make is in helping fulfill the Promise of a healthy start.
If you pursue a pediatric specialty, you are in a unique position to guide parents on pathways that lead to healthy development of the whole child.
Parents trust your expertise. They will listen when you remind them that a healthy start is about more than making sure children have their shots.
Because you are in regular contact with families, you can be an invaluable gateway to other resources.
But whatever your specialty, your expertise can help in other ways, like volunteering at a community clinic — or helping start a clinic in a school.
And as a doctor, you will occupy a position of respect and influence that can be vital for children.
And even beyond your medical career, there is so much you can do.
Volunteer at a school. Help connect children and parents with resources they need.
Tutor students after school. It makes a difference. Be a mentor, especially to students that are at risk. Did you know that students who meet regularly with a mentor are 50% less likely to skip school?
Be part of a career exploration program — a proven way to help students stay engaged in school and motivated to succeed.
Give books and read to young children.
The Points of Light Foundation — one of our oldest Alliance partners — is headquartered right here in Atlanta. Find out how you, or a group of you together, can be a point of light in this community.
NO CONTRIBUTION IS TOO SMALL
Don’t leave your light under a bushel. And never think that your contribution is too small.
Here in Atlanta, and in 33 other states, the Carson Scholars program awards scholarships to students who have shown a heart for serving their communities. They’ve bestowed more than 3,900 scholarships since they started.
This program began with the commitment of two people, Dr. Benjamin Carson and his wife, Candy.
Dr. Carson grew up in dire poverty, in a single-parent home. But he became one of the foremost pediatric neurologists in the world. He believed that, because he had received so much, it was his obligation to give back. And so the Carsons decided to provide scholarships at one school in Baltimore.
Their example inspired others to get involved. And from that involvement the circle grew ever wider. Their motto is “Think Big.” Before long, they hope to have at least one Carson Scholar in every school in America.
Act locally, but think big.
The contribution you make, no matter how seemingly small, is a ripple. Enough ripples together can form an unstoppable current.
The old African proverb has it right: It really does take a village to raise a child. It takes every sector of the community.
Having an administration that has made a priority of improving education is powerfully important.
Yet we also know the job must involve more than government, schools and money alone.
We must draw on “the power of we.”
We are called in this campaign to renew a spirit of community. And we know what is possible when the community comes together, because we have seen it.
I have seen it in places like PS/IS 50 in New York City — a failing school on the road to closure until a dynamic new principal began engaging the larger community. And then the power of the community went to work, including a health clinic in the school operated by the Children’s Aid Society. Now this school provides all Five Promises. Instead of an isolated outpost, it’s a hub of integrated resources
I’ve seen the power of community at work in the Harlem Children’s Zone, where the free clinic run by the Children’s Health Project is just one of the ways the Five Promises make all the difference in the lives of at-risk young people.
We’re seeing it in cities like Philadelphia and Tucson, which have improved their graduation rates by more than 20 percentage points in a decade.
I’m seeing it communities across this land, where our Alliance and others have helped raise the alarm that too many of our children are in trouble, and our neighbors are answering the call as they always do in times of need.
WE HAVE THE WAY IF WE HAVE THE WILL
The choice we face today is simple. Our nation’s health is at risk. If we are to remain a great nation, we must be a Grad Nation.
It is not a question of whether we have the power. It is only a question of whether our nation has the will.
Let us respond with the answer our children are counting on:
We have the will. And we will make a difference.
Thank you.