Emphasize the Ambitious: Q&A With Kati Haycock

Kati Haycock, the president of The Education Trust and a warrior in the battle to close achievement gaps, reflects on the value of NCLB, what’s she learned about the task, and what’s required to move ahead, in an interview with Phi Delta Kappan magazine.

Kappan: When I think of Kati Haycock, I think of someone who is synonymous with fighting to improve the education of poor and minority kids, but I don’t know how you got started down that road. Tell me about that.

Haycock: One of my first jobs after college was at the University of California system where, at the ridiculously young age of 24, I was put in charge of the university’s efforts to respond to a legislative resolution that called on the system to attain—by 1980—a student body that looked like the population of California. We were a long way from that. The University of California was constitutionally prohibited from admitting anybody who wasn’t in the top 12½% of his or her graduating class. But even though we went after that goal very aggressively, it quickly became clear that until some pretty fundamental changes occurred in K-12, too, we were never going to reach that goal.

That goal took over my life. What animated me was how we could turn around the performance of the groups of kids who were behind. I came to believe that what was happening in K-12 was important to making that change.

I think of our work as helping to make our country better. When you consider the ideals upon which we were created, and you look at what the data tell us about inequality, it’s clear that our narrative as a country is far away from where we really are.

Kappan: So, there’s no childhood story, no growing up experience that influenced this career choice?

Haycock: I grew up in Los Angeles and, like lots of kids in Los Angeles at that time, I went to a racially mixed school. But, by the time I got to middle school, very few of my classes were mixed. Because I shared a Mexican culture—my father was born to a Mexican-American mother and a white father—there was always a question about why kids who shared my culture weren’t in my classes. So, I was confused and troubled by all of those things. But I think the early experience at the university really cemented my interest in this work.

Change in Thinking

Kappan: I want to borrow a page from Richard Elmore’s new book, I Used to Think ... and Now I Think ... (Harvard Education Press, 2011) and ask how your ideas have changed over the years regarding what’s required to close the various gaps. What did you think would work in the beginning of this work, and what do you believe now about what’s required to make those changes?

Haycock: It’s been a constant evolution. In the beginning, for example, there was an intuitive appeal about a preK-and-up strategy. It certainly makes sense that if you get kids started well, and keep them doing well as they move through school, they will perform well later on. Besides, elementary schools are easier to work with.

But I realized pretty quickly that this kind of thinking had led to widespread assumptions about “education as immunization.” Yes, starting early helps. The problem is that, even if you get them early enough, it doesn’t inoculate them if what comes later is of low quality.

Experience has convinced me that change will occur faster if it’s driven from the top, from college or high school. When colleges demand, high schools change; when high schools demand, elementary and middle schools change.

Another example? I certainly have changed my mind around issues of curriculum. In the very early days of standards-based reform, we thought it was enough for states to make the goal clear and that teachers should be free to figure out how to teach to it. I think I was dimly aware that most teachers probably couldn’t do that very well, but I got swept up in the thinking that, with enough support, teachers could bring their practice into line with standards. It would take some time, but it wouldn’t take forever.

It’s the countless conversations I’ve had with teachers themselves that have convinced me that, especially for low-income kids, educators want and need far more guidance, support, lessons, units, assignments for teachers. We shouldn’t be leaving things like the orderly development of vocabulary and background knowledge to individual teachers to figure out. Even if they’re really good, they can miss something that’s hugely important. So, I’m squarely in line with the AFT (American Federation of Teachers) around more guidance, supports, lessons, whatever.

Kappan: Related to this, how has your thinking changed about the importance of federal policy as a lever for change?

Haycock: I have always believed that federal policy has a huge impact in shaping practice, for good ...

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