America’s Need to Innovate and Champion Equality
Bringing Access and Opportunity Back to Underserved Communities
Richard Riley, Former Secretary of Education and South Carolina Governor
As part of the Reimagine America’s Schools interview series, former Secretary of Education and South Carolina Governor Richard Riley is joined by President and CEO of the National Design Alliance Ron Bogle and Ted Landsmark, Professor of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and Director of the Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University. Secretary Riley recently delivered a powerful Op Ed in the Post and Courier about structural racism, a timely and relevant thought piece that highlights the hurdles to achieve academic success by members of underserved communities.
In this session, the discussion turned to opportunities to improve public education, universal access and more equitable outcomes.
Ted Landsmark (TL): I'm very curious as to what sparked your interest in improving public education to positively impact students’ lives?
Secretary Richard Riley (RR): Bill Clinton asked me to be the Secretary of Education because of my interest in reforming education in South Carolina, which involved a tax increase requiring a statewide movement that involved lots of people. I led that fight, and we were successful in it. It really did some good for our public schools and for all children in South Carolina. Well, Clinton liked that. I was involved in the standards movement as well, and so was Clinton when he was the Governor of Arkansas.
We have a very large African-American population in South Carolina, and they're very close to me and I'm close to them. They'd been held down for a long time, but they were coming back and doing a lot of great things. But their children really needed to have a lift in education. Education has always been a love of mine and we wanted to put a strong focus on schools as the centers of community to help people in the community feel part of the school and get them to help children in the community. As you know Ted, we have a large rural community down here in South Carolina that’s very poor, so my law firm worked for 15 years on a pro bono basis on behalf of these rural school districts, trying to get the state to reorganize its funding mechanism, which was very unfair to poor people.
Ron Bogle (RB): The pandemic has clearly revealed the unacceptable inequities that exist in schools between communities that have resources and those that do not. What do you think of current efforts to address inequality in America?
RR: This inequality movement I think is going to be very, very big. I mean a lot of people around me are saying, "Well, it'll go by the wayside after a while. A couple of terrible incidents and that's all." However, it's bigger than that. I think it is a very big movement, and I'm very proud of it and that's why I wrote that article for The Post and Courier. I think we ought to be seeing it's a big thing and an important thing and deal with it. And one way you can deal with it is having the schools built and designed in brilliant ways to do things, using technology. You can use schools to move this effort forward and help kids that otherwise wouldn't have a proper chance. And I'd be all for that.
RB: When you were Secretary of Education, you introduced a visionary concept of schools that served the broader needs of underserved communities by merging other public and private sector service providers with the local school. It was called “Schools as Centers of Community.” How should we look at new ways of thinking about this concept in light of today’s challenges in schools and communities?
RR: I think the core issues are still the same. As you recall, we had a lot more enthusiasm for elementary schools and some middle schools, but very little involvement in high schools. The concept was more successful in those early years, and that probably would be true now in the way we've defined it.
The other issue now is that things have changed since we started our push for schools as centers of community 25 years ago. The idea of a community is so different now from what it was. The idea of encouraging grandparents to come in and help young children learn how to read, that was very successful when we were there. We pushed that, and I mean thousands and thousands of grandmothers and grandfathers would come in and work with young children.
With the pandemic, we are finally taking an honest look at the inequities in our country. I’m very much into that movement. The Riley Institute here at Furman University has placed a big emphasis on diversity through our Diversity Leadership Initiative (DLI). Over 2000 leaders, black and white, in South Carolina have gone through our leadership course.
RB: One of the major movements in schools today is a more personalized learning approach; project-based learning, Maker-space, STEM, STEAM, etc. And technology is often an indispensable player, but there is a lack of equitable access to these technology enrichments.
TL: I think a number of us believed, quite naively, that if you distributed a lot of laptops, young people would be able to get along without going to a school building, and that the distribution of knowledge would be facilitated because of the new technology. But certainly one of the things we've learned in a lot of urban areas — to say nothing of the more remote rural areas — is that the technology only works if you have a center where young people can have a computer and a hot spot that can distribute all of that knowledge. And that hotspot may come from stationing an old school bus in a neighborhood and using that as the connecting point. So the technology is great, but the building must also become a place where people can come together to see things that they can't see at home.
RR: I think that is a very good point. Community schools are not only hubs for technology, but also for nutrition and healthcare. Architects and urban planners are smart people and I think the time is upon us for a real unique look at schools, and I would love for some options to be put out there; how do you develop infrastructure from an architectural standpoint? It's an exciting thought. And I love what you have said about project-based learning. I think that kind of concept is different, but boy it's growing. And kids that are into it love it. This is especially important now since we’re looking at very large financial investments coming over the next five years if they pass the federal infrastructure bill.
RB: The challenges we’re facing in education are massive, and that will require civic and education leaders who will embrace innovation and change. You've worked at all levels of government and know firsthand how difficult change is. What advice can you give to mayors and educators trying to reimagine our schools?
RR: Well the mayor is critical to the process, and a lot is happening in rural areas and in big cities. I think the combination of school people, mayors and county council people could form groups to study schools and look at what could be done locally, because they're so different locally.
I just talked to all-state superintendents last week, a big conference we were supposed to have at Myrtle Beach but we had it on ETV. And I had five people in the room, and 1400 online. But I had all the school superintendents, all the assistant superintendents, and a lot of principals.
One thing I talked to them about is change, and I reminded everybody about a Dilbert cartoon where he said "Change is good. You go first." Nobody wants to be a lead off first.
The time we are in now calls for some really innovative thinking. I would love to look at a number of options from thoughtful architects, urban planners, city people, engineers and educators. Any time I made a major decision in my office in Washington, I didn't try to make major decisions involving 50 million young people without having a teacher present.
TL: It also strikes me that when you're talking to mayors, there is an economic payoff for the investment that you make in the schools. My recollection is that in the upstate in South Carolina, when international companies were thinking of building their production facilities and their manufacturing facilities in an area that was still largely rural, one of the things that they wanted to know was whether there would be a large enough pool of talent that would be available for them to be able to hire locally. And that meant investing in the schools at all levels to provide young people with skills in robotics and in new manufacturing techniques.
RR: Mayors are always struggling with money, just like anybody else. The issue of school buildings, of course, is the taxing structure of education, which is really very unfair to poor kids. Why? Because it's based on the value of the property, and industry within the district and all of that. Rural areas used to be doing well, but now, those young people get out of there as soon as they're old enough to leave, and they’re either going to college or going to work. But they don't see any opportunities in those rural areas. They're crying out for more industry and more jobs for their young people.
RB: Well, we're excited to be picking up the flag, so to speak, and take another look at the concept of schools as centers of community. We believe this concept presents a tangible and meaningful way for communities to help close the equity gap and elevate support for underserved communities, students and families in neighborhoods across the US.
TL: Well, I want to thank you for your work in terms of accelerating people's engagement with issues of racial justice. One of the things I remember from law school and the kinds of conversations we had then was that there would come a time when our experience would need to be passed onto the next generation. And you've been doing that and those of us who are involved with education certainly are fundamentally committed to doing that.
Periodically, it's important to restate our values and our commitments to being just and fair, and to dealing with the racial inequalities that exist in this country. I think you've been extremely forthright in expressing that this needs to be dealt with now. And that those of us who've been around for a while need to stand up and support the young people, who are pushing forward with this movement to address many of the inequalities that have existed for so long.