Last week, we came across an op-ed piece in the New York Times about how "Race to the Top," a new government-sponsored edu­ca­tional pro­gram, is chal­leng­ing high schools to not only pre­pare stu­dents for col­lege, but to boost col­lege enroll­ment and suc­cess, as well. In other words, it's putting the respon­si­bil­ity of "grade 13" onto high school edu­ca­tors and admins. The let­ter was writ­ten by Col­lege Sum­mit, a non­profit orga­ni­za­tion we dig for it's com­mit­ment to help­ing school dis­tricts and low-income areas increase their lev­els of col­lege success.

Although the New York Times didn't pub­lish this let­ter, we've made it avail­able for com­ments here on our blog.

Dear NYT let­ters editor,

Re: "High School's Last Test," by J.B. Schramm and E. Kin­ney Zalesne (Op-Ed, Dec. 22:

Race to the Top relies on a top-down struc­ture, fun­nel­ing in money to set cur­ricu­lum and best prac­tice stan­dards below. If we are to see any college-boosting change on a nation­wide scale, a bottom-up approach must com­ple­ment the Depart­ment of Education’s efforts.

Community-based ini­tia­tives like Col­lege Summit’s own sys­tem for track­ing col­lege atten­dance and suc­cess must con­tinue to help high school prin­ci­pals and admin­is­tra­tors effi­ciently gather and use this hard-to-find data. Part­ner­ships with col­leges and edu­ca­tion non­prof­its will play a crit­i­cal role, as they also have a clear inter­est in this type of data. The bur­den should not rest on school sys­tem heads alone, as they face the task of revamp­ing cur­ricu­lum to meet high school's new mission.

The suc­cess of Race to the Top will undoubt­edly depend on community-based sup­port such as the type Col­lege Sum­mit provides.

Sin­cerely,

~Lisa Rau