What If Harvard, Howard and Princeton Offered Courses at Every Title I High School in the U.S.?

April 25, 2:15 pm ET

PowerPoint presentation

What happens when selective colleges partner with Title I high schools to offer students college-credit bearing classes?

Former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Howard University President Wayne Frederick and CEO/Founder of the education justice nonprofit the National Education Equity Lab, Leslie Cornfeld, will join LaVerne Srinivasan of the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Henry McCance of the McCance Foundation to share an exciting national effort connecting selective universities and colleges with historically marginalized high schools across the nation.

With a consortium of colleges and universities (including Howard, Princeton, Stanford, Wharton, ASU, Georgetown, Barnard/Columbia, Wesleyan, Cornell and Brown) the Ed Equity Lab delivers and supports college credit-bearing courses into teacher-led Title I or Title I-eligible high school classrooms at no cost to students. Starting in 2019, this opportunity is now offered in 32 states, 90+ school districts and will have reached 10,000 students by the end of this year. Featured on the front page of The New York Times, the results to date are exciting! (See below for this article and more.)

Spoiler alert: the results confirm that talent is evenly distributed in our nation, opportunity is not.

This event is intended for members and other education grantmakers. There is no cost to attend this program. Session will run for one hour.

Registration closes 15 minutes prior to the program time. Thank you for your patience; we review each registration in advance.

You can learn more about this effort here:

• The New York Times, front-page story,  “A College Program For Underserved Students Could Shake Up Elite Admissions” here
• Inside Philanthropy, “Education Funders Are Throwing Weight Behind this Small Non-Profit’s Equity Work. Here’s Why” here
• Bloomberg Opinion, “The Big Question: Can Elite Colleges Help Close the Opportunity Gap?” here 
• Wall Street Journal article here.
• Inside Higher Ed article, discussion with Raj Chetty,  here. 
• EdEquityLab.org

About the Presenters

Leslie Cornfeld
Founder & CEO
National Education Equity Lab

Ms. Cornfeld has devoted her career to advancing equity and opportunity for our nation’s underserved communities — through their schools, justice systems and unconventional partners.  A former senior Obama administration official, advising two U.S. Secretaries of Education and the White House for the President’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative, and a two-term advisor for former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, she currently leads the National Education Equity Lab, a nonprofit that she founded to drive opportunity at scale through innovation, collaboration and action.  She was a federal civil rights prosecutor, taught at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and started her career as an aide to former U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan in Washington DC.

More bio here: https://edequitylab.org/leslie-cornfeld/

Arne Duncan
Managing Partner
Chicago CRED

Arne Duncan served as U.S. Secretary of Education from January 2009 through December 2015 as part of the Obama Administration. Prior to joining the Obama Administration, Duncan served as chief executive officer of Chicago Public Schools. From 2001 to 2008, Duncan won praise for uniting the city’s stakeholders behind an education agenda that included opening 100 new schools; expanding after-school, summer learning, early childhood, and college access programs; dramatically boosting the caliber of teachers; and building public-private partnerships around a variety of education initiatives.

He currently leads Chicago CRED, a nonprofit trying to achieve a transformative reduction in gun violence in Chicago. Through partnerships with local business leaders, community organizers, and nonprofit groups, Duncan aims to provide outreach, therapeutic, education, and employment opportunities for the young men most likely to be engaged in gun violence. He is also the managing partner at Emerson Collective, an organization dedicated to removing barriers so people can live to their full potential. Secretary Duncan graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1987, majoring in sociology. At Harvard he served as co-captain of the basketball team and was named a first team Academic All-American.

Duncan serves on the boards of: Ariel Capital Management, Aspen Institute, Communities in Schools, Lucas Museum, My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, National Association of Basketball Coaches, Revolution Foods, Thrive-Chicago and Catapult Learning, LLC. He also serves as Co-chair of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.

Dr. Wayne Frederick
President
Howard University

Dr. Wayne A. I. Frederick was appointed the 17th president of Howard University in 2014 and was named the distinguished Charles R. Drew Professor of Surgery by the Board of Trustees in 2020. He previously served in numerous capacities within the University, including provost and chief academic officer, director of the Cancer Center, associate dean in the College of Medicine, division chief in the Department of Surgery, and deputy provost for health sciences. Today, he continues to operate and also gives lectures to second-year medical students and surgical residents of Howard’s medical school.

As president, Dr. Frederick has advanced Howard University’s commitment to student opportunity, academic innovation, public service and fiscal stability. He has also pursued initiatives to streamline and strengthen University operations. In addition, he has overseen a series of reform efforts, including the expansion of academic offerings, establishing innovative programs to support student success and the modernization of University facilities.

Dr. Frederick matriculated to Howard in 1988 to pursue a B.S./M.D. dual degree program. He completed the requirements for both degrees in six years, allowing him to earn his Bachelor of Science degree and his medical degree by the age of 22. He also earned a Master of Business Administration from Howard University’s School of Business in 2011.

Dr. Frederick is a widely recognized expert on disparities in health care and medical education. His medical research focuses on narrowing racial, ethnic and gender disparities in cancer care outcomes, especially in relation to gastrointestinal cancers. He also devotes his time to writing and speaking on salient topics in higher education and the underrepresentation of African-Americans in health care.

Dr. Frederick has received various awards honoring his scholarship, service and community impact, including the Educator Award by the Lowell F. Hawthorne Foundation, Inc.; the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center; and the Diaspora Public Diplomacy Leadership Award by the Embassy of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. He also serves on numerous boards and committees, including the Board of Directors of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Humana Inc.

Henry McCance
Trustee
McCance Foundation

Henry McCance is chairman emeritus of Greylock. Henry came to Greylock in 1969 after serving for two years in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He was responsible for Greylock’s early involvement in the software industry with his backing of many market-leading firms.

Over the ensuing 40 years of his tenure, Greylock has raised a series of twelve partnerships, with current committed capital in excess of $2 billion, and helped build approximately 300 developing companies. In recognition, Henry received the National Venture Capital Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award in May 2004. And, along with Greylock’s founding partners, the Harvard Business School Award for Alumni Achievement in 2003. In 2000, Henry was voted one of the country’s 10 best VCs by Forbes. Henry also served on the board of and led Greylock’s investment in multiple national and international companies. In addition he served on the Board of Directors of Continental Cablevision for 25 years.Henry is a graduate of Yale University and the Harvard Business School.

Henry is a co-Chairman of Cure Alzheimer’s Fund, which he co-founded in 2004, a nonprofit which uses the venture capital model to fund breakthrough research on Alzheimer’s Disease. Henry served as a member of the Yale Investment Committee from 2003 to 2011. He continues to serve as Chairman of the Greylock Israel Advisory, Chairman of Greylock Israel Advisory Committee, a Director of New Profit, and a Trustee of The McCance Foundation.

LaVerne Evans Srinivasan
Vice President and Program Director
Carnegie Corporation of New York

LaVerne Evans Srinivasan is the vice president of Carnegie Corporation of New York’s National program and program director for Education. At the Corporation she oversees grantmaking and amplifying activities aimed at engaging parents and communities, improving teaching and leadership for learning, advancing innovative learning environment designs, providing K–12 pathways to college and career success, and fostering integrated approaches to innovation and learning. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Srinivasan joined Carnegie Corporation in 2014, arriving with extensive experience in senior-level leadership roles in the areas of urban district change, nonprofit education reform, and educational technology. She served as a deputy chancellor of the New York City Department of Education (2003–2006), where, among other accomplishments, she designed and implemented Project Home Run, a strategically redesigned and streamlined system for recruiting, hiring, and placing teachers and school principals that greatly increased the teacher talent available to high-needs schools and which has been replicated nationwide. Srinivasan is a member of Grantmakers for Education’s board of directors.