Seeing students with their families is eye-opening
A conversation with Leslie Cornfeld (Apr 7, 2021)
By John Mitchell and Maxwell Bigman (Decade Ahead Project)
“Until you see students with their families,” Leslie Cornfeld tells us from her workspace in New York City, you “do not have the level of empathy that is often needed to adequately support students in these communities.” Working with a network of elite colleges, Title I high schools, and students in complex circumstances, Leslie tells us about bringing courses from selective universities to deserving students. In her view, the university professors, the university fellows who assist from college campuses, the high school mentor teachers and the students themselves have all developed more empathy this year.
Leslie Cornfeld is founder and CEO of the National Education Equity Lab, a nonprofit organization that gives deserving high school students a chance to earn college credit. The program is offered at Title I high schools, which are schools that receive federal funds to support academic achievement based on a high percentage of students from low-income families. The National Education Equity Lab program gives these students college-level courses that are taught by regular college professors, at no cost. The high school students benefit by learning about topics that interest them, entering college with transfer credit, and developing confidence that will help them succeed in college and beyond. In 2019, the Equity Lab worked with 25 Title I high schools in eleven cities, achieving striking success: 89% of the students who enrolled in a Harvard humanities course earned Harvard credit. “Student outcomes post-covid,” Leslie says, “are similar.”
The National Education Equity Lab courses use online lectures from professors at participating colleges and universities. “In many ways, the Equity Lab model was easy to pivot because it is inherently a hybrid,” Leslie tells us. Each high school group taking a class has both a mentor teacher at their high school and an assigned college teaching assistant called a university fellow. The high school students and their mentor teacher are in the same area, but the college professor and teaching fellows may be miles away. A high school mentor teacher normally works with twenty to twenty-five students. This local group was able to meet in person before the pandemic, but moved to an online format with shelter in place in 2020. University fellows grade the course work and make sure it meets college standards. The university fellows work with the mentor teacher and now during the pandemic they see the high school students face-to-face online.
Many university fellows “are not exposed to challenges of poverty or black or brown communities,” Leslie says. But now with direct interaction online, the new “proximity breeds an empathy and intimacy that is irreplaceable.” Mentor teachers also see their students in their homes, which is “eye-opening and inspiring for them.” In addition, the students themselves develop greater empathy for one another by seeing peers in their homes. We “heard time and time again,” Leslie says, that many students “thought they were the only ones with siblings or with parents on top of them.” Initially, like students everywhere, many students kept their cameras off and only spoke or listened. As time went on, “more and more videos were turned on as they became more comfortable.” Connecting the dots for us, Leslie says clearly that there is an “acceleration of understanding … that is here to stay.”
The fundamental goal of the National Education Equity Lab is to build new pathways for students in communities that have not traditionally had college access. After reading a glowing NY Times article (A College Program for Disadvantaged Teens Could Shake Up Elite Admissions, Feb 21, 2021), we ask Leslie how she sees the growing interest in her efforts among colleges and universities. “We are at a pivot point in our country and education systems about the role of higher education” she says. While many colleges and universities felt limited by the pool of students graduating from high school, Leslie says there is now “less of a tolerance for [the] claim of pipeline challenges” as an explanation of “why selective universities are 75% white.” As the Equity Lab model demonstrates, “talent is evenly distributed, opportunity is not.” There is a “growing demand for higher education to lean into the K-12 space in ways they haven’t before.”
In closing, Leslie presents a view for the future: our return to normal must be a new normal — one that is far more equitable. As Leslie explains, “the unmasking of the inequities that aren’t new but perhaps harder to ignore during covid; I hope and believe that is going to have a more permanent impact.” The past year has had an illuminating effect on what’s possible, opening educators’ eyes to their students’ lived experiences as well as the potential of technology. In Leslie’s view, the past year has created an “acceleration of understanding and ability to use technology in new ways that I think is here to stay and I hope is here to stay.” Despite the promise of Ed Tech, it has not been the great equalizer that it was envisioned to be. Yet the opportunity for impact remains. The lessons from the past year at the National Equity Lab point to a promising new model: a combination of technology with community and relationship building. We can all hope the challenges of the past year will launch a new era of technology-supported institutional collaboration that can equalize educational opportunity.
