The White House announced yesterday that it’s planning to host a summit on American community colleges on October 5. The host of the event will be the vice president’s wife, Jill Biden, who teaches English at Northern Virginia Community College. Biden (right) writes that,
Obama asked me to convene the first-ever White House Summit on Community Colleges to highlight the importance of community colleges to our students and our economy. I am pleased to announce today that this summit will take place on Tuesday, October 5th.
The summit will bring together students, community colleges, business, philanthropy, federal and state policy leaders and others to discuss how community colleges can ensure that we have the most educated workforce in the world.
So currently the community college summit has a host, a date, and the second lady’s assurance that community colleges are “important.” All that’s needed are a location, participants, and, well, any substantive ideas at all.
Here’s an idea: Obama said that America should have 5 million more community college graduates. Meanwhile, the actual increase in the number of people enrolled in community colleges due to the terrible economy mostly seems to just strain community college resources and reduce their effectiveness.
This might be an important challenge to address. [Image via]
