The Pew Research Center presents some findings that should cause a moment of celebration, some serious reflection, and then more action. The spike in enrollment of Hispanic and black students is not the result of their larger representation in the total population. This development is the result of more Hispanic and black students presenting as fully qualified for college admission. And, that is the result of more rigorous and productive learning, brought about by the great teachers and school leaders these students encountered in elementary/secondary systems.

The moment of celebration is warranted because we should acknowledge when we are making progress toward a difficult but worthy and essential goal. After all, it is that acknowledgement that will inspire further devotion to the goal. It is like knowing when the epidemic might be coming to an end. Malcolm Gladwell might call it the “tipping point.”

The moment of reflection should cause one to recognize that the Hispanic and black student surge in college enrollment is the result of interventions, perhaps unseen and certainly unheralded, that preceded Race to The Top. Indeed, while the Elementary and Secondary Education Act should be improved on several fronts, I doubt that we would be seeing this result absent its requirement to focus on students who are not benefiting from the instruction that had been available to them.

Finally, this report should be reason for action. Throughout the entire education system, we should be more involved with Hispanic and black communities and the schools that serve them. This is why AACTE encourages our members to get involved from the higher-education level. We have numerous, impressive partnerships between universities and K-12 school districts focused on improving learning for children and producing new teachers who are ready to contribute to the process of improving instruction for all learners. This includes students who are English language learners, students in low-income communities and students with disabilities. These partnerships are exemplified by the implementation of the Teacher Quality Partnership Grants (http://www2.ed.gov/programs/tqpartnership/awards.html).

With that said, there is still much left to do, so let’s keep busy.

Access to a college education is the ticket to social and economic success in a global economy increasingly driven by knowledge. Increasing college access – particularly for historically underserved learners – can lead to positive outcomes in a myriad of areas. That’s why the Pew report on college enrollment and ethnicity is to be celebrated.

As Sandy Kress points out, the numbers are surely trending positively because of a generation of progress prodded by the civil rights movement and continued through today’s reform efforts.

Organizations such as the Lumina Foundation continue to beat the college-access drum loudly with an overarching 2025 goal of increasing the proportion of Americans with high-quality degrees and credentials to 60 percent. That’s a challenge I believe we can meet by implementing the right reforms through public policy that make sense and, perhaps most importantly, raising expectations of what learners can achieve.

But beyond sophisticated organizations like Lumina, what is perhaps most hopeful is that “education” is on the lips of more people than ever before. Just in our own organization alone, we created the Ohio College Access Network, which helped establish nearly 40 community-based college access programs around the state, annually touching more than 150,000 kids contemplating college. These kids are being touched by caring citizens in their communities.

Other KW initiatives – which include the implementation of smaller schools and Early College High Schools (ECHS) – have been concentrated in the state’s most at-risk high schools with rising minority populations, shrinking family incomes and decreases in family education.

The results were impressive: More than 90 percent of ECHS students graduate from high school, and one in three graduates from high school with both a high school diploma and two years of college credit (60 hours) or an associate degree. The latest example of success can been seen this year in Akron, Ohio, where the first graduating class at Akron Early College High School earned a combined average of 48 college credits from the University of Akron. What’s more, the school earned an “Excellent” designation on its 2010-2011 state report card for the second straight year.

All these sustained efforts cumulatively are making a difference.

Also having a positive impact is that citizens are becoming more engaged in the process of improving education. They realize that education success is truly everybody’s business -- not just the business of those managing a school district. The growing national impact of cradle-to-career organizations such as Strive bears this out.

Finally, I expect more personalized education and increased access to technology to be a game-changer for all learners. This year, one California school district decided to use Khan Academy to supplement learning in every school. As a growing number of states incorporate high-quality digital learning as part of education policy, access to a quality education for all learners will increase, and that bodes well for our future.

More students of color graduating from high school and enrolling in college is always good news. But let’s not confuse short-term side-effects of the recession with badly-needed systemic change in our to-and-through-college system.

A couple of things are working. For one, the prolonged economic downturn is bringing the economic importance of a college education home to those who most need to understand it. With jobs in short supply across the economy, the job market is rewarding college graduates with lower unemployment rates and punishing those who don’t. Economic realities are delivering this message more loudly and clearly than any number of white papers and blog posts.

Let’s not forget, though, that at least some portion of these gains has been purchased at the cost of lost jobs and reduced paychecks. And let’s hope that with better economic times the message will retain the traction it’s earned during the recession.

All that said, the obstacles to college education for people of color still abide. College tuition continues to increase, while family income is actually going down. With education reform still ramping up, many African Americans and other students of color are still not being given the preparation, from pre-school through high school, they need to enroll and succeed in college. As many as half of all African American college freshmen must still take remedial courses—paying college tuition but earning no college credit to learn subjects they should have been taught in high school.

So the increases in African Americans’ rates of high school graduation and college enrollment are all to the good. But the academic and financial obstacles to college are still there, and still need to be addressed and overcome. The cost to society of overcoming those obstacles is not an expense that is unaffordable in a recession. It is investment in getting us out.

Demographic changes, a weak economy or real progress in K-12 education, could all be part of the reason we are seeing increased college enrollment. It is also essential, however, to highlight the virtually unlimited access students have to federal student loans. Government financing of higher education has undoubtedly played the most critical role in these observed enrollment increases.

Increased enrollments bring additional responsibility to see students through the entire education cycle. Far too many students today fail to gain a degree or credential within six years of enrolling at a higher education institution. Only 64% of students at nonprofit institutions graduate within six years, while only 53% graduate from public institutions and 38% at for-profit four-year colleges. In years gone by, dropping out of college limited job options, but today it carries an even heavier financial risk: debt without the diploma.

Many drop-outs who leave school without a credential and better job prospects are actually in a worse financial position because they attended college. This is the tragic outcome that needs attention. Congress has created a multitude of repayment options to help student repay their college debt. But poor communication, poor financial literacy, and low-bid service providers creates a notoriously confusing process for borrowers. For these reasons, a renewed focus on college completion along with services to manage student loan debt is vital to the success of our higher education system.

While we have so much more progress to make, we must take a moment to appreciate these gains and think out how they can be extended and increased.

Perhaps all the work in the wake of the dream - the blood, sweat, and tears - of the civil rights movement are beginning to bear fruit. This is very encouraging.

But, what of the future? One set of data that should give us hope is the steady improvement in the achievement of younger black and Hispanic students that has occurred during the era of accountability.

Let's recall that after a lull from the late 80s through the mid 90s, the NAEP scores of younger black and Hispanic students have been on the rise.

Black 9 and 13 year olds were performing a grade level better in math in 2008 than they were in 1998. Hispanic 9 year olds were performing two grade levels better in math, and Hispanic 13 year olds were performing a grade level better in 2008.

In reading, black 9 year olds improved two grade levels, and black 13 year olds improved one. Hispanic 9 year olds improved a grade level and a half, while Hispanic 13 year olds had held steady.

These are the students that are approaching or entering the postsecondary world. There's much reason to be hopeful about future gains, if we hold ourselves accountable for the advancement of disadvantaged students and especially if we improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning for these students as they move through their secondary level years.

There are clearly some economic and demographic trends at work here but improvements are also a function of coordinated intervention. Riding the heady political consensus that was NCLB in 2001, a small handful of reform groups and a couple big foundations committed to all students college and career ready, an aggressive agenda promoting a college prep curriculum and an aggressive school development agenda. By February 2005, NGA and Achieve embraced the all students college and career ready agenda and launched the Graduation Rate Compact--an effort to drive consistency and accuracy in graduation rates that finally became the law of the land this year.

With support from CCSSO, the Hunt Institute, the Alliance for Excellent Education, and the Foundation for Excellence in Education (to name just a few) the college and career ready agenda gave rise to the Common Core which should result in consistently high expectations for all students.

At least as important as the policy push was the development of thousands of great schools with higher achievement, graduation and college attendance rates. After more than a decade of new school development and policy advocacy, all students college and career ready is the dominant education agenda. It is necessary, just, and feasible.