Poverty and educational opportunity were the themes of a powerful discussion at NBC’s Education Nation Summit yesterday. Brian Williams moderated the panel of prominent education experts and foundation leaders titled: “What’s In A Zip Code? A Look at Inequality Across Our Public Schools.”

Target’s Laysha Ward provided opening comments. Ralph Smith, a senior vice president at the Annie E. Casey Foundation and managing director of the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, participated on the panel.

In short, Smith said, we cannot fix the problems of our schools if we do not address poverty.

“Poverty and educational outcomes are deeply intertwined,” he said. “We’re not going to be able to achieve our highest aspirations for education if we continue to allow so many children [to languish] because of a level of intergenerational poverty that ought to be an embarrassment in the richest country in the world.”

NYU Professor Pedro Noguera talked about the importance of ensuring that students in high-poverty schools have effective teachers. (You can read his follow up blog post on the event here.) Students also need supports and services outside of school, said Gail Christopher, vice president for programs at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Vicki Phillips, director of college-ready programs for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Claudia Aguirre, principal of the Dual-Language Middle School in Manhattan, and Colorado State Senator Mike Johnston were also on the panel.
Johnston said that student failure adds up to a shocking mathematical problem. Among a group of 100 kindergarteners in a high-poverty community, only a few will make it to high school graduation and beyond.

“To believe that in this country in 2011 kids that are born into poverty have a 9 percent chance of graduating from a college” is troubling, Johnston said. “I wouldn’t want to be the one to go back to the that kindergarten class and have to pull 91 of those kids aside before the first day and say I’m sorry but I don’t think education is for you.”

View the entire discussion here. Other high-profile events at the Education Nation Summit covered brain development and early learning, great teaching, Latino students, testing, and parent engagement. The full index is here.