David Levin and Mike Feinberg, co-founders of the KIPP schools, were not the first to conclude that education was key to lifting the next generation out of poverty. But they were among the first to discover and implement an educational formula that seemed to work for at-risk children: long school days, rigorous discipline, carefully selected teachers, and “no excuses.”

Since 95 percent of KIPP students are African-American or Hispanic, some admirers even wondered whether the founders were creating a model for radically closing the racial achievement gap. KIPP’s new report on its college outcomes, released in April, is a long way from dashing these hopes, but it does temper them. The report, “The Promise of College Completion: KIPP’s Early Successes and Challenges,” studied the college outcomes of the earliest of the KIPP students 10 years after graduation.

Some of the findings revealed stunning success, especially considering that at that time, KIPP only served middle-schoolers: 95 percent of those first KIPP graduates went on to get their high school diploma. This figure is not only higher than the 83 percent overall U.S. average; it’s also way beyond the 70 percent of students in the bottom-income quartile who earn their high school diploma (or GED), and who come from backgrounds similar to KIPPsters. The numbers of former KIPP students who went on to college were similarly impressive: 89 percent of the KIPP graduates enrolled in higher education, compared with a U.S. average of 62 percent, and just 41 percent of low-income kids.

The National Association for the ADVANCEMENT of Colored People, emphasis on the word “advancement,”claims “for 102 years, the NAACP has fought to ensure that all our children have access to high-quality public education.” If this is indeed true, then why would the NAACP, which used to be the most revered civil rights organization for black Americans, throw New York City black kids under the bus to save unionized teachers’ jobs and keep failing schools open?

In May to the shock and awe of thousands of New York City parents, the NAACP locked arms with the United Federation of Teachers (emphasis on union) and filed a lawsuit in the State Supreme Court to stop the city from closing 22 poor performing schools and giving 20 charter schools space inside public schools.

After 2,500 charter school parents and students protested in Harlem last week, blasting the NAACP, it wrote an op-ed arguing that allowing charter school students to use available space in NYC schools “impedes learning” or “tears at the fabric of communities.” Tell me how giving parents’ access to 20 charter schools impedes learning. What the NAACP failed to mention in weak defense of its actions was that by filing the lawsuit with the teachers’ union, the NAACP prevented 4,100 teachers from losing their jobs and denied 7,000 children access to a better education. That is called hypocrisy!

I’m sure President Carter had the best intentions when he put education in a prominent position in our federal government. But like everything our government does, financial cost always keeps pace with inefficiency.

Before hurricane Katrina ravaged the city in 2005, New Orleans had one of the worst performing public school districts in the nation.But then something amazing happened. In the wake of Katrina, education reformers decided to seize the opportunity and start fresh with a system based on choice.

As education becomes more global one method that has been around for quite some time that has taken root is mobile learning or m-learning. As a subset of distance learning and e-learning it has promised a more immediate and more flexible approach to education. This is popular in places like Sub-Saharan Africa where the telecommunications industry is booming like never before. It is also gaining ground in the developed countries of Europe, North America and the Pacific Rim. Traditionally, we had large, static, and impersonal computers, institutions, and infrastructure in place for e-learning, and now mobile learning gives us learning that can be personal, portable, and flexible.

Once again urban America with urban conservatives must take the lead in making the academic connection between the United States and the Diaspora with technology. In fact, m-learning has brought e-learning to the rural communities of Africa to learners who previously had no access to education let alone technology. M-learning is the gateway to e-learning for most learners in Africa as the rapidly growing wireless infrastructure increasingly fulfills their access needs. Therefore, Africa has gone from a nonexistent e-learning infrastructure to a wireless e-learning infrastructure.

While stakeholders in urban areas are busy trying to figure out how to fix the broken educational system in our communities urban conservatives need to think out the box to solve problems. In fact, we should officially divorce ourselves from useless rhetoric. We must make education the #1 issue on our platform. This means we will need to go beyond a band-aid approach to the educational crisis such as school vouchers. These talking points are meaningless if we do not put any teeth behind what we are saying.

You cannot talk about job growth in any area until you address education first. The reason? Without the proper training by taking the time to learn the skills first you will be going to a job unprepared. In an information age we must train our inner city to be prepared.

Shutting our ears to some justifiable criticism of Obama’s policies could kill past gains for blacks and the poor, particularly in the area of education. Rumor had it that the Obama Administration budget was to cut $85 million from the HBCU’s, about $67 million from Native American institutions and increased the amount to Hispanic universities from $95 to $98 million. It is clear policy for such may be driven by population growth favoring those likely to vote Democrats in; however there is more to this than meets the eye.

All of our colleges and universities, particularly the small ones with high tuition depend of federal assistance to make education affordable. Given that grants are not performance justified as they should be, loans have been loosened as bad as those which prompted the mortgage crisis rather than make banks the lender of choice.

CNN’s Latino in America airs October 21 and 22nd at 9pm (ET) and examines the issues YOU care about from family and education to immigration and the American Dream and interviews some of the most famous Latinos from Eva Longoria to George Lopez.

By Brandon Brice My fellow Republicans, Independents and Democrats, we are witnessing in the Republican Party a severe identity crisis. Conflicts exist amongst moderate and conservative members of the party, and a lingering stereotype of Republicans only caring about the almighty dollar. There are stigmas of greed, corruption and lack of compassion for everyday hard [...]

From the 2008 election cycle you would never know that the most important issue today is the dismal state of our public education system. I feel comfortable making such a strong proclamation because none of John McCain’s or Barack Obama’s promise of “change” can last or transform when 30% of our young people perpetually fail [...]