Leveling Up: How to Get REAL for Black Learner Excellence at the Grantmakers for Education 2024 Annual Conference
News
At the Grantmakers for Education 2024 Annual Conference, HCM Strategists stood before an audience ready to confront a stark reality: the barriers Black learners face in postsecondary education. Our session, LEVELing UP: How to Get REAL for Black Learner Excellence, wasn’t just a presentation—it was a challenge to look deeply at a system designed to ignore the needs of Black students and to finally demand the radical change they deserve.
Over the past two decades, nearly 600,000 Black learners have vanished from the corridors of American higher education. The deepest cuts have been felt at community colleges, the very institutions that should be a gateway for so many. Our Partner, Darryl Hill, and Senior Affiliate, Kelley Ditzel, alongside panelists Donnie Hale (IEL), Monica Parrish Trent (ATD), and Saúl Valdez (ECMC), didn’t mince words about what it takes to reverse this course. The call to "get REAL" means exactly that—refusing to shy away from the unapologetic truth: Black learners deserve explicit value in these institutions.
This isn’t about isolated issues but about a deeply ingrained misalignment between Black students and the schools they enter—institutions often underfunded, undermined, and ultimately ill-prepared to foster their success. The panelists urged attendees to confront the realities of poor transfer pathways, the stark absence of funding, and the systems that continue to funnel Black learners into failure.
Central to this conversation was the LEVEL UP & Get REAL Policy Playbook, a toolkit built not to theorize but to spur action. It lays out the steps for change, offering concrete, actionable strategies for educators, policymakers, and business leaders to not only advocate for Black excellence but to build it into the bones of their institutions. It’s a playbook for those who view education as a field of opportunity and Black learner success as a cause worth championing. You can access the full playbook here to explore how these strategies are designed to create lasting impact.
This session served as a charge for each of us to take what we know—our expertise, our influence—and place it in service to create educational spaces where Black learners not only have access to but thrive. The work isn’t finished, but partnerships are forming, plans are moving forward, and LEVEL UP stands as a transformative force poised to reshape the future of Black learner excellence.
To learn more about the LEVEL UP movement, visit: https://blacklearnersuccess.com/
Panelists at the Grantmakers for Education 2024 Annual Conference discussing Black learner excellence:
From L to R: Donnie Hale, Saul Valdez, Darryl Hill, Monica Parrish Trent and Kelley Ditzel.
