Business-education symposium preceded conference

On April 2 nearly 75 business leaders from across the nation and globe gathered in Boston to discuss how business and education partnerships can improve academic success for all students.

The one-day symposium, “Challenges for 21st Century Education: The Role of Business and Education Partnerships," was hosted by The Center in partnership with KnowledgeWorks Foundation, Booz Allen Hamilton and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Center for Corporate Citizenship.

“Corporations want very much to make a positive impact on education in the communities in which they work and serve,” said Center Executive Director Bradley Googins. “Collaborating with Booz Allen Hamilton, KnowledgeWorks Foundation, and the US Chamber of Commerce Center for Corporate Citizenship, we are happy to host this symposium for companies to explore this facet of corporate citizenship."

KnowledgeWorks Foundation: A Systemic Approach to Aligning Education

"Our schools have not kept up with the dramatic economic and social changes that have shaped our nation over the last several decades," said Wick. "Our educational system looks much like it did in 1950 when it prepared most students for lower-skilled factory jobs.

"American students are expected to be prepared for the information age, yet our public education system is still structured to meet the needs of the industrial age. Too many students, particularly those in urban schools, are placed on a conveyor belt going nowhere. The problem is the system, and our challenge is to fix that system."

In Ohio, KnowledgeWorks is championing “P-16,” "which seeks once and for all to realign our education system from pre-school up through college," said Wick.

"P-16" refers to preschool ("P") through a four-year college degree ("16"), and advocates a systemic approach to integrating the education pipeline and facilitating access from one level of learning to the next.

"'P-16' is about building a continuous learning system. It promises to improve student achievement by making sure kids get off to a good start -- connect coursework across grade levels – and ultimately, by doing these things it builds the bridges that will finally smooth the transition and align our education institutions," Wick said.

Wick urged forum participants use "your power, your influence and your leadership to mandate that our educational systems move into the 21st Century."

Education for a Lifetime: The Role of Business in Education Policy

Boston Foundation CEO and President Paul Grogan then talked about Boston’s experience with education reform, and the role business needs to take in the future.

Under Grogan, who was a pioneer in Boston’s neighborhood revitalization efforts in the early 1980s, the Boston Foundation is leading an effort in the Boston Public Schools to encourage the formation of pilot schools, a kind of in-school charter school with greater freedoms around management and operations, curriculum and school design, and its governance system. Grogan also co-chairs the recently launched Great Schools Campaign, the latest large-scale civic effort to address education in Boston since 1993, to improve underperforming public schools and reexamine the educational standards that will ensure Boston’s competitiveness in the new knowledge economy.

In Boston, said Grogan, the landscape of business involvement in the civic community is changing as the business climate is changing. "Companies in America's cities are moving, combining and consolidating," said Grogan.

As a result, urban school systems are suffering, and they need corporations' help.

"Mentoring and similar programs are wonderful," he said. "But if that's all that is happening, the basic way our school systems operate remains untouched."

Grogan urged business to see its involvement as fundamentally political. "The ultimate aim of business involvement must be the reform – the transformation – of our urban school systems," urged Grogan.