Effective SSIs [Statewide Systemic Initiatives funded by the National Science Foundation] developed important partnerships with education policymakers, leaders of science and math professions, higher education, and business and industry; these partners were critical for program vision, support for goals, and leveraging resources.
Summary of Findings
from SSI and Recommendations for NSF’s Role with States
Council of Chief State School Officers, 2001
The statewide systemic initiatives funded by the National Science Foundation moved states toward alignment of the components of their education systems. However, the policy changes necessary to achieve improvement goals are still needed.
Summary of Findings
from SSI and Recommendations for NSF’s Role with States
Council of Chief State School Officers, 2001
In looking ahead to the implementation of its initiatives to improve education, the National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century emphasized the need for guidance by a nongovernmental coordinating council.
Before It’s
Too Late
National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st
Century
U.S. Department of Education, 2000
Working collectively, stakeholders in every community need to address issues such as:
Failing Our Children
National Science Board, 1998
SCANS suggests three principles from cognitive science to guide real contextual learning in all our schools.
What Work Requires of
Schools
The Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS), 1991
U.S. Department of Labor
Joined by policymakers and educators, business leaders are making the case for the increasing importance of mathematics and science and the need to improve school performance of all students in both subjects. What began as a scholarly debate a decade ago is now broadly discussed and has evolved into a educational and economic imperative.
The National Alliance of State Science & Mathematics Coalitions
March 1998
There is no doubting the importance of literature, history, and the arts in shaping our future workers and citizens... . But business can make a special case for the centrality of math and science in contemporary curricula. Mastery of challenging math and science concepts provide young job seekers with a passport to prosperity in the knowledge economy...
The Formula for Success
Business Coalition for Education Reform, 1998
Businesses have urged educators to "benchmark" the programs that are being designed to improve performance in mathematics and science education. Business, in the person of Xerox , also provides an instructive example of benchmarking. Xerox faces with a falling market share sought benchmarks both within and without its industry. For instance, it identified L.L. Bean as the national leader (benchmark) in inventory control and customer satisfaction; Florida Power and Light topped the field for quick response time. What are the equivalent exemplars within and without the "education industry" that can benchmark education?
Aiming High: 1998 Report
Achieve, Inc.
While the general public is highly critical of K-12 education and highly satisfied with the quality of higher education, business leaders are generally critical of both levels of education. In a 1998 survey conducted by Public Agenda, only 39% of employers agreed that a high school diploma is evidence that a student has at least learned "the basics." While business leaders' conceded that the American system of higher education is the best in the work, they criticized its structure — which they characterized as inflexible, bureaucratic, and unresponsive to change — and lack of accountability.
Taking Responsibility:
Leaders' Expectations of Higher Education, 1998
Public Agenda
A RAND study found that dramatic improvements in NAEP and state assessment scores in Texas and North Carolina between 1992 and 1996 required business and policymaker leadership at all levels and stability of reform policies over a decade. Effective policies included creating clear grade-level standards required of all students, linking state assessments to the standards, attaching accountability systems to the results, instituting feedback systems to support continuous improvement, and building the infrastructure needed to sustain reform over time.
All One System: A Second
Look
Institute for Educational Leadership, 1999
The Business Roundtable (BRT) has a Education Task Force that for a decade has focused on the promotion of state policies that support the systemic improvement of K-12 education. The Task Force to-do list for CEOs who wish to engage in education reform includes the following recommended practices:
CEO Education Reform Orientation Guide
Business Roundtable Education Task Force, 1999
[P]eople's loyalty to groups may be greater than their loyalty to issues, which explains their reluctance to meet with other groups who value some of the same issues. It is amazing to see how often this happens.
All One System: A Second
Look
Institute for Educational Leadership, 1999
Businesses already involved in education must analyze their level of involvement and escalate and expand their investments toward those which bring about systemic educational improvement and policy changes. As partners in policy with education and policy leaders, they must work to shape the public and political debate, bring about substantive changes in state or federal legislation ... and affect the overall direction of the educational system.
The Fourth R: Workforce
Readiness
National Alliance of Business, 1987
The 1990Õs introduced the notion of systemic approaches to reform, the ideal that all parts of an education system must be changed in order to achieve new goals. Central to the concept of systemic reform are promotion of high standards for all students, alignment of polices to support desired education outcomes, and restructuring of system governance to focus on achievement.
Science & Engineering Indicators
Ð 2000
National Science Foundation, 2000
UNUM Life Insurance Company formed a coalition with parents, policymakers, and educators to build an education plan that could be used to drive legislative change. Two years of work resulted in the passage of two bills mandating improved by the coalition. From this work, coalition leaders concluded that effective education reform:
The Corporate Imperative:
A Business Guide for Implementing Strategic Education Partnerships
U.S. Department of Education, 1999
Although the business community cannot and should not "run the show," we do have a vitally important role to play. Business leaders must be advocates for change in national and state legislative forums.
Joseph T. Gorman, Chairman
and CEO, TRW, Inc.
Agents of Change: Exemplary Corporate Policies and Practices to Improve Education
The Business Roundtable, 1993
The NSB [National Science Board] believes that stakeholders must develop a much-needed consensus on a common core of mathematics and science knowledge and skills to be embedded consistently in classroom teaching and learning.
Preparing Our Children:
Math and Science Education in the National Interest
National Science Board, 1999
A decade ago, national standards in mathematics and science began to be designed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), and National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in close collaboration with all stakeholders in education — preschool to graduate school. ...The reality today is that virtually all states have curriculum frameworks that use the NCTM, AAAS, and NAS documents as points of reference for teaching challenging mathematics and science. These independently-generated frameworks signify an emerging consensus ... on which local districts across the U.S. can draw as they define "basic skills" and formulate guides to classroom use.
Preparing Our Children:
Math and Science Education in the National Interest
National Science Board, 1999
As of 1998, over 40 states have developed or revised content standards for K-12 education in ... mathematics [and] science.... Most of the other states are completing review and revisions on their standards documents.
State Education Indicators
With a Focus on Title I
Council of Chief State School Officers, 1999
[Our] research agenda has been based on the conviction that the challenges of education and training today require a new approach — not only examining individual components of education and training, but looking at the enterprise as a system of related parts.
RAND Education
RAND, 1999
In 1991, the nonprofit New American Schools (NAS) corporation began testing innovative whole-school designs to improve student performance. Recent RAND research of NAS efforts to implement those experimental designs in ten educational jurisdictions (550 schools) found that the scaling-up process was "characterized by a high degree of complexity." It identified politics as impeding implementation though changes in leadership, conflicts between labor and management, and "state budgetary or other political crises." The study concluded that the need to create consensus among the several constituencies involved in implementation (teachers, parents, students, district leaders, school leaders, state leaders) "inevitably leads to slow progress."
"Reforming America’s
Schools: Observations on Implementing ‘Whole School Designs’"
RAND Research Brief (RB-8016), 1998
Within the next decade education will change more than it has changed since the modern school was created by the printed book over 300 years ago... . Education can no longer be confined to the schools. Every employing institution has to become a teacher. The country that is again in the lead is the United States, where employers — business, government agencies, the military — spend as much money and effort on the education and training of their employees , and especially the most highly educated ones, as do all the country's colleges and universities together.
The New Realities
Peter F. Drucker
In 1997, we [Achieve] tested our benchmarking program with Michigan and North Carolina. ...In Michigan, Achieve found that the state's assessment program was substantially more comprehensive and demanding than one might assume from reading the state standards. As Gov. John Engler noted: "The good news is that our tests have been judged to be fair, comprehensive and tough. Our challenge now is to communicate our standards more clearly to parents, students and the general public."
Aiming Higher: 1998 Annual
Report
Achieve, Inc.
A 1991 study of site-managed schools concluded that an innovation could lead to real change only if it was accepted as the school system’s basic reform strategy. "Schools cannot change if the expectations and traditional control mechanisms of the centralized system are intact. So systems, too, must change."
"Getting Better Schools"
RAND Research Brief (RB-8000), 1993
A 1998 Gallup poll conducted for Phi Beta Kappa showed that the public has a low opinion of the nation's schools, with only 18% awarding them a grade of A or B. However, survey respondents were much more complimentary of their local schools, with 46% awarding a grade of A or B.
Colleges and universities appear to be immune to the criticism that the public levels against K-12 education. In a 1997 national survey, 59% of the respondents judged a four-year college education to be worth the price. In the same study, 45% agreed that food purchased at the grocery store was worth the price, and only 27% gave that rating to American cars. Yet, many of those responding had not attended college and knew little of what goes on there.
Too Little Knowledge is
a Dangerous Thing:
What the Public Thinks and Knows about Paying for College
American Council on Education, 1997
Employers and college professors agree that a high school diploma is no guarantee that a student has learned "the basics," their levels of agreement being 27% and 39%, respectively. However, their views of higher education are diametrically opposed, with employers being highly critical. For instance, they differ in their opinions that higher education must become leaner and more efficient (employers, 83%; professors, 40%), the easy availability of student loans allows colleges to keep raising tuition rather than improving efficiency (employers, 72%; professors, 25%); colleges should adopt business practices to make them more efficient and productive (employers, 64%; professors, 17%); professors should have heavier teaching loads (employers, 58%; professors, 26%); and tenure is essential as a protection for academic freedom (employers, 22%; professors, 78%).
Taking Responsibility:
Leaders' Expectations of Higher Education
Public Agenda, 1999