Leading the National Dialogue

For 25 years, business has led the national dialogue on education reform. Beginning in 1983, business leaders, civic leaders and educators on the National Commission on Excellence in Education issued a sweeping report on American public education, A Nation At Risk. It called attention to a “rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.” In 2005, at the National Education Summit on High Schools, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates called the American high school “obsolete.”

In the 1980s, many companies anxious to “do something” to address the myriad concerns about public schools expressed in A Nation At Risk took on innovative initiatives with schools and districts to, for example, improve teaching, use technology, increase parent involvement, extend the school day, decrease high school dropout rates, and so on. But, at the end of the decade, many business leaders looked back and realized that, although their companies had spent millions of dollars and countless human hours on worthwhile projects, student achievement had not measurably improved. Worse, other nations were improving at faster rates than the United States.

What was missing? Educators, governors and business leaders realized that, though some local improvement efforts were paying off, they had no common goals or metrics to know if one improvement initiative was better than another, if more money was needed, or if one community was making as much progress as another.

In 1990, Business Roundtable, a national association of 160 chief executive officers of leading corporations, adopted a nine-point policy agenda, Essential Components of a Successful Education System,which outlined the framework of standards, testing and accountability that we now call standards-based education reform. Business leaders in more than 30 states also created state business roundtables or business and education coalitions and partnerships to advance the K-12 standards-based reform movement in collaboration with governors, legislators, chief state school officers and other education policymakers.

In response, states began to set goals and academic standards; create state tests to measure results consistently from one community to the next; hold schools, educators and students accountable for learning; and align programs to these new goals. Most importantly, this new focus on alignment was driven by a belief in high expectations for all children, regardless of their background, income or zip code.

To keep the focus on improving America’s public schools, the business community has brought together governors, chief executive officers and educators in the National Education Summits of 1996, 1999, 2001 and 2005. At each Summit, participants committed to Action Agendas that have guided the development and improvement of state education standards, performance goals and accountability systems.

After nearly 20 years of state-driven standards-based reform, Individual companies and business coalitions led the charge to solidify the federal government’s role in raising education standards. The federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), enacted in 2002, requires every state to set performance standards and hold schools and districts accountable for closing achievement gaps and getting every child to proficiency by 2014. As Congress gears up to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act, national business groups are once again coming together to advocate for strengthening and improving the law through the Business Coalition for Student Achievement.

Today, 50 states have academic standards and comprehensive state assessment systems that help schools and districts align teaching and learning and focus on struggling students. States and districts are smarter about allocating resources. Struggling schools are beginning to improve and more students are meeting state academic standards than ever before. Yet, most states did not set their sights high enough when they adopted new performance standards. Instead, in nearly every state, teams of subject-matter experts set standards based on what was considered “desirable” for students to learn, but they did not work with employers or colleges to understand the “essential” skills graduates need to succeed.

As a result, today, students in nearly every state can graduate from high school without having learned the skills in math and English that they will need to be successful in careers or college. What’s more: Too few students are getting the math and science they need in K-12 in order to complete bachelor’s and advanced degrees in technical fields. Schools and districts still need help understanding and using data to close persistent achievement gaps. In short, our education standards have not kept pace with the changes in the economy.

These are some of the reasons chief executives came together once again with governors and educators at the 2005 National Education Summit on High Schools. This Summit spurred tremendous action to restore value to the high school diploma nationwide. As of summer 2006, all 50 state governors pledged to report high school graduation rates in a rigorous and consistent way. Today, more than 30 states are actively working to align high school academic expectations with the demands of college and careers. 

Click here for a brief summary of the major business-led organizations working at the national and federal levels. Click here to learn about state- and local-level business and education partnerships that are improving public schools in more than 30 states.