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Corporate Involvement in School Reform
American business is playing an increasingly active role in transforming American schools.
The business community will be looking over education’s shoulder as the State Department moves toward revising New Jersey’s core curriculum content standards," declared New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce President Joan Verplanck at a hearing before the Committee on Education and the Workforce in 1999 (U.S. Committee on Education and the Workforce 1999).
Indeed, as Verplanck promised, at local, state, and national levels, the business community has been "looking over education’s shoulder" in recent years and has become more of a presence in the meeting rooms of boards of education and in the classrooms of schools across the country. (See "Business Partnerships with Schools," a companion Policy Brief published by the Clearinghouse in fall 2001.)
This report focuses on business involvement in school reform, an increasingly significant trend that is welcomed by some educators and policymakers and discouraged by others.
First, the history of business’s role in attempting to improve schools is briefly mentioned. Then the goals of both education and of business are outlined. A section on reform program implemented around the country assesses some of the positive results that business-sponsored initiatives can produce.
Another section examines some of the problems, intrinsic and inferred, that come with business participation in education. And a number of examples are cited and questions raised to help educators and policymakers decide what level of business involvement is right for their districts.
Professional Educators’ Perspective
School reform has been a constant issue in this country since the days of Horace Mann (1796-1859). The participation of corporate America, however, is a recent development.
Some education leaders view the business community’s involvement as interference and interpret some of the goals of the nation’s leading business advocates of school reform as self-serving. Critics have objected to goals such as the following:
- Transform public schools into efficient "pipelines" that produce skilled, technologically adept workers. "Workplace skills should be infused into every lesson plan and every curriculum unit" (Verplanck, in U.S. CEW 1999).
- Tie federal funding to educational outcomes rather than to inputs. "Focus federal funds on getting results, not on sustaining programs" (Rust, in U.S. CEW 1999).
- Expand the use of private-sector technology in public schools while decreasing the federal government’s role as regulator and developer of educational content. "The federal government should not establish content standards, or fund the development of digital content applications that compete with the private sector" (Collins, in U.S. CEW 1999).
- Increase the business community’s involvement in day-to-day school operations by, for example, recruiting principals from the business sector rather than the teaching ranks; allowing business leaders to teach through "alternative certification programs"; providing teachers with industry-related experience and evaluations; and increasing the number of school-business partnerships (U.S. CEW 1999).
The present wave of reforms centers more on the needs of business than did earlier school-reform efforts by the business community, according to BellSouth Foundation president Patricia Willis:
The first ten years of our involvement was not really connecting our workforce interest. It was a very social concern that was appropriate, but it didn’t engage us in our gut, which is our workforce. I think it is now, more in the last five to seven years, especially with the labor market as tight as it is, that we have seen a new challenge. That is, to create the system between education and the workplace that brings us into the operations on a day-to-day basis. Not just giving away attendance awards, but really figuring out not just our role, but what our responsibility is. What can’t they do without us that is going to get us what we need? (Willis, in U.S. CEW 1999)
Generally, business advocates of school reform seek to improve American society, including American business, by improving American education.
Some educators worry that the next wave of reforms initiated by the business community may call for schools to shed their bricks and mortar and relocate, for example, to cyberspace, to virtual learning environments in workplaces and shopping malls.
Contemplating the emergence of online schools and other technological breakthroughs, Ford Motor Company’s work-force development director Renee Lerche envisioned "a new kind of schooling process" at the 1999 hearing:
What will education look like? Will our focus on schools shift to a focus on learning environments and communities that are fluid and more virtual than bricks and mortar? Is it wise, therefore, to invest billions of dollars in building or rehabbing schools and classrooms as we know them? Or should we be looking at creating a variety of learning not necessarily in school-building environment [but] in workplaces, cultural institutions, and even shopping malls, that offer [sic] the potential of more direct involvement of the community in shaping a new kind of schooling process? (Lerche, in U.S. CEW 1999)
Business Leaders’ Position
Individual business leaders, corporations, and industry groups such as the National Alliance of Business, Business Roundtables, and the Business Coalition for Education Reform see the role of business in education differently than educators do. Generally, business advocates of school reform seek to improve American society, including American business, by improving American education. "Education is everyone’s business" is one of the key concepts, for example, of the Business Coalition for Education Reform:
To ensure that students are prepared to face the challenges they will meet in the workplace and in life, it is critical that all students have the following:
- Rigorous curricula that enable them to meet achievement expectations outlined by local, state, and national standards in math and science.
- Qualified teachers that are competent in subject matter and teaching practices.
- Opportunities to understand why business cares about improving math and science achievement for a more qualified workforce and a more informed citizenry. (Business Coalition for Education Reform 2002)
The Business Roundtable has recently become more involved in shaping education policy through legislation.
The business community has joined with educators, parents, and concerned citizens to support a bill that focuses on:
- High standards for all students, teachers, and schools.
- Annual statewide testing in reading and math in grades 3-8 and state participation in the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a cross-state comparison of educational progress.
- Investments in teacher recruitment, training, and professional development.
- Help for low-performing students and schools to give every child the tools to succeed.
- Accountability provisions that reward schools for success and improvement, provide consequences for schools that persistently fail to educate, and offer states flexibility in the use of federal funds in return for demonstrating improvements in student achievement.
- Investments in math and science, with an emphasis on the effective use of technology. (Business Roundtable 2002)
Whether seen as a magnanimous partner or a selfish interloper, America’s business community seems destined to play a role in school reform. This report provides an overview and guidelines for business-education cooperation in the effort to help the nation’s youth reach their potential.
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