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Education: key economic issue

By Richard C. Lord
Tuesday, September 28, 2004

In light of the upcoming Oct. 14 Manufacturing our Future Economic Summit and New England Business Expo at the Centrum, an opportunity exist to face the real reason why so many of our local industries, and so many of our working people are under such serve economic pressure: Our historical competitive advantage in the education and skills of our work force is slipping away. The problem is not that our schools and training programs are worse than they use to be — on the whole, they are better — but the rest of the world is catching up.

This is a key issue for our country, and an especially for Massachusetts, because we more or less invented universal education and the skilled work force and have made it the foundation of our economy for two centuries. We have good schools and good universities, and we also attract educated people from around the world. Still, we have to do more.

One area in which we have achieved much, but must do more, is K-12 public school reform. We are now at a point where it is clear that the Education Reform Act of 1993, pushed hard by the business community, is becoming a success. The pass rate for prospective high school graduates on the required MCAS tests in math and English has reached 96 percent, and results in testing at lower grade levels also continue to improve. This is real, substantial progress — on school reform’s first phase.

What’s left to do?

We need to revisit the school funding formula, as will certainly be mandated by the Supreme Judicial Court’s upcoming decision in the Hancock case. We must also revisit school management, one of the less successful aspects of reform, to devise an approach that recognizes and enhances the professional responsibilities of teachers. More broadly, we need to ensure that adults as well as students are held accountable for school performance. The MCAS program itself, wisely focused initially on math and English, must become truly comprehensive as other subject requirements are added. And we must continue to raise our standards: the current MCAS tests, though among the toughest in the nation, basically set an eighth-grade achievement level as the minimum standard for high school graduation.

That’s just in the world of K-12 education. This year, with business support, the Legislature passed, and Gov. Mitt Romney signed, an initiative creating a new Board and Department of Early Education and Care to lay the groundwork for universal access to voluntary, high-quality programs for preschoolers. We recognize that this is potentially costly, but experts agree that early childhood is the most cost-effective place to invest in education; and there are real benefits to employers of working parents in an improved child-care situation.

Our public college and university system and state scholarship programs suffered disproportionately in the recent fiscal crisis and must be restored. Rather than simply pouring money back into the same structures and programs, we should use this as an opportunity for reform — not least by seeking ways to avoid the “boom and bust” cycle that undercuts our efforts to build strong institutions.

Efforts to forge research alliances among public and independent institutions, government and companies in the state, and the Legislature’s appropriation of matching funds for university-based research in its economic stimulus package, point to a growing recognition of the importance of this vital asset to our economy.

The aspect of work-force development of greatest concern to employers is largely “off the grid” in terms of conventional educational thinking: lifelong learning, particularly skills enhancement for incumbent workers. Even the community college system, probably our most important asset in this field, is less focused than those of some other states on working adult learners. The recent actions of the Legislature to restore and expand funding for the Workforce Training Grant program and the “Reach Higher” initiative led by the administration’s departments of Workforce Development and Business and Technology are signs of renewed positive engagement with this issue on Beacon Hill.

Locally, the broad community support for the new Worcester vocational school and the school’s expanded efforts to connect the employer community to the school in order to provide a bridge to the world of work and life-long learning is equally important and laudable.

The success, so far, of school reform is proof that we have recognized the vital importance of education and training. Many people did not believe that we could assert state power, however limited, over local schools; that we could require teachers and administrations to change; and that we could hold students to standards, and deny diplomas when standards were not met. Others could not imagine that successive governors and Legislatures would fulfill the commitment to funding reforms.

But it happened, and we can extend that success to ensure a prosperous future.

Richard C. Lord is President and CEO of Associated Industries of Massachusetts.

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