Tom Donohue: Break the Monopoly of Mediocrity in Education

Educators, parents and students need to find consensus on common-sense reforms

By Tom Donohue | Published on 10.09.2012 12:27 p.m.

When unionized teachers in Chicago took to the picket lines in September, leaving classrooms empty in the first weeks of the new school year, it caught America’s attention. Now that the debate over education has been reignited, let’s put the focus back where it belongs — on the students.

Many Americans are deeply concerned about the state of public K-12 education — and others are downright mad. A new Hollywood film features the fight of one mother and one teacher who are fed up with the low standards, union control and bureaucratic bungling that contribute to chronically failing schools.

Won’t Back Down is inspired by a true story and illustrates how a community can impact critical issues such as teacher quality, teacher tenure and school choice. It should shock no one that union leaders don’t want Americans to see this movie. Moreover, they’re intensifying efforts to fight education reforms being undertaken in states and cities.

Fed-up parents, educators and students have a ready ally in business. Business is often the first to see the end result of a poor education when potential workers apply for a job.

Studies show that most fourth-graders and eighth-graders aren’t proficient in reading and math. Thirty percent of U.S. students don’t complete high school in four years, and the dropout rate is more than 50 percent for African-Americans and Hispanics. And half of U.S. students who do graduate lack the advanced literacy and math skills necessary for college or skilled employment.

Lack of skills and training is why roughly 3.5 million American jobs sit vacant — workers don’t have the right tools and education. It’s why businesses spend billions of dollars annually on remediation training for new hires. And it’s why business leaders — through individual effort or by working with local chambers of commerce, foundations or public education funds — are supporting effective school board governance at the local level.

To bring the reform debate to cities across the nation and get local businesses more involved, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for a Competitive Workforce will launch the Breaking the Monopoly of Mediocrity in Public Education tour on Wednesday. It will address communities’ specific education challenges and the importance of reform to local economies. Click here for more information.

Parents want their children to learn and grow, teachers want to set students on a path to achievement, and employers want to hire them. All parties need to be engaged and find consensus on common-sense reforms that put students first. Such reforms can help shape our students’ education, sharpen our workforce and secure our economic future.

— Tom Donohue is president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

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» John Locke on 10.09.12 @ 12:35 PM

Government employee unions, including teachers, should not be allowed collective bargaining.

» AN50 on 10.09.12 @ 02:50 PM

Here, here, the California teachers union is the largest political contributor to candidates, swamping the private sector 6 to 1.

» Wayne B. Norris on 10.10.12 @ 12:19 PM

The problem of employment is MUCH more intractable than this article indicates. Unemployment is effectively FIFTY PERCENT for COLLEGE EDUCATED KIDS. THAT number demonstrates the real problem. And neither Party is even remotely talking about it in realistic terms.

I was at a hiring event not too long ago. They were BEGGING for young-ish chemists, such as my middle son… but could not only could not use recent college graduates, but could not use MOST chemists, including those with Ph.D.s!

The reason was that the processes they were using were so unique, only a handful of chemists in the country - all with experience on those particular processes - could begin delivering results immediately upon hire… and “immediately on hire” was key. So they kept looking for the “absolute right fit”, hoping the costs of delay did not ultimately overwhelm the avoided costs of what we used to call “On-the-Job-Training” - we used to call it that back when there actually WAS such a thing.

And this company’s plight is by no means unusual - it’s the norm.

Why is there no real OJT in 2012? It’s expensive, and it has to come out of profits. But supply chains are SO efficient today, and margins are SO thin, that there is literally no money for OJT. The result is that degreed chemists, mathematicians, physicists, engineers, accountants, and other high-skilled university graduates are competing with everyone else for those coveted jobs as fry cooks, while employers decry a lack of talent.

But it’s actually even a bit worse than that. Someone with, say, a recent BS in mathematics is probably loathe to take a job whose career path leads only to upward mobility in, say, fast food or parcel delivery. So irrespective of actual job, that math major will regard it as “temporary… till a ‘real’ job comes along”. Savvy employers know this, and often reject overqualified applicants. The “O”-word is a very powerful bar to employment, and causes many to dumb down resumes.

The ultimate problem of this is that, with very few openings for highly educated young workers, property tax base, consumer spending, and voluntary contributions to nonprofits all suffer greatly. The effect cascades throughout the economy.

I wish I could think of a fix, but honestly, it’s elusive. Schools cannot possibly train students to fit the microstructure of companies who must derive income from them literally the same day they are hired - the undertaking is too vast. Companies have absolutely zero money to allow adaptation to their open positions, and must demand hit-the-ground-running standards from all new hires. Government? No role at all. Even voluntary low-paid or unpaid internships on the part of the applicant do not cover company costs in lost productivity!

The problem is more complex than elective politics is designed to handle. But, alas, it IS the problem.

» AN50 on 10.10.12 @ 02:31 PM

Unfortunately, margins are thin because we heap more and more regulation on domestic production that is NOT applied to imports, thus we squeeze more of the profit for quality of life issues with out guarding the back door. We ship half a trillion dollars in wealth offshore a year and continue to demand more wealth be sequestered by hugely inefficient governments for benefits and yet we produce less and less value.

OJT is a wonderful tool; I have seen it produce the very best engineers, those who actually produce tangible results that can be put to work. However, the 80’s and 90’s taught us that unless you are willing to pay to keep them they will take that training to your competitor. So squeezing companies for non value added benefits usually means the value adding processes like training disappear. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

» Wayne B. Norris on 10.10.12 @ 06:00 PM

Commenting on AN50’s comment, it would be simple indeed if margins were thin because of regulations not applied to imports or because of cheaper exports, but I fear those are highly simplistic. I think OJT is a form of investment, and investments notoriously go up and down in value. I suspect a totally private-enterprise, bottom-up approach will arise, like a highly generalized version of the competency tests privately given in everything from High Precision Liquid Chromatography to Advanced Cisco Routers, where applicants can pursue online study and pass credentialing exams under proctored conditions.

» publius on 10.10.12 @ 06:43 PM

Mostly agree with Donohue this time.

Most buildings have four walls to give them strength. So does most effective
education: student, family, teacher, community.

You can have the greatest teachers and newest books and tech toys, but if the
students can’t or won’t focus, work and try hard, try to study, there’s not much
teachers or families can do.

You can have the greatest teachers, but if the families of students won’t push them to try their best, work hard, and get help where help is needed, then the
students won’t do as well.

You can have great schools, bright kids, devoted families, but if we don’t have
teachers who are properly trained themselves, and ready to do their best to get
the most out of each student, then it still comes to naught, no matter what the
teachers unions say.

We need all of them, looking ahead, and always pushing each other to raise the
bar.

We also need to let students and families know that the economy Donohue says
he envisions will always have room for trades and professions for hard workers
whose greatest personal strengths are not academics, or test-taking.

When your car or your plumbing are on the fritz, or your roof is leaking after a
storm, you won’t be calling a Princeton PhD to run a computer model of the
necessary repair.

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Tom Donohue: Break the Monopoly of Mediocrity in Education

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