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May 2006— Vol. 84, No. 4
COVER STORY
Getting back on pace
in the global skills race
Our companies’, kids’ futures are at stake
Related articles:
By Diane Friend Edwards
Editor of CBIA News
Brains ... Where do you go if you need them to keep your business competitive?
Right here, you well might answer.
After all, brains have long been Connecticut’s biggest asset as
a business location. We’re renowned for our highly educated, skilled,
productive and inventive workforce. People who design and make astronauts’
spacesuits. Who delve into the mysteries of molecules and nanoparticles
to develop cures for our maladies. Who analyze data, devise solutions
to complex problems, and advise clients in everything from financial strategies
to environmental compliance to “Lean Sigma” manufacturing
methods.
Smarts have been Connecticut’s strategic advantage in the intensifying
global economic race. We’ll never be the lowest-cost producer, so
we must be one of the smartest.
But our claim to brains is eroding — with ominous implications
for our economy’s and our children’s futures.
“Connecticut needs to protect its strategic advantage, which has
been its skilled workforce,” says CBIA President and CEO John Rathgeber.
“Many other countries are investing in their workforces and are
now surpassing us in key areas,” he says.
Losing ground
Connecticut may have one of the best education systems in the country,
but that isn’t good enough, globally. The U.S. is falling far behind
the likes of China and India in many areas.
Consider these statistics:
Thirty years ago, America ranked third in the world for the number of
science degrees awarded to 18- to 24-year-olds. By 2004 we had sunk to
17th.
In 2004, 46% of college degrees granted in China were for engineering.
Here in the U.S., engineering degrees accounted for just 5%. China graduated
600,000 engineers; the U.S., only 70,000.
Forty-four percent of 8th graders in Singapore, and 38% in Taiwan, scored
at the most advanced level in math in a 2004 international comparison
— compared with just 8% of American 8th graders.
In Connecticut, where students typically outperform most of their American
peers, less than half of 10th graders last year even met state mastery
test goals in math (47.8%) or in science (47.3%).
A recent report (“Closing the Achievement Gap 2006,” Achieve
Inc.) estimates that just 47% of Connecticut high school freshmen go on
to enroll in college immediately after high school. Of those who do go
to college, only 26% graduate college on time.
“I think many people here assume most high school kids in Connecticut
go directly to college, since we have such a high percentage of students
taking the SATs. The data show that just isn’t true,” says
Lauren Weisberg Kaufman, CBIA vice president for education and training
policy and executive director of the CBIA Education Foundation.
Yet, half of all new jobs in Connecticut by 2010 will require at least
some postsecondary education, according to a 2003 study (“Jobs 2010,”
CERC). The study also said employment growth in technology occupations
is expected to be 25% greater than overall employment growth, and all
of the growth in high-tech occupations will require postsecondary training.
Already, many companies here and throughout the country have to rely
on foreign workers to fill job openings. But the globalization of education
and business opportunities in the far-flung corners of the world, made
possible by the Internet, is lessening our country’s allure as a
place to study and pursue a career.
According to the Council of Graduate Schools, graduate applications from
international students dropped 32% between 2003 and 2005. Fortunately,
the number of applications for fall 2006 is up 11% over last year. But
that is still down 23% since 2003 among institutions responding to the
council’s survey each of the last three years.
“For years, this country reaped an advantage by having students
from places like India and China come here to go to school, especially
for technical fields, and then staying here. Now, many are staying home,”
says Rathgeber.
Alarming implications
Combine those ominous trends with the facts that Connecticut’s
population is aging more rapidly than most other states’, our workforce
is not growing, and 40% of our potential workers live in cities, many
of them in poverty — a demographic group with unacceptably poor
academic performance.
Business leaders are alarmed, including members of CBIA’s board
of directors.
“Math and science prep are critical to many of us in manufacturing,”
says Roger Joyce, chair of CBIA’s board and vice president of engineering
at the West Haven–based Bilco Co. “We are directly competing
with foreign manufacturers that have workforces well versed in technical
areas. ... We could rapidly lose our competitiveness” if our workforce
skills don’t measure up, he says. “There’s a very high
technical competence in other countries, and they’re surpassing
us. We’re way behind other countries that we compete with in terms
of engineering graduates.”
As for science, says Joyce, it’s not only important to industries
such as pharmaceuticals and biotech, but also to manufacturers. “Science
related to materials — metallurgy, plastics, understanding the chemistry
of materials from a design standpoint as well as production — is
critical,” he says.
“Our businesses are becoming more and more specialized, and more
and more technical. We’ve moved away from commodity production to
highly engineered and specialized products. If our workforce isn’t
well grounded in science and technical education, they’ll find it
difficult to succeed,” Joyce adds.
“Connecticut has to better prepare students for higher-skill, higher-wage
jobs in industries that will be the state’s economic engines: aerospace,
pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, financial services, information technology,”
says Weisberg Kaufman. “Even skilled trades — for example,
HVAC technicians and automotive technicians — now need people with
strong math, science and computer skills.”
Jeffrey Klaus, New Haven–area market president for Bank of America,
has made education reform his bank region’s main philanthropic priority
for the next few years. “We’re concerned about not just math
but also reading and writing. Those three core skills are at pitifully
low levels in our urban schools,” Klaus says.
Connecticut has one of the widest achievement gaps “between whites
and minorities, between rich and poor, and between urban and suburban
students,” he says. “Closing the gap is incredibly important
from a workforce development perspective. The trends are not good —
the population that’s growing the most is the worst educated. The
implications are devastating for our future economy ... not to mention
the high cost of missed education to our society,” says Klaus. “The
ravages of poverty are felt by others” in the community for things
like prisons and higher insurance costs, he says, adding that “we
spend huge dollars” to support a poorly educated population.
“To close the wealth gap between the haves and the have-nots, you
need to close the achievement gap. I’m interested in equipping every
12th grader with 12th-grade skills so they can go on to a four-year college,”
Klaus says.
Some reforms already in place
Educators and policy-makers have already begun implementing some reforms
— notably the controversial federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
Act, enacted in 2002.
With a goal of having all students proficient by 2014, NCLB, among other
things, requires states to do annual student testing to identify low-performing
schools, and then holds them accountable for improving student performance.
“Despite flaws in the legislation, its accountability requirements
are requiring schools to find more effective ways to teach kids,”
says Weisberg Kaufman.
As part of its NCLB plan, Connecticut last year launched a Vanguard Schools
Initiative, coordinated by CBIA. The initiative identifies the best practices
used by successful schools, including those that have challenging demographic
circumstances. These schools serve as role models and mentors to help
underperforming schools improve.
Gov. M. Jodi Rell, meanwhile, last fall launched a “CONNvene”
task force to encourage more students in all grades to study “STEM”
subjects — science, technology, engineering and math. CONNvene involves
state policy-makers, educators and business leaders, including Weisberg
Kaufman and two others from CBIA, who are developing recommendations for
the governor and legislature.
And the governor recently created a research and policy council to advise
her Early Childhood Education Cabinet, whose goal is to ensure that every
child in Connecticut enters school ready to learn.
CBIA’s Rathgeber, who co-heads the council, says, “Ensuring
that all children enter kindergarten ready to learn is critically important
to their achievement in later grades.”
A much earlier reform effort, charter schools, established in Connecticut
in 1997, has shown “breakthrough” results, according to Bank
of America’s Klaus, who is involved with several public-school reform
efforts.
“Charter schools have the best record of success in closing the
achievement gap of any public-school model in Connecticut,” he says.
If you consider Connecticut’s six nonspecialized charter middle
schools to be a “school district,” and then compare them with
all other districts having more than 25% African-American and Hispanic
enrollment, he says, the charter school “district” comes out
on top in student achievement.
The state’s vocational-technical high schools, too, have seen major
changes in recent years, including a standardized curriculum across all
schools in both the trade and academic areas, and statewide curriculum
standards for science, math and English. Better educational pathways have
also been created for technical students to follow as they progress from
high school to more advanced education and training, through the community
college system’s College of Technology and its Regional Center for
Next Generation Manufacturing.
Raising the bar, closing the gap
As good as these efforts are, though, they’re clearly not enough
for Connecticut’s workforce to keep up with competitors’ in
the global skills race.
“Gov. Rell, the state legislature and many educators are working
hard to improve public education. Recent investments in early childhood
education, magnet and charter schools, and higher education will help
our children succeed in the global economy. But we must do more,”
says CBIA’s Rathgeber.
“We have two challenges,” he adds: “One, raising the
bar for student achievement, especially in math and science, so we can
compete internationally. And two, closing the achievement gap for urban,
minority students who are not even meeting current state goals. They’ll
be locked out of jobs in the future if they don’t have the skills.”
So critical has this issue become in the minds of Connecticut business
leaders that CBIA’s board in March endorsed specific reforms (see
Page 5) and directed the association to run a full-page ad on them —
prominently featuring the signatures of more than 50 business leaders
— in the state’s major newspapers. The reforms, which concern
preschool through high school, call for expanding successful ventures
such as charter schools, Vanguard Schools, the Connecticut State Scholars
program and school-to-career programs, and fixing problems with NCLB and
the state’s charter-school laws.
NCLB has come under intense criticism from the states because of inadequate
federal funding and from educators and others who feel it emphasizes too
much, or the wrong type of, testing.
The annual, multiple-choice-style tests required by NCLB “don’t
tell us nearly enough about our students,” said Connecticut Education
Commissioner Betty Sternberg, in a March 24 Hartford Courant
opinion piece. She advocates “short, focused tests given every four
to six weeks” that provide immediate feedback and let teachers customize
instruction for each child. This type of testing has been shown “particularly
effective in raising the performance of lower-performing students.”
As for charter schools, state laws limit their expansion and the number
of students who can attend them, things the Bank of America’s Klaus
and CBIA would like to see changed.
“If you establish more charter schools, Klaus says, “it’s
not to create a whole charter-school district or have every child going
to a charter school. We want to influence the outcomes in other schools.”
When urban parents see what their local charter schools or Vanguard Schools
are doing, he says, they will start demanding better results from their
schools too.
Those results will be needed ASAP to keep up with the pace of skilled-workforce
growth overseas. It takes years to educate our children from preschool
through high school and beyond.
Says Joyce, from The Bilco Co., “Unless we begin now to make substantial
improvements in Connecticut’s education system, our economy and
our children will have a very difficult time competing in the global economy.”
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