A business boost for K-12 education

Minnesota students routinely score at or near the top in state-by-state academic achievement rankings. Yet that overall performance can mask the fact that the quality of our high school graduates has been slipping.

Minnesota has one of the largest achievement gaps in the nation, with 38 percent of state high school graduates needing remedial work in college, and only 22 percent well-prepared to enter the workforce. And in a global economy, it is not enough to outperform kids in Michigan and Missouri. More Minnesotans need to be on par with their peers from South Korea, Germany and Hong Kong.

Understanding the link between education and the state’s future, the Minnesota Business Partnership and the Itasca Project — both organizations made up of CEOs from some of the state’s largest companies — have teamed up to devise a strategy to help improve K-12 education. They asked the consulting firm McKinsey and Co. to find out how Minnesota compares with the best education systems in the world and what can be learned from those systems.

The report showed that the top-performing systems share some similar qualities. Many recruit teachers from the top 10 percent of college graduates and emphasize teacher quality. They work on developing strong principals as instructional leaders. And some set higher standards and make better use of assessments to improve student achievement.

Those are areas business leaders know something about — recruiting and training good people, developing strong leadership and using data to drive performance. To that end, the collaborative has formed several subcommittees to work on supporting effective existing programs in Minnesota schools.

For example, the organizations will work with the Bush Foundation on its new teacher quality focus and collaborate with Teach for America, the University of Minnesota and the Department of Education on other programs. And the groups are proceeding on ideas that will not require legislation or necessarily additional funding. Rather, they seek to combine, enhance and redirect business in-kind and financial support to schools.

The Itasca/Business Partnership collaboration is not the first education initiative from a business group in Minnesota. Education assessments have been done before by chambers of commerce and other leading corporate groups. And many businesses already contribute to local schools by providing school supplies, equipment and mentors. Those contributions are worthwhile and needed.

The Itasca/Business Partnership effort is different because it would sharply focus collective business talent on proven teaching, learning and leadership methods. The idea is to put maximum muscle behind the most effective strategies to produce outstanding students.

In the process, business leaders are investing in the future. From their lowest-paid entry to top executives, Minnesota companies need the smartest, best education workers to compete in the global economy.