THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 11, 1996 TAG: 9610110485
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: 64 lines
A memo to Virginia's public schools, from your local business employers:
Send us high school graduates who have taken full, rigorous loads of academic courses - four years of English, several years each of math and science and history - even if the students were in vocational programs. Teach them how to use computers. Teach them how to communicate with others.
And teach them ``values,'' no matter what you call them: teamwork, punctuality, honesty, dressing appropriately, acting civilly.
This was the message given Thursday to the Virginia Commission on the Future of Public Education. Through monthly meetings and public hearings, the commission began in August gathering information about school successes and shortfalls, leading to scheduled completion by December 1997 of a plan for how Virginia's schools should teach children in the next century. The 21-member commission, set up by a General Assembly resolution earlier this year, includes lay people, business leaders, lawmakers and educators.
At Thursday's meeting in the General Assembly Building, speakers reminded the commission that Virginia's children must compete in a world economy, and so must be at least as advanced academically as students in other countries.
Milton Goldberg, senior vice president for education of the National Alliance of Business and executive director of the National Commission on Excellence in Education that produced the landmark report ``A Nation At Risk,'' shared some test questions regularly posed to non-college-bound European ninth- and 10th-graders that Goldberg said few American high-schoolers of any level could answer. American standards and achievement have risen since his commission's critical 1983 report, but should go higher, he said.
``A lot of people said it was unfair to these youngsters, they won't be able to do it,'' Goldberg said. ``But that was unfair to these youngsters. High expectations lead to high achievement, that's what the research shows.''
Goldberg and other speakers complimented Virginia's recent toughening of its academic standards. They agreed that employers want higher standards for what students must learn, strict assessment measures to see whether students or schools are meeting the standards, and accountability so students and schools are rewarded or punished based on how they do - just like in the work world.
Richard L. Sharp, head of Richmond-based Circuit City Stores Inc., and Eva S. Teig, vice president-public affairs for Virginia Power and chairwoman of the state Chamber of Commerce's Education Committee, both said employers would like to see potential employees' high-school transcripts and attendance records, impressing on youngsters that school performance will matter throughout their lives.
Low-skill jobs are leaving the United States for cheaper overseas markets, and the ones left here tend to require higher skills, Sharp said. But more is being demanded of even low-skill positions - one company Sharp knows of requires algebra classes for its janitors. Circuit City warehouse workers use computers as much as they do their backs.
Goldberg said a paper company interviewed 3,000 people for 31 jobs, and was happy with the people it hired. But an official later said if they had needed 50 workers, they ``would've been in trouble.''
``That's not just a sad thing for business,'' Goldberg said. ``That's a sad thing for America.''
But he and the other business leaders were reminded that there are political and social hurdles to overcome in revamping education. As commission member and former state senator Hunter B. Andrews told them, start pushing for longer school days and years like they have in other countries, and then try to run for public office. by CNB