Ten years ago, Kentucky schools ranked 50th in the nation in academic achievement.
In 1989, the Kentucky Supreme Court even declared the entire school system unconstitutional.
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But those troubled days are a thing of the past, thanks to the Bluegrass State’s business community.
What does that have to do with Rhode Island? Many Ocean State businesspeople believe that like strategies could mean similar improvements for their often-criticized public schools.
“It’s easier to get all excited and deal with a crisis than it is to just do the hard work it takes to succeed,” said J. Dan Lacy, vice president of corporate affairs for Ashland Inc. Ashland, whose businesses include road construction, specialty chemicals, lubricants, car-care products, chemical and plastics distribution and transportation fuels, is one of Kentucky’s largest employers with 25,000 employees.
Lacy was the keynote speaker for a meeting of the Rhode Island Business Education Roundtable, a panel of executives from the state’s top companies working to better understand education and the ways in which business and education can interact.
“In the 1950s, we had managers and supervisors who gave the orders, and everybody else had to do the work,” he said. “Today, we want everybody to be thinkers. We’re depending on that employee at the end of the line to help execute our company’s strategic plan.”
It was the book “A Nation at Risk” published in 1983 by the National Commission on Excellence in Education that inspired Ashland to action. The company has been active in educational research ever since, exploring issues such as the qualities and skills desired by Kentucky’s employers.
“Doing research and creating awareness wasn’t enough,” Lacy said. “We kept saying ‘What can we do next?'”
What came next (in 1991) was the collaboration of executives from Kentucky’s three largest employers — UPS, Humana Inc. and Ashland Inc. – to establish the Partnership for Kentucky Schools on behalf of the national Business Roundtable. These founders invited 50 other Kentucky leaders to join them in making a 10-year commitment to the successful implementation of education reform. Since that time, the Partnership has worked for the improvement of Kentucky’s schools within the framework of the 1990 Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA).
The group launched a statewide advertising campaign called “Johnny Can’t Read, Sally Can’t Add” to direct attention to education. The television and print ads were the first step in what became a statewide recognition of its education problem.
“People running for office started running on education platforms,” Lacy said. “We were creating awareness by putting education on the front burner.”
The Partnership for Kentucky Schools has made hundreds of presentations to businesses, business-related organizations, and schools. Check stuffers were designed and distributed to Kentucky businesses to help their employees better understand what was happening in their schools and how they could help. “Education: We Make It Our Business,” a business initiatives notebook, was developed as a guide to help employers in establishing education initiatives at the work site. More than 600 copies were sent to businesses and individuals to show them how to get effectively involved in education.
Rhode Island’s own roundtable wasn’t formed until three years ago, when “Stan Goldstein was coming back to Rhode Island at the helm of CVS before he retired it to Tom Ryan, and Gary Sasse of RIPEC (the Rhode Island Public Expenditures Council) and Dick Hoag at Providence Washington and a few other leaders sat down and said, ‘The business community has got to get focused – to come together as one voice to represent the perspective of business and bring some clout to the whole process,'” said Business Education Roundtable Executive Director Valerie Forti in a recent interview with PBN.
“The ability to all sit down together and discuss an emerging issue solves a lot of problems before they get out of hand,” said Lacy.
Already, the Rhode Island Business Education Roundtable has started Aspiring Principals, a mentoring program for aspiring administrators and has paired area companies with school districts in Johnston, Newport and Bristol/Warren to help each district formulate a five-year plan.
Funded by private donations by the companies involved, the Partnership for Kentucky Schools, in its first years had an operating budget of over $1 million. This year’s budget, at $360,000, is significantly lower, but for a positive reason: Other groups who have become involved have taken over financial responsibility for many of the organization’s programs.
“We’ve seen some of the small, rural districts improve their performance dramatically,” said Lacy.
Some of the ways in which Kentucky’s schools have improved in the last decade:
- 30,501 children participated in the state’s preschool program in 1997-98, up from 14,019 in 1990-91
- More than 156,000 children received extended school services – increased opportunities for students to learn outside the classroom — in the 1997-98 school year The Milken Foundation has named Kentucky one of the nation’s top ten states for the quality and availability of school technology (Kentucky schools have one computer for every 7.8 students and 1.8 teachers)
- Kentucky ranked 19th in the nation — up from 43rd in 1997 — in The Digital State 1998, prepared by the Progress and Freedom Foundation.
