What is 10% of 100?
The answer for some might fly off the tongue – for others it proves quite difficult.
On a recent trip to an Eastman Chemical factory, Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen found that the question isn’t easily answered by some area workers. Bredesen mentioned his tour of the facility during a February speech hosted by the Knoxville Chamber. The above question, administered on Eastman’s pre-employment exam is often answered incorrectly, Bredesen said
Bredesen’s example highlights the alarming conditions that prompted the Knoxville Chamber to development its Workforce Development and Education Taskforce. Over the past 18 months, the Chamber and the taskforce has attacked the following core issues: 38 percent of employers find today’s high school graduates deficient in reading comprehension; written communication tops the list of applied skills found lacking in high school and college graduates; one in five workers reads at a skill level lower than his or her job requires; remedial writing courses cost large corporations $3.1 billion annually.
“We had a tremendous number of kids who were leaving high school not prepared to go on,” says Knoxville Chamber President and CEO Mike Edwards. “Whether they were to go to college or go to work, they were not prepared for life,” added Edwards.
Furthermore, with the increasing use of technology on the job, addressing the above issues while implementing new skill sets are vitally important to our national and regional economic future.
“If you look at companies 50 to 100 years ago - for example, U.S. Steel - they were businesses focused on things and objects,” says Jennifer Evans, Chamber director of workforce development and education. “It was how much you owned in assets. If you look at the top companies now - Google and Microsoft for example – it’s all about knowledge. It’s these intangible things that are really launching us into the next economy – the Knowledge Economy.”
Raising Standards For the Knowledge Economy
China, India, Korea, Ireland. They’re America’s competitors as we enter the Knowledge Economy. These countries have developed educational systems to produce the workers for the new economy.
So, how do we begin to close the gap to produce the high-skilled workers we need to compete globally? For the Chamber and Knoxville businesses, the answer lies in higher standards and better curriculum.
In the summer of 2007, Governor Bredesen and Chamber executives met for a round-table discussion on increasing the education performance of this region and the state of Tennessee. The state School Board subsequently raised school standards and placed a large emphasis on application-based learning.
“I love that,” says Evans. “A large focus of these raised standards is to help teachers and students understand why they’re in school in the first place – to be able to apply this more rigorous material they are learning.”
Edwards points out that high school education isn’t just about having a class full of students. “In some states, their standard is to teach an algebra class the whole book. In Tennessee, we teach only parts of the book. We cherry-pick the parts that we know are going to appear on the state’s standardized tests. So our students do not have a comprehensive knowledge of the subject – a knowledge and understanding that can be used later to solve problems. And we, along with Oklahoma, cherry-pick the most,” Edwards says.
The 2007 data for Knox County schools backs up Edwards’ concern. Of the 2,517 students who took the ACT last year, only 26 percent met national benchmarks in English, math, reading and science.
Even if students’ career aspirations aren’t above average, Evans says the increased standards will help them. “Not everyone is going to be a physicist or trigonometry expert, but they need to be able to have the skills to think through those problems.”
One of the Chamber’s main focus points has been on this endgame mind-set: determining where we need to be before we start trekking into the unknown.
Outcome Vs. Process
“The largest focus of the Knoxville Chamber is on how we can help through outcomes,” says CEO Edwards.
“We have to change from a process mentality within public education to an outcome mentality.”
The education industry has focused, for many years, on how teachers should teach, but now they’re starting to shift that focus to how kids learn. Edwards believes every resource available to support this approach should be utilized. “It’s about kids walking out of school ready to go. Whatever it takes to support that needs to be there or we’re not going to have a prosperous economy,” says Edwards.
In early 2007, the Workforce Development and Education Taskforce of the Knoxville Chamber and the local business community began meeting with Knox County School System (KCS) administrators to find ways to help the school system develop and meet higher standards. KCS has established four interrelated and dependent student achievement goals:
The most recent data shows only 33 percent of Knox County students earn a 21 or higher on the ACT.
Here’s another troubling fact. Currently, just 1.6 percent of KCS’s $350 million budget goes towards technology in a world that is driven by technology.
The Chamber recognizes the critical necessity of technology funding as the students of the present grow into our workforce of tomorrow. KCS realizes a need for increased funding as well. In fact, in 2007 it asked for and received $18 million for that purpose from the state of Tennessee – though pinpointing exactly how that money was used is at issue.
“If you look at KCS’s budget, you really can’t tell where everything is allocated,” notes Edwards. “The Chamber started having conversations with the school board and found out they have silos of information and data. They have budget information, fiscal-plan information, they have test-score information, and they have HR information, but none of it talks to each other.”
The Chamber wants to help merge all of KCS’s information. This can be accomplished by developing a data warehouse that would allow KCS to use its information to make knowledgeable decisions - including how to spend funds to meet its outcome-driven goals.
“We’re looking at helping them develop a data bank and then providing people who can train them in how to use that management tool,” says Edwards.
Edwards believes the public education community must adopt sound management principles in order to reach its goals. He recommends using the well-documented management and leadership practices employed by successful businesses. That will help KCS become a high-achieving organization.
A resolution drafted by the Chamber to help KCS work towards its goals has recently been adopted by the Knox County School Board.
On the Same Page
The Chamber believes the value of education is not to be taken lightly. If our economy is to continue to be the world leader it is today, each of us needs to understand the importance of a proper education for our children.
“This shouldn’t just apply to parents with kids in elementary school, high school, or college – it should apply to those who don’t have kids or have kids who are grown. They should care about this,” says Evans.
In an effort to spread the word, the Chamber will present a Workforce and Education Summit sponsored by EdFinancial and South College. The Summit will take place on March 24th at the Knoxville Convention Center and will include educators, businesspeople, parents, community leaders, representatives of faith-based institutions, and students throughout the Innovation Valley.
Furthermore, the Chamber believes the relevance of educational material to workforce development is vitally important.
“It makes sense for the business community to help the education community understand what it will require from its workforce,” says Evans. “It’s better for a business to offer input upfront than to have to remediate and train employees that aren’t cutting it.”
It also helps students because they will be ready to fill the available jobs of the future.
The Chamber also believes individualized focus and tracking is important for progression towards the Knowledge Economy. It feels students must be tracked as they progress through their education career to make sure they are ready for the workforce.
“If a student is struggling with material in their current grade level then we really need to stop them there, we don’t need to advance them on,” says Evans. “I think administrators and school systems realize this, but I think the community and businesses need to jump in there, because resources in the school system are limited.”
Evans says tutoring is an example of how the community might be able to step in and provide assistance to individual students.
There is optimism. Tennessee students are beginning to “cut-it” more frequently. “There are still many, many things to do, but [Tennessee schools are] moving up the rankings and doing better,” Governor Phil Bredesen told the Chamber-sponsored lunch crowd of about 600 business and community leaders in February.
Bredesen also mentioned that Tennessee placed 10th in the recent national ranking of state education systems, “Standards, Assessments and Accountability.”
“Because of the actions that our state School Board has [recently] taken to tighten those standards even further, I think we will continue to move up those rankings,” said Bredesen.
Tenth out of 50, a current ranking the Knoxville Chamber feels will rise with the continued focus on workforce development and education by the entire community – including the business community.
