Marketplace of Ideas Blog

I am not at work today. I am spending the day with third-graders and kindergarteners.

Specifically, the kindergarten class at Barlow Park Elementary School, followed by the third-grade class at Murray Park Elementary School, both in Ripon. Our family planning skills are such that we now have three children attending three different schools (including a preschool) in Ripon, with further opportunities as our children ascend through Barlow Park (kindergarten through second grade), Murray Park (third through fifth grades), Ripon Middle School (sixth through eighth grades) and Ripon High School. There’s also Ripon College as a post-high school option, but that decision is a decade away.

Ripon’s elementary schools strongly encourage parents to volunteer in classrooms, one morning or afternoon a month. As it happens today, my sons’ teachers both assigned the family to today, so I’m going to Barlow Park in the morning and, assuming my psyche survives the experience of 25 or so kindergarteners and I further survive lunch (it’s not that the food is bad; the problem is that there isn’t enough of it for me), I’ll head to the opposite side of Ripon for an afternoon with third-graders.

The most, shall we say, interesting volunteer experience I had was in a morning with my oldest son’s kindergarten class. His teacher was pregnant with her first child, and she had a doctor’s appointment that morning, so a substitute teacher was lined up. When the sub didn’t show up, his class was taught by the teacher’s aide, a teacher brought in from another class, and a teacher’s aide brought in from another class, and it still was as chaotic as feeding coffee to monkeys. The kids thought was great; we adults would not have had worse headaches had you swung baseball bats against our skulls. Field trips (I’ve gone on five of them) are an interesting experience as well, although ours have gone smoothly to date.

Volunteering in school gives one more appreciation of what teachers do, and where the largest portion of your property tax bill goes. Which doesn’t mean that education doesn’t have its issues, which makes the juxtaposition of what I’m doing today and the email I got Thursday from Deloitte in Milwaukee interesting:

While an overwhelming majority (81 percent) of academics and business executives believe the quality of the U.S. education system would improve if businesses took a more active role, the two audiences have opposing views on exactly how businesses can aid in the improvement process, according to the findings of the “Deloitte 2008 Business in Education” survey.

A mere 12 percent of educators think that business involvement in curricula development would definitely provide improvement, compared to 41 percent of business executives.

Similarly only 14 percent of educators say businesses should definitely help set national standards, versus 42 percent of executives who say so.

While academics and business leaders disagree on businesses’ role in education, the two groups do see eye to eye when it comes to education’s impact on the economy. Over 66 percent of all respondents believe that the competitiveness of the U.S. economy will continue to be seriously jeopardized if businesses do not take a more active role in improving the U.S. education system.

News Facts:

• Seventy-one percent of all respondents believe that businesses should increase involvement in the education system.
• Eighty-eight percent of business executives say that the quality of the education system would improve if businesses were more involved, 74 percent of educators agree with the same statement — however, the same exact amount (74 percent) of educators also says that businesses would use their involvement in education for self-serving purposes.
• Interestingly, more business executives (52 percent) than educators (45 percent) say that the independence of our education system would be compromised if business were involved in education.
• Similarly, 61 percent of business executives think there would be less focus on liberal arts and other non-business oriented disciplines if businesses were involved in education, compared to 51 percent of educators.
• That said, educators think the best way for businesses to get involved is through financial contributions: Ninety-seven percent of educators say funding and monetary donations; 96 percent say establishing scholarships and 96 percent say donating equipment are the best ways for businesses to help improve the education system.
• Offering pro-bono services, volunteerism by business executives and volunteerism by other employees, however, are not as highly ranked by educators: 86, 83 and 81 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, these are all fairly highly ranked by business executives, 90, 89 and 86 percent, respectively.
• But, an overwhelming majority of educators (94 percent) are very enthusiastic about getting businesses to encourage their employees to get involved in education, and 76 percent of educators say that the best way to encourage employees to get involved is by offering better flexible time-off policies to volunteer.

Let’s review:

• Over 66 percent of all respondents believe that the competitiveness of the U.S. economy will continue to be seriously jeopardized if businesses do not take a more active role in improving the U.S. education system.
• … Educators think the best way for businesses to get involved is through financial contributions: Ninety-seven percent of educators say funding and monetary donations; 96 percent say establishing scholarships and 96 percent say donating equipment are the best ways for businesses to help improve the education system.
• Offering pro-bono services, volunteerism by business executives and volunteerism by other employees, however, are not as highly ranked by educators: 86, 83 and 81 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, these are all fairly highly ranked by business executives, 90, 89 and 86 percent, respectively.
• A mere 12 percent of educators think that business involvement in curricula development would definitely provide improvement, compared to 41 percent of business executives. Similarly only 14 percent of educators say businesses should definitely help set national standards, versus 42 percent of executives who say so.

So if these results are to be believed, educators are telling business people that they want their involvement, but only with donations of money and time, not with input. The majority of surveyed educators evidently haven’t heard of the Golden Rule of Reality: He who has the gold rules.

“Educators typically want financial support from business. Donations. Scholarships. Endowments. In short, only the most traditional kind of aid,” says Scott Wrobbel, managing partner of Deloitte’s Milwaukee office. “While that’s good, we need to go beyond financial aid to address the educational challenges we face in our country today.”

I’ve written here before about the huge difference between business people and teachers. Readers of Marketplace are focused on results — revenues, expenses and profits, to name the three most obvious metrics. Educators focus on process — how you teach, more than what kind of results you get from your teaching. That’s why many educators are highly skeptical of high-stakes testing, such as the Wisconsin Concepts and Knowledge Examination that the state’s third- through eighth-graders recently took. (Imagine — a school test in which the most nervous people in the school are the teachers.)

Increased involvement usually doesn’t come without strings attached. Several years of covering schools for three newspapers made me conclude that school district administrators have the most thankless jobs in education, since they simultaneously represent management to teacher unions, labor to school boards, and the big spenders to the taxpayer. Taxpayers are really involved in Wisconsin, with our school property tax bills, and yet too many administrators seem to hear only what they want to hear from the people paying their bills and salaries. (The Deloitte survey, incidentally, was conducted among 300 business executives, including vice presidents, presidents, CEOs, COOs and CFOs, and 300 educators, including college professors, college administrators, high school teachers and high school administrators.)

Blanket statements such as those expressed in the Deloitte survey are not entirely helpful to the cause of school reform anyway. It shouldn’t be surprising that it’s easier to improve schools at the individual school level, or even the individual classroom level, than it is to improve school districts, state educational systems and the nation’s schools. In government, top-down efforts more often than not are less effective yet more costly than efforts at the school or school district level, accomplished by people with actual stakes, either through their employment (teachers), investment (taxpayers) or involvement (parents and volunteers). One would think Republicans would already know that, and yet Republicans helped create the No Child Left Behind Act.

At any rate, I’m doing my part today. I’d suggest you not try to contact me after 3:15 p.m., because after a day full of kindergarteners and third-graders, I might need to get an early start on enjoying adult beverages.