Big Business Going to Bat for NCLB

["PRISCILLA GUTIERREZ" <pgutpgut@msn.com>]

This appeared in today's edition of Education Week.  Excuse me?  Their 
lobbying presence on education has been modest?  Tell that to the folks in 
MA, where the Business Roundtable was a major player at a recent educational 
summit that Mitt Romney held while educators were personae non grata.

Big Business Going to Bat for NCLB
Competitiveness Is Cited as Reason to Retain Law
By David J. Hoff

Large companies and major business groups are known for hiring well-heeled 
lobbyists to push for their interests, especially in such areas as tax and 
spending laws. But their federal lobbying presence on education issues has 
been relatively modest. Until now.


As Congress gears up to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act, business 
groups are laying the groundwork to have their voices heard in the process. 
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable?two prominent 
Washington-based groups representing business owners and chief executives of 
large corporations, respectively?announced last month that they have formed 
a coalition with other business groups to protect the nearly 5-year-old 
education law from major changes.


The U.S. Chamber, the Business Roundtable, and other business organizations 
are also pushing for changes in other areas of pre-K-12 education, such as 
improving mathematics and science education, expanding instruction in 
foreign languages and international issues, and offering preschool to all 
families that want it.


Business leaders say their interest in the No Child Left Behind law and 
other education matters can be summed up in one word: competitiveness.


?This is a very, very serious problem, and business takes it seriously,? 
Arthur F. Ryan, the chairman and chief executive officer of Prudential 
Financial Inc., a Newark, N.J.-based insurance and financial-services 
company, said at a forum on the NCLB law sponsored by the Business 
Roundtable in Washington last month.


Executives such as Mr. Ryan, who is chairman of the BRT?s task force on 
education and workforce preparation, are actively involved in part out of 
self-interest. They believe that by improving schools and student 
achievement, they?ll have better employees in the future.


?Business is probably the largest consumer of American education,? said 
Charles E.M. Kolb, the president for the Committee for Economic Development, 
a Washington-based group of business, academic, and philanthropic leaders. 
The priority is ?having people in the workforce who are capable and have the 
skills you need in the workforce today,? he said.


Bigger Voice

While corporate America has long supported national education initiatives, 
many observers say that business leaders are now more prominent and more 
focused on specific details than ever before. Although business leaders 
supported efforts to set national education goals in the late 1980s, for 
example, they weren?t as involved as they are now in advocating specific 
policy measures.


Before Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, business 
leaders had not been big players in reauthorizations of the Elementary and 
Secondary Education Act, the Great Society-era legislation that was most 
recently revised by the NCLB law.


That year, the Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce formed a 
coalition of 50 other business groups and individual companies to support 
key elements of the legislation, which President Bush ultimately signed into 
law in January 2002. The coalition worked hard to ensure that the law?s 
testing requirements focused on reading and mathematics and required annual 
snapshots of students? performance. Congress adopted that approach, 
requiring testing in those subjects in grades 3-8 and once in high school.


The business groups also endorsed the law?s accountability measures that 
require districts to take action to fix schools not meeting achievement 
goals. Those interventions start with requiring districts to allow students 
whose schools don?t meet yearly achievement goals to transfer to other 
public schools after two consecutive years and to receive free tutoring 
after three consecutive years. If problems persist, the districts must 
intervene by taking over the schools.


Because the law?s testing and accountability requirements have faced 
criticism from various quarters, business leaders plan to enter the 
reauthorization debate and put their muscle behind keeping them in place, 
said one lobbyist.


?There?s a general sense that in the business community, No Child Left 
Behind was a very important step and to back away from it would be a 
troubling sign, ? particularly in the face of this ramp-up [of educational 
achievement] in other countries,? said Sandy Kress, who as a White House 
policy aide helped President Bush negotiate with Congress over the details 
of the No Child Left Behind law. He is now a lawyer based in Austin, Texas.


The U.S. Chamber recently retained Mr. Kress to lobby on federal educational 
issues, particularly on the NCLB reauthorization, which is scheduled to 
begin next year.


While the most prominent business groups are backing the law?s testing 
requirements, some leading companies are looking for significant changes.


The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, which includes technology and 
education companies such as Microsoft Corp., Pearson Education, and LeapFrog 
Schoolhouse Inc., wants assessments that can assure that students have 
gained more than basic academic knowledge during their school careers. The 
Tucson, Ariz.-based group also counts nonprofits such as the National 
Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and the American 
Association of School Librarians among its members.


The partnership?s approach measures ?higher-order thinking skills? rather 
than simply the ?memorization of facts? that schools stress under the 
current systems, said Joel Packer, the director of education policy and 
practice for the 3.2 million-member NEA.


?We would hope that [business leaders] recognize that you can have 
accountability, but you want to make sure it?s fair,? he added.


Susan Traiman, the director of public policy for the Business Roundtable, 
said the coalition her group is building with the U.S. Chamber is focused on 
reading and math achievement because those are the essential skills that all 
future workers need to master.


While the coalition of groups working with the BRT hasn?t taken an official 
stance on the Partnership for 21st Century Skills? proposal, Ms. Traiman 
doubts that the states would be able to take on such a large expansion of 
testing.


?The question is whether we currently have the capacity in education to 
assess these additional skills on a statewide basis in a valid and reliable 
way,? she said.


Broader Agenda

Despite the current focus on the No Child Left Behind law, the U.S. business 
community has a larger education agenda?one that extends from preschool to 
college.


In a report earlier this year, the Committee for Economic Development 
advocated universal preschool for 4-year-olds. Also this year, it said that 
American schools should dramatically increase the availability of 
foreign-language instruction and require high school graduates to show an 
understanding of other countries? geography and cultures.


?You can see how it?s increasingly important to learn about other countries 
and other cultures, and learn to speak other languages,? said John Brademas, 
the president emeritus of New York University in New York City and a CED 
trustee.


Mr. Brademas, a Democratic member of Congress from Indiana from 1959 to 
1981, was a leader in the effort to pass the Elementary and Secondary 
Education Act in 1965. He said that business leaders played no role in 
pushing that measure through Congress.


The Business of Education
Three major U.S. business groups, all based in Washington, with a wide range 
of interests in education policy, have recently stepped up their efforts to 
influence the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act.

BUSINESS ROUNDTABLE

Members: 165 chief executives of major U.S. companies

Education agenda: Working with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in a coalition 
to improve the NCLB law. The groups support the law?s accountability and 
testing rules, especially annual testing to measure whether students are 
making progress toward reaching proficiency in reading and math. The 
roundtable has set a goal of doubling the number of college students 
graduating with majors in science, math, engineering, and technology by 
2015. Improving the quality of K-12 math and science instruction is vital to 
meeting that goal, the group says.

U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Members: 3,000 state and local chambers of commerce, representing 3 million 
businesses

Education agenda: Is working with the Business Roundtable to support the 
NCLB law as Congress prepares to reauthorize it. Recently started the 
Institute for a Competitive Workforce, which convened a meeting this month 
of K-12 policymakers and business leaders to discuss important issues in 
education policy and how business leaders can be involved. The institute 
also plans to issue report cards on states? education policies.

COMMITTEE FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Members: More than 170 business executives, academics, and philanthropic 
leaders

Education agenda: Advocating voluntary preschool programs for all 
4-year-olds. Promoting foreign-language instruction and international 
education as a way to help students become better prepared to enter the 
workforce.

SOURCE: Education Week
The Business Roundtable has set a goal of doubling the number of U.S. 
college graduates with degrees in mathematics, science, engineering, or 
technology by 2015. It is advocating changes to teacher preparation and K-12 
policies to achieve that goal.


The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently established an institute that will 
focus on educational issues related to preparing students for a future in 
the workforce.


All of those efforts have one goal in common: to make American workers of 
the future economically competitive.


?We see there?s kind of an umbrella issue that all students graduate high 
school [ready for] college and work,? said Ms. Traiman of the BRT. ?They?re 
all falling in under that broad objective.?


While corporate campaign contributions often open doors on Capitol Hill, one 
House aide said that business leaders also bring credibility to the debate 
over education policy because they are advocating changes, not resisting 
them.


?Their perspective is different than everyone else?s,? said Vic Klatt, the 
staff director for Republicans on the House Education and the Workforce 
Committee. ?All of the education groups are first and foremost worried about 
their members and maintaining the status quo. The business community has no 
interest in the status quo.?


But Mr. Packer of the NEA said that the business community?s stance on the 
NCLB law is incomplete because it has been ?largely silent? in the debate 
over funding for the program, which rose dramatically in the years after 
Congress passed it, but leveled off in the past two years.


?If you think these are good policies,? he said, ?you should be pushing for 
resources for them.?





Priscilla Gutierrez
Outreach Specialist
New Mexico School for the Deaf

....change is inevitable, growth is optional...