U.S. Chamber to Grade State Education Programs. Are Today’s Students Being Prepared for Tomorrow’s Jobs?

The United States Chamber of Commerce is launching a new program to assess how each state’s K–12 education system is preparing its students to compete in the 21st century and will recommend specific reforms necessary to improve competitiveness.

“America is at risk of being left behind if it doesn’t improve its education system,” said Chamber President and CEO Tom Donohue. “There are warning signs everywhere. Thirty percent of our young people are not even graduating from high school. Our students are lagging behind in math and science. In order to improve education, we must first assess what works and what doesn’t. Our goal is to inform citizens and businesses on how their state is performing and then promote improvement.”

The Chamber has assembled a bipartisan team of experts to aggregate and analyze current data and supplement it with new research that examines return on investment, budget transparency, and the relationship between per pupil spending and student achievement. The Chamber will use the results of the analysis to formulate and aggressively advance public policies to improve state education systems across the country.

The partnership is being led by Arthur Rothkopf, president emeritus of Lafayette College and a senior vice president at the Chamber. It includes the Center for American Progress, a research and educational institute led by former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, and Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research and a leading voice for education reform in America. The team will grade state education performance in a number of key areas: student achievement; the rigor of state education standards; high school students’ readiness to transition to postsecondary education and the workforce; and state flexibility and innovation in attracting individuals to the teaching profession. The results will be released in the beginning of 2007.

“America needs a world-class education system,” said Donohue said. “Students deserve it, parents demand it, and businesses require it if we are to compete and win in the global economy.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the world’s largest business federation representing more than 3 million businesses and organizations of every size, sector, and region.

http://www.uschamber.com

(Many thanks to Joe Unterriner of the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce for passing this along. Russ)