Education Means Business

To paraphrase an old maxim: In the 21st century, the business of America is education. Nothing is more vital to the competitiveness and advancement of corporations large and small than a literate, tech-capable, and critical-thinking workforce.

Just ask Otha Thornton, president-elect of the National PTA and senior vice president of business development for Capital Commercial Development Group L.L.C., a construction company. He believes in a new, impactful version of mergers and acquisitions: develop productive private—public partnerships that create an exemplary workforce to be recruited by global industry in droves. He has come to grips with the disparities of the current work environment that, if not halted, will prove to be a harbinger for the future. The black unemployment rate is 15.7% compared with just 7.6% for their white counterparts–and this nation currently has 3 million job openings in tech-related fields.

As head of the PTA at Meade Senior High School in Fort Meade, Maryland, from 2006 to 2007, Thornton forged partnerships with more than 20 businesses, including Northrop Grumman Corp., Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, and Sotech Inc., to develop initiatives to improve schools. By working with Project Lead the Way, a national provider of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) curriculum, he used professionals and entrepreneurs to fully engage students. To get a sense of the difference this engagement made, prior to 2004, Meade did not make AYP, or annual yearly progress (state benchmarks that schools and districts are expected to meet); but in 2009, Newsweek ranked Meade in the top 6% of  U.S. high schools.

For Thornton, the critical factor driving education reform is putting “the right people around the table,” and identifying business leaders who will step up big time. He says of the effectiveness of programs like Project Lead the Way: “Parents and principals were able to go to corporations and say, ‘We’d really like to partner with you to give our kids the opportunity to see the relevance of the skills needed to be potentially employed with the companies.’ [In turn], some businesses offered students scholarships and internships while others allowed employees to come to schools to talk about their roles, exposing the kids to different opportunities.”

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He’s not finished yet. At Atlanta-based Capital Commercial Development Group, he’s is designing a similar program. Recently retired from the military, Thornton, 44, deliberately sought employment with a company that had a “community- and faith-based ethos” of giving back to local schools in need. “We’re in the process of finalizing a partnering arrangement with a high school in Savannah, Georgia, that’s had some challenges. We’ll come in, talk to the students, provide insight, and talk about the soft skills–especially critical thinking–that are needed to succeed in the business community.” Thornton eventually plans to offer internships to students.

Professionals like Thornton are doing their part to close the K—12 education divide, ensuring that our next graduating classes will not exit school to unemployment lines and unproductive lives. In this final installment of our series, we take a look at the promise and progress of educational upgrades through business enterprises, community activism, and powerful partnerships.

Business Class
Now more than ever, business leaders and educators are seeking collaborative models–ranging from curriculum development to direct institutional management–that work. Major corporations have made a huge investment in schools, and contribute roughly $3.5 billion to them each year. For some companies, such activity is nothing new. Take Chicago-based Ariel Investments L.L.C. (No. 6 on the be Asset Managers List with $5.5 billion in assets under management).

Fifteen years ago, the firm founded Ariel Community Academy after being awarded corporate sponsorship of a public school through former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s New School Initiative Program. The school’s administrators targeted Chicago’s North Kenwood area, one of the city’s most underserved communities, and designed a corporate—family—school partnership that has helped make Ariel one of Chicago’s top-performing elementary schools. During the 2009—2010 school year, 89% of Ariel’s students who took state tests met or exceeded state standards, compared with 70% of students in the district. Launched with 80 students, the school now has 547 students, pre-K through grade 8. Ariel’s principal, Lennette Coleman, says, “Our school is cutting-edge because we go beyond financial literacy. We teach our students how to use money to work for them, how to invest it, how to use it entrepreneurially, and how to manage it over time. In that sense, we’re a leader.”

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Another successful model is Maryland Business Roundtable for Education, a coalition of more than 100 leading businesses committed to improving student achievement within the state. Executive Director June Streckfus and LaTara Harris, director of partnerships and outreach, say the organization has come a long way from its founding nearly two decades ago. In those early years, there was friction. Streckfus reflects: “Educators were saying, ‘You’re [the business community] out there critiquing us, not supporting us,’ [while] business was saying, ‘You’re not producing the core product that we need to advance our company.’”

Through trust-building and performance–more than 3,000 volunteers work with MBRT to impact nearly 50,000 middle and high school students in their classrooms each

year–discord evolved into collaboration and investment. Businessman James Pitts, the corporate vice president and president of Northrop Grumman electronic systems, now chairs MBRT’s board. “I think we’ve moved from animosity to alignment. You can’t just put a Band-Aid on a system if there isn’t core reform going on. By ‘core reform’ I mean the raising of standards, assessments against those standards to make sure students are learning at a high level, and then accountability for teachers, students, parents, and the business community,” says Streckfus.

Another path to success for students and companies alike is providing access to quality

classroom instruction as well as on-the-job training. After four decades, INROADS still represents the nation’s largest nonprofit to prepare talented, underserved minority youth for the corporate world. In 2009, the mentorship organization, which partners with nearly 200 corporate clients, was named one of the top 10 internship programs, and has begun expanding its focus on the high school set. Executive Leadership Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the Executive Leadership Council–the nation’s leading organization of senior black executives–recently awarded INROADS a $250,000 grant to launch the College Links pilot program in Washington, D.C., and Chicago.  “We’re looking for high-performing, college-bound students with leadership ability who are interested in STEM and business careers,” says Javona Braxton, INROADS’ national director of learning and development. “We want to work with them to develop their college and career goals, and to make sure they understand the link between academic success and career success. We’re preparing the pipeline of future African American members of the C-suite.”

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Organizing to Effect Change
As the school reform debate intensifies, a number of low-income minority communities don’t believe business models offer solutions for all problems. For instance, the NAACP stirred controversy after joining a lawsuit filed by the United Federation of Teachers in May to stop the New York City Department of Education from closing 22 failing institutions and locating 15 charter schools in traditional school buildings. While many scratched their heads, others were in complete agreement. Among them were members of the Coalition for Educational Justice, a community-based organization made up of diverse parents, students, educators, and community residents. Concerned that the nation’s largest school system wasn’t following proper procedures nor meeting the needs of the vast majority of students (the 96% not enrolled in charter schools), CEJ supported the lawsuit. “What needs to happen in charter schools and [traditional] public schools is no different,” says Zakiyah Ansari, a CEJ volunteer and one of the parents who signed on to the lawsuit. “If you really want sustainable transformation and change in schools, it has to [involve the] community.”

NAACP President and CEO Be

njamin Jealous maintained that the suit wasn’t about charters but about providing a quality education for all, as well as involving parents and community members in the decision-making process.

In light of movements such as Occupy Wall Street, grassroots activism among fed-up parents and communities is expected to grow. Says Ansari, a married mother of eight (four of whom are school-age) who works for the Alliance for Quality Education, a statewide advocacy group: “We want to be included in the conversation at the state, local, and district levels. That’s the only way change can be sustainable.” Ansari, who has one child in a charter school, does not oppose charters, but she’s convinced more must be done to serve traditional public school students.

She and others have been empowered by examples of communities effecting change in historically neglected school districts. For example, CEJ’s efforts led to the establishment of a success fund of nearly $30 million for middle school reform. And the Brooklyn Education Collaborative (

a precursor to the CEJ) purchasing much-needed science labs for middle and high schools in Brooklyn. AQE unites more than 230 organizations tied to parents, teachers, clergy, and others who have been able to expand pre-kindergarten projects, create school-based literacy initiatives, and avoid educational cuts as part of the state’s deficit reduction plans. Other such community organizations are becoming a force in Austin, Texas; Chicago; Los Angeles; Miami; Milwaukee, and other cities across the nation.

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Kevin Chavous, board chair of Black Alliance for Educational Options and a former Washington, D.C., councilman, says “our educational house is on fire,” and that the traditional school system was not designed for success in this era. “Poverty, family challenges, technological advances, etc., have all helped to create far too much diversity of need and interest for a top-down approach,” he says. “The traditional school system as it is stifles creativity and innovation. It isn’t responsive to new practices and teaching modalities involving technology.”

Chavous, who helped oversee development of the charter school movement in the nation’s capital and pushes for strong charter school laws nationally, says “Power needs to be with parents. Parents need to be advocates for their children, and have a sense of their own empowerment.”

BAEO provides a range of parent advocacy workshops, one of which teaches parents to work with others to reduce the number of black boys between the ages of 10 and 14 who are routinely suspended more than children

from other races for minor infractions such as cellphone use. “It’s important for parents to be trained and to train their peers,” he says. “There’s less reception to people who are parachuted in.”

Connecting the Dots
Bringing together business leaders, community members, dedicated educators, and administrators will go a long way toward fixing our schools. With 116 chapters worldwide, 100 Black Men has been one of the organizations that has served as a mobilizing force. Recent conferences have assembled these diverse groups to discuss charter school development, STEM training for teachers, school choice, and parental engagement. And it walks the walk by providing a range of student services nationwide such as scholarships, summer academies, and college prep programs, among others.

“The things that the 100 are doing are in total concert with the Obama administration’s education agenda,” says David Brand, also of 100 Black Men. He notes that, “Charter schools are very open to having relationships with businesses, as are other high-performing schools run by African American churches and Catholic churches.”

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Several chapters have opened their own high-performing charter schools, for example 100 Black Men of Memphis opened the Memphis Academy for Health Sciences; the Las Vegas chapter, in partnership with Imagine Schools, opened Imagine 100 Academy of Excellence;  and 100 Black Men of Atlanta, in partnership with the Atlanta Public Schools system, opened the Business Engineering Science Technology (B.E.S.T.) Academy and the New York chapter’s   Eagle Academy prepares students for college. To achieve these goals, 100 Black Men has received support from black entrepreneurs, as well as corporate and philanthropic leviathans such as Walmart and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Giving young African American men–the organization’s primary focus–a fair shake requires mentorship and, in many cases, addressing issues related to poverty and inadequate resources. For example, members have identified misdiagnoses of learning disabilities, malnutrition, and lack of access to affordable healthcare.

Chairman Albert E. Dotson believes success will ultimately come through the organization’s approach of “mentoring the 100 way across a lifetime” rather than making temporary connections with at-risk youth. “We don’t just enter a young person’s life and then come out because we think that can sometimes do more harm than good. It’s all about a sustained and sustainable relationship,” he says. “We focus on youth mentoring and believe the young people we mentor must not only be prepared to continue their education, but must be capable of participating in the economic fabric of our country.” 

By Robin White Goode and Dale Coachman