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Education Goals
Although specific educational concerns vary according to organization and region, most corporate advocates for school reform promote one or more of the following goals for education:
Prepare students for the workplace
- Promote school-to-work initiatives (for example, the Workforce and Education Act of 1994).
- Incorporate workplace skills and competencies into the curriculum.
- Implement a technology-based curriculum.
- Increase business input in schools’ curriculum, standards, and finance decisions.
- Increase the number and quality of school-business partnerships.
Raise academic achievement levels
- Raise academic standards (for example, math and science skills, literacy).
- Improve teacher quality through teacher education programs and scholarships.
- Reduce teacher shortages (for example, through research on teacher "pipeline" issues and legislation that provides incentives for teachers to relocate to critical shortage areas).
- Increase community and parent involvement in school policies and activities.
- Conduct research in collaboration with government research organizations (for example, SERVE, the federal education research laboratory for the Southeast).
Reform school funding
- Raise public and private funds for schools.
- Increase business sponsorship of schools.
- Promote vouchers, school choice, and charter schools.
- Tie school accreditation, and therefore funding, to student performance on standards-based assessments and exit exams (for example, the South Carolina Education Accountability Act of 1998).
SOURCE: Adapted from Kronley (2000)
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