Executive Summary

Business and the Schools: The Necessary Partnership

Dr. James J. Renier
Chairman & CEO of Honeywell Inc.

Member of the MCCR Board of Directors

January 1992

America has created a crisis for its children, and then, in my view, has simply dumped then at the school door. And the schools are being overwhelmed.

We often hear the phrase "restructuring the nation's schools." But we have already restructured the schools. Dramatic societal changes have forced public schools to assume new responsibilities that go beyond their traditional mission. Schools today are struggling to provide a wide range of social services that have suddenly been thrust upon them.

In Minnesota, for example, one school district drew up a list of 52 services which the schools are mandated by law to provide. Schools lack the financial resources, professional staff, and administrative flexibility to assume such responsibilities competently, and the effect is to prevent them from concentrating on their primary responsibility: the academic agenda. Thus, neither the social nor the academic needs of children are being adequately met.

It is time to lift the burden of the social agenda off the shoulders of the schools and teachers. We need to recognize that education involves everything that prepares a child to learn, and we need to do more to prepare children for school by meeting their early health, social, and developmental needs before they enter school.

Programs already exist to help do this, but far too many of them are simply not accessible to those who need them. One reason is that children's programs are currently scattered among various government departments and agencies.

The need for better coordination is urgent at every level of government. We must find a way to break through the bureaucratic labyrinth, so we can bring these resources to the kids and families who need them.

The whole community has to face up to the problems of low SAT scores, high dropout rates, alcohol and drug abuse, violence, and teen pregnancy. It is estimated that 135,000 children carry a gun to school; almost 3,000 girls get pregnant every day.

These are not "school problems." They are community problems. The schools can offer leadership in community efforts, but the whole community--including business--must take responsibility for finding solutions.

Business people generally don't know what the schools are up against. But they do realize that poor children need better preparation for school. And they want to help. So do the American people. A Gallup poll has shown that two-thirds of them would be willing to pay higher taxes for better schools.

It is clear to me as a business person that if we fail to nurture and educate all our children, we will close the doors of the future to the growing number of young people who, today, are excluded from the mainstream.

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