Businesses, Schools Team up
Groups aim to improve future workforce through education

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
October 12, 2006

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Jayna Boyle, jboyle@sastandardtimes.com or (325) 659-8263


SAN ANGELO, TX –A former White House education adviser spoke this week to members of the San Angelo Chamber of Commerce in an effort to get business owners involved with the school district.

In his first visit to San Angelo, Sandy Kress, who was President Bush's education adviser in 2001, said it is important for area businesspeople to join the school board or become active in the school system by asking about the major performance issues in the schools and how those issues need to be addressed.

''In my experience,'' Kress said, ''where businesses and civic leaders get involved, they get results.''

The San Angelo Chamber of Commerce and the school district worked together to develop forms distributed at the chamber's monthly luncheon to facilitate businesses' forming partnerships with the schools. The forms allow businesses to check off whether they would be willing to donate time or money to area schools.

Phil Neighbors, chamber president, said his group developed a three-year focus-on-education initiative at last year's leadership retreat. At this year's retreat, to be held next week, the group will probably divide into work groups to outline goals for improving education.

''The emphasis is to help develop a seamless education system of excellence,'' Neighbors said.

Neighbors said partnerships with local businesses and schools are becoming more commonplace.

Local business owners should be interested in the educational success of San Angelo students, Kress said, because ultimately some of those students will beemployees of area businesses.

Kress spoke on behalf of the Texas Institute for Education Reform, a group aimed at allowing every child in Texas to graduate from high school prepared for higher education and the 21st-century workplace.

Joanne Rice, interim superintendent for San Angelo Independent School District, said she agreed with the TIER goal to get businesses and civic leaders involved in the school system.

''It reaffirmed that the direction the district is going in is right on track,'' Rice said.

Another way for businesses to become active with local education is to group together and approach state representatives with their concerns, Kress said. He and other members of TIER are traveling the state to motivate more people to contact their representatives before the next legislative session.

San Angelo was Kress' first stop, but he is scheduled to speak in Brownsville, McAllen, Austin, Fort Worth and Austin. The tour should finish by the end of the year, he said.

The TIER tour focuses on promoting awareness of the areas where Texas education has advanced and emphasizing the areas that still need improvement.

Texas has seen a steady increase in state assessment passing rates from 45 percent in 1992 to 85 percent in 2002, TIER reports.

According to data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, each ethnic group in K-8 outperforms the national average of their peers. Broken down ethnically, fourth- and eighth-grade results place Texas in the top five states.

Most improvements have been made at the elementary level, Kress said, but more work is needed in middle school and beyond.

Eighth-grade reading and math proficiencies, 26 percent and 31 percent respectively, are too low to support success in advanced studies, TIER reports. Fifty-two percent of high school graduates require remediation to do college work. The Texas higher education graduation rate is fifth-lowest in the United States.

''We need to make changes, because Texas, demographically, is such that it could actually have a drop in household income'' in the future, Kress said.

Kress spoke about adding four years of math and science curriculum in high school, and Rice said that the San Angelo school district began encouraging students to take more math and science courses two years ago.

She said the intention of more math and science courses is to better prepare students for post-graduation aspirations, either in the work force or in college.