I think we would all do well to read Tony Wanger's new book:

The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don't Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need--And What We Can Do About It

The Business Roundtable report’s recommendations are right on target. This is an area in which, although it relates to broad issues of curriculum and accountability in higher education, the business community has been far ahead of colleges and universities. Two points in particular deserve special mention.

The issue of alignment of the college education students receive with the demands of the job market is an issue that has implications for both curriculum and accountability. Career preparation is not the only reason that students need an education—college graduates should also develop a sense of service to the wider community and of the obligations of citizenship—but it is the main reason students seek an education. If we don’t prepare them for careers we have not done an important part of our job.

The evolving nature of the 21st century economy and the 21st century workplace makes career preparation both more important and more challenging than it was in the past. A modern college education should include not only a four-year or two-year degree, but a certification component, not only to provide job-specific preparation, but because they serve as a flexible connection to the job market and to jobs currently available.

Employer involvement in program development needs to be an integral part of the alignment process. Here at UNCF, for example, our long-running Corporate Scholars Program works closely with employers to structure student aid and internship programs that maximize effectiveness by addressing the needs of students, colleges and businesses.

An important part of the challenge is that career-focused education needs to be both specific--to align education with current knowledge and skill requirements—and flexible, to prepare students for the need to change not just jobs but careers several times over the course of a career. That means that Americans need to think of education not as something that concludes at age 21 with college graduation but as something that starts in youth and continues throughout life.

It also means that educators need to make life-long learning accessible to the kinds of people who need it. Because many life-long learners will return to school some years after college graduation, they may need support in re-adjusting to being a student. Because they may need to update their skills and education while continuing to hold full-time jobs, educators will need to schedule classes when it suits their students’ schedules, or develop online, on-demand classes. And because many workers who return to education may have families to support and mortgages to pay, costs have to be controlled and manageable financing needs to be available.

The Business Roundtable report calls for a significant commitment of state and federal investment in aligning the education we get with the requirements of the jobs for which we will be competing. That is as it should be. I would suggest, in addition, that we will need significant private investment as well. Private employers have the clearest idea of the kind of education their employees will need in the workplace. They, along with students and lifelong learners, will be the direct beneficiaries of the workplace-ready graduates who will emerge from the efforts the report advocates. And our experience at UNCF in creating job-focused scholarship programs suggests that if they see the return, they will invest.

After reading everyone’s posts for the week, and reading over the Springboard report, what I hear seems to boil down to this:

“We want a significantly greater number of smarter career-oriented college graduates who have the social-emotional competencies for the workplace of the future.”

All well and good; no arguments here. But I have not heard – nor read in the Springboard report – many solid ideas that might actually cause this to happen. Again, as I mentioned in my original post, I believe this is because the thought leaders on this issue don’t spend much time in K-12 schools. (How about a weeklong “guest teaching” residence for Fortune 500 executives and managers? Now that would be enlightening, I think.)

I believe that it’s vital for us to discuss what K-12 schooling needs to look like in order to reach the goals we have set for an educated workforce. At least let’s back it down to high school and ask ourselves this: What is high school like now? How would it have to change to help us reach our goals for a more educated workforce? How do present reforms affect this progress?

I think if you asked these three questions – which I ask myself about twice a week – you’d come to the same conclusions I have:

1. We are kidding ourselves if we think that incremental progress can improve the situation. We are so far behind, with such a corrupted system, that annual 4% increases in multiple choice test scores aren’t going to cut it – even if we do leave no child behind. State “proficiency” tests leave kids nowhere near college-ready. They are simply politically-manipulated minimum competency exams which states can lower any time they want to.

2. Most major reforms hinder education’s progress toward meeting our goals. Testing, standards, (charters are a wash because we don’t know what they do anyway), vouchers, and merit pay – none of these things pushes us closer to creating schools where larger numbers of kids might develop the intellectual, social, and emotional competencies we expect from them – especially at the high school level. (Note that the two biggest factors in school improvement are improved teaching and improved leadership, yet we have not a single major reform targeted directly at improving teachers or principals.)

3. Though nowhere is this mentioned in the Springboard report or in our discussions here, the only way things change in our education system is when teaching changes. Our current set of reforms is sending schools scrambling back to the 1950s in the curricular and instructional choices they make, so concerned is everyone about maintaining test scores and graduation rates. And it’s not like our kids are burnin’ up the charts, even after years of these policies. How long have roughly a third of our kids failed to graduate high school? For how many years have only half the kids who enter college finished? We're not making progress to improve these things, and current reforms offer little or no help.

I agree with Mr. Kress that business needs to be more involved in education. But it needs to be directly involved. I’d love to take a few big-time CEOs on a tour of American high schools. My hunch is that if they understood what was really going on at the classroom level – and had a chance to sit in on some private meetings with teachers and principals – they’d realize what their involvement needs to be and why this involvement has little or nothing to do with what is in the Springboard report, or with the majority of what has been discussed this week.

There’s simply a reality to this subject that no one seems to want to touch. I’ll admit, it’s a scary reality, and touching it means we might have to fix it. But I think that’s just what we’re gonna have to do if, as everyone says, our entire economic future depends on it.

If we want to make a difference in education, we gotta get some chalk on our hands. It just doesn’t work to sit in the board room and magically command our schools to produce more college graduates who want to work in the careers of the future. Nor does it do much good for any of us to talk about any reforms on the college level without also talking about a complete overhaul of the American high school. Again, business could play a huge role here, but if only if they’ll actually come into schools and play.

It’s time to stop flying at 50,000 feet; they’re aren’t any kids up there. Let’s all get down on the linoleum floors of our classrooms and start doing the real work of changing our schools so that we may one day change our children and our society.

The Business Roundtable rightly acknowledges the nation's urgent need for a better-educated and better-trained workforce. This fundamental belief is at the core of NEA's mission: "...to fulfill the promise of public education to prepare every student to succeed in a diverse and interdependent world."

Yet the recommendation to alter federal funding to reward institutions and students based on completion of college and training programs misses the mark. It is clear that the federal government plays a pivotal role in helping students attend and complete postsecondary education. In 1979, the federal Pell Grant covered 77 percent of the total costs of attending a four-year public institution. Today, it covers a mere 33 percent.

With the decreasing value of Pell Grants, many deserving students are forced to drop out of college because of financial challenges. Contrary to conventional wisdom, a Public Agenda survey released last week found managing work, school, and family was the biggest impediment to students completing college, and "it is the stress of this juggling act that forces many of them to abandon their pursuit of a college degree."

Higher education is a pathway to opportunity, employment, independence, and success. More federal funds must be directed toward helping students pay for college. Providing financial access to college is an essential beginning, and giving students the tools to succeed once they enter college is equally important. Knowing this, we must advocate for increased funding for support services that help students stay in school, like childcare, transportation, and the often overlooked supportive role of full-time faculty, counselors, and staff on campuses.

It is critical that we ensure this public investment in postsecondary education, which not only benefits individual students, but is proven time and again to benefit all of society.

No one wants a jobless recovery. In fact, full economic recovery is not possible until thousands more Americans return to work in jobs that pay a living wage.

But jobs have changed as have the skills and knowledge required to enter and advance in the workforce. In a knowledge-based economy, more and more jobs require the skills and knowledge obtained in postsecondary education. Our ability to provide high quality education and training to thousands of workers – both displaced and new workers – will be a major factor in how well and how quickly our economy recovers.

The evidence for this shift in labor markets lies in wages and employment. Not only do college graduates earn more than those who don’t complete college, the gap is widening – even as the supply of college graduates has increased. Likewise, while new graduates are finding it harder to land jobs in this economic storm, a college degree is still the best umbrella in bad economic times.

All of this is clear evidence that the U.S. is undersupplied with college graduates. Producing more college graduates has become critical to the economy, and completing college has become an essential prerequisite to individual success.

Federal policy should encourage and support the role of the postsecondary education system in meeting America's workforce needs. Job training and workforce development programs should focus on higher education attainment whenever possible, and should move students toward the award of a credential that recognizes their knowledge and skills. Such credentials are not just beneficial to students and workers, but also offer very significant benefits to employers. As a consequence, it is critical that federal policy be aligned across programs and initiatives of the Departments of Education and Labor, as well as other federal departments and agencies (e.g. Commerce, Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services) with a potential role in increasing higher education attainment.

At the local and regional level, employers and higher education institutions including community colleges must continue to collaborate. That collaboration can also help businesses and institutions work together to define learning outcomes that a student must have demonstrated before degree or certificate attainment, again, in alignment with business needs.

I’m going to address two key parts of this discussion: reworking the delivery systems of higher education, and changes that should be made to the education system to better prepare students for the job market.

One innovative delivery system already in place and has achieved strong results is the Early College High School model. In terms of reworking the delivery system of higher education, this is the most effective I’ve seen. The students we have worked with – most of whom are first-generation college-goers -- get the opportunity to emerge from high school with either an associate degree or a substantial number of college credits. This does three things: 1) It demystifies the college experience which helps them navigate the unexpected pitfalls that can occur when high school students transfer to college. 2) It significantly enhances a student’s chance for success at a four-year college. 3) It reduces the total cost and length of time to obtain a four-year degree. All these factors have the potential to add a high-functioning, highly qualified employee into the work force, and at an earlier age.

The problem at the heart of Springboard’s project – not having enough qualified workers for the jobs that are available – is not new. In fact, this is the same problem faced by a group of Napa Valley business leaders in 1996 when they decided to come up with a high school that attempted to marry business practices -- real-world problem-solving skills and collaboration -- with what was being taught to students. More than 12 years later, that vision has led to a collection of New Tech high schools marked by project-based learning in a technology-rich environment. Each student has access to his or her own computer and collaborates with peers to solve real-world problems -- much like we all do in business. The most successful of these schools have strong partnerships with the business community, which often engages students to work on projects at their respective businesses. These are tomorrow’s innovators and entrepreneurs.

In reality, from the days of the one-room schoolhouse, communities have launched and maintained schools based on the needs of the local economy -- whether that meant working on the family farm or on the local Ford assembly line or as part of a highly advanced microprocessor manufacturing operation. When business defines the skills it needs and becomes a trusted partner, education steps up to the plate.

The change needed to better prepare students for the workforce is to stop focusing on the workforce.

Having a meaningful job, a stable income and opportunity for advancement are no doubt good things for the individuals who hold those jobs and for the community in which they live. But what it takes to get there are submersion into the conversation across time and place that happens in core academic classes; submersion into the pleasures that come from creating physical things, taking them apart, and figuring out how they work; opportunities to learn about staying healthy; and active participation in a civic culture that respects individual idiosyncrasies and works for the common good. The job of educational institutions is to bring out in all of us the best of what makes us fully human and alive. Do that, and the jobs will take care of themselves.

As for the suggestions of the Springboard Project (and I’m working off the summary only), well, Heaven forefend. The idea of rewarding colleges and training programs based on completion rates will just bring all the disasters of the current form of NCLB up to college scale. What is more, it will undermine any of the fine suggestions one might find elsewhere in the report. How many ways can one say it? The more you use carrots and sticks to influence behavior on an institutional level (and even a personal one, I’d argue), the more you distort it.

We’ve all seen what has happened with state tests in K-12. But perhaps a more germane analogy is the “credit recovery” programs in New York City, my home town. Joel Klein threatens to close high schools where students don’t pass enough classes (credit accumulation plays a major role in school “grades”). Under pressure themselves, school administrators pressure teachers to pass students whether they have earned the credits or not. Making things worse, failing students are offered – with the blessing of Chancellor Klein – credit recovery options whereby students can see their failing grades reversed by doing a make-up project of some kind, often handed in to an entirely different teacher. The rigor of the make-up assignment and the quality of the work handed in is unregulated from school to school. You can imagine the results.

For a fuller explanation of credit recovery, click here.

The same will happen in colleges. Pay colleges for graduating more students, and they will indeed graduate more students. Punish them for not being “effective and efficient” enough, and they’ll graduate many more. The question is, what kind of education system, and what kind of adults, will we wind up with in the end.

After reading everyone’s posts here, I feel inclined to agree in some way with all of them. I think Mr. Kress and Mr. Vander Ark have put sharper points on the issue, but the notion of educating a workforce still remains rather nebulous, and our nation’s ideas on the topic seem to me oddly generic given what is supposed to be such an important issue to us all.

I think the problem here is two-fold: (1) Most thought leaders in this area are flying at 50,000 feet and can’t see the classroom for the board room; and (2) Only the most progressive educators in history (Mann, Dewey, Montessori, Sizer, etc.) have explored an explicit connection between school and work, and created classrooms based on this ideal. Sadly, progressive education is being crushed by reform. I know; I'm a progressive educator who gets crushed every day.

We hear a lot about the supposed connection between ed reform and global competitiveness. It’s a seductive argument. But at this point, there are no reforms consistent with its premises. High stakes testing, national standards, charter schools, merit pay, none of these things has anything to do with creating an explicit connection between school and work. Even standards, which many people believe to be the saving grace of American economic advancement, won’t help. In fact, standards will make our schools less able to prepare children for work. Why? Because work isn’t standardized.

So how do we reshape school to increase the likelihood that it will some day provide us with a more productive workforce? Ask The Coalition for Essential Schools. In memory of Ted Sizer, I quote CES Principle #5: “The governing practical metaphor of the school should be student-as-worker, rather than the more familiar metaphor of teacher-as-deliverer-of-instructional-services.”

The student-as-worker metaphor (or “student-as-entrepreneur” as Mr. Vander Ark suggests) represents a radical shift backward in time to the ideas of our nation’s earliest educators. Unfortunately, we have forgotten this simple but powerful idea. Kids in school today aren’t workers, they’re “grade grubbers” as my old US History teacher used to call us (We were “grade grubbers” 30 years ago, too.) Learning is less relevant with each passing year. The point now is to get good grades, pass tests, and (for kids, at least) to minimize homework time. Not only are kids not workers, today’s reforms actually contribute to an anti-work ethic.

The more our school system resembles a generic, standardized, minimum competency system, (with teachers as passive deliverers-of-instructional-services via standards) the less likely our kids will be to become great workers. Take a peak at the Coalition for Essential Schools website (www.essentialschools.org) and read their core principles. You’ll find that almost every one is at odds with the most common aspects of current reform. Yet you may also notice how the CES principles could easily be used to help kids develop the skills and the savvy they need to navigate the world of work.

I don’t get to work in too many “essential schools” but when I get the chance in my consulting practice to set up classrooms for success, I start first with the student-as-worker metaphor. Take homework, for example. We don’t have it. Unless, of course, kids need it. There’s simply an amount of work that we know has to be accomplished in order for every kid to make good progress. There’s time in class to do that work, and some kids will get much of their work done then. But some won’t. And these are the kids who’ll have homework. As I like to tell them, this is exactly why adults have homework. If I don’t get my work done at work, I have to take it home and get it done at home. Oh, and you can’t pass the class if you don’t do all of the work. In fact, if you don’t do all the work, you can’t even get a teacher’s evaluation – except to say that you’ll be offered another chance to get your work done. It’s not about passing a test or meeting a standard. It’s about doing good work. And being a good worker. And knowing what good work looks like and feels like. That’s what builds a world-class workforce.

Another thing we instill form the beginning is self-assessment and personal accountability. Kids evaluate their work before teachers do. Kids decide when they’re done and what their grades should be. Then, and only then, does the teacher weigh in. We use a real-world 360-degree process to assess ability and set goals for improvement – just like the best employees and managers do in the world of work. If we could get away without grades at all, we would. They are worthless, after all, just as the best research by Guskey, Marzano, and others has shown. To quote Thomas Guskey, “Teachers don’t need grades to teach, and students don’t need grades to learn.” I didn’t make that up. Our nation’s top researcher on grades and grading did.

I could go on and on about how to set up a classroom with explicit connections to the world of work. It’s actually easy and fun. But it’s getting harder and harder to do because of the power of standards and testing, and the ridiculous return to the Eisenhower Era of Education these reforms seem to be taking us back to. There’s a reason why Ted Sizer and The Coalition for Essential Schools have a motto that says, “No two schools alike.” It’s just like saying, “No two companies alike.” The standard is the standard that’s good enough for the situation you’re in at the time. The test is the work you have to do every day to get the job done well.

If you fly at 50,000 feet, the “educating a workforce” problem looks strategic and intellectual. But down on the ground, it’s just about turning classrooms into places where kids feel like working – not because they’re told to work but because they like to work. Sadly, we are saddled with powerful reforms that make this simple ideal increasingly difficult to achieve.

The next time you think about what it means to educate a workforce, think about how you work. What is your job like? Where are the standards? Where are the tests? They exist. But not in the form we’re applying in schools. What are the real skills you use to be successful? Yes, we all got through calculus in high school, we all read Jane Eyre, we all know the Emancipation Proclamation and why The First Amendment is important. But is that how everyone here has risen to positions of prominence in their field? Look around at the people who post on this blog. Heavy hitters every one. I’m sure there are many Ivy Leaguers, maybe even a Rhodes Scholar or two. Bravo us! But does an educational pedigree explain how we get our work done? Or the work we get to do? Or why even want to work at all?

Everyone here has a passion for education. Where did that passion come from? What curriculum was that a part of? What standard had the word “passion” in it when we were coming up? The wise and wonderful Parker Palmer would call what I am talking about “the hidden curriculum”. This is the stuff kids soak up from the environment in which they are schooled. It’s not the curriculum, it’s not the standards, it’s not the tests. It’s what really makes a difference in who kids are and what they become. When you think of education reforms, think about the hidden curriculum being taught. What does "teaching to standards" teach a kid about what is worth learning and who gets to decide?

If we want to educate a workforce, I'll be happy to run the assembly line. But don’t hang me out to dry with reforms that slow me down on every shift. Don’t kill my workers’ productivity with time-wasting tests. Don’t tell me that the people who I am entrusted to lead are all the same and therefore must be taught the same things, the same way, at the same time, on the same day. Don’t expect me to build you a world-class workforce and then force me to take my kids through contrived exercises arbitrarily assigned by someone on a national committee.

I’m not saying kids don’t need to know things. I’m saying that they need to know so many things, and so many different things for so many different kids, that in order to succeed we must develop students who are intrinsically motivated to work because they are inspired by the power of becoming educated and the passion of following personal interests. This motivation must be grounded in independent thought and responsible action. I don’t want kids to ask me if they can get up out of their desks to sharpen a pencil. I want kids who are smart enough to know when it’s appropriate to sharpen a pencil and can get up and do it on their own. Or even better yet, I want kids who’ve figured out that pens are a lot more effective because they don’t need to be sharpened. And if you think that’s a silly analogy, come and visit the schools where I work and I’ll show you dozens of teachers who can’t even solve the pencil vs. pen thing, so inured are they to being told what to do by people who don’t know what good teaching looks like because they were never good teachers themselves.

If we want to build an educated workforce, we have to be willing to build an educated workforce of educators. And we won’t do that by proscribing everything every teacher is supposed to teach on every day of every year. To be a worker in the 21st century is to work with pride and purpose. It’s not about showing up and punching the clock. But that’s exactly where we’re headed as standards and testing take away what little ownership teachers have left in their professional lives.

Fundamentally, Mr. Kress and Mr. Vander Ark have the best arguments. Mr. Kress points out that business has become less engaged in education in recent years and that this trend must be reversed. Mr. Vander Ark wants kids who act like entrepreneurs. Well I got news for ya: kids will only act like entrepreneurs if they have entrepreneurs up in the front of the room to learn from. And if the business world really does want a well educated work force, it’s gonna have to work a lot harder to get one.

There are many fine ideas in the Springboard Project report, but, honestly, we don't need more reports. We have dozens of such reports gathering dust on the shelf.

What we need from the business community is not more papers and reports, largely geared to what others can do to build a better educated and trained workforce. What we need is more real leadership in the field to make it happen.

Business leaders have considerable political, civic, and commercial power in our nation's communities. They should use that power more than they do.

They can and must do more to support and press school districts to adopt and implement policies that will graduate more students college/good job-ready. As I travel the country, I see less, not more, of such pressure.

Business leaders can and must do more to bring about greater accountability for results from local community colleges. These community colleges should be and indeed are very responsive to the needs of local businesses. Business leaders can and must exert greater influence on the community colleges as to policies on remediation, standards for credentials, and increases in credential attainment.

As major taxpayers and employers, they can organize to communicate directly to school districts and community colleges the knowledge and skills they require to sustain and grow the jobs in their communities. And then they can use their brains, brawn, and pocketbooks to deliver far better results.

I want to say this clearly: there are many business leaders today who work hard and do have a major impact in these ways.

But, sadly, I've also seen many communities in which business leaders are quiet, disengaged, or actually complicit in go-along-to-get-along ways that permit an environment of low standards and poor achievement.

The worst truth is that the business community generally hit a high point of engagement for the decade from the mid-90s to the midpoint of this decade. I regret to say it, but I must: the presence, the involvement, and, yes, the needed pressure that must come from the business community to bring about a better educated workforce has been more "wane" than "wax" in recent years.

It's time for stronger and more concerted action, not more reports.

John Castellani, president of the Business Roundtable, submitted the following in response to the question:

At Business Roundtable, our member companies employ nearly 12 million people and are committed to finding new approaches to address America’s job concerns. That’s why we created The Springboard Project and why we believe it’s so critical that government, business and educators work together to keep America’s workforce competitive throughout the 21st-Century.

From a business perspective, there are things our companies are doing to prepare workers for rewarding, high-paying careers.

One of our members, Convergys, started a unique program this past August aimed at hiring workers with a high school diploma or GED for entry-level customer service positions. These workers are then trained virtually and allowed to work from home, allowing maximum flexibility so they can pursue a college degree from Bellevue University. The company offers tuition reimbursement and, in order to minimize costs, employees can work with Bellevue to receive additional financial aid.

Another member, United Technologies Corporation (UTC), created a program that provides open and free access to education for all its employees. Last year, 15,197 UTC employees in 54 countries took advantage of the Employee Scholar Program, which covers the costs of accredited degree programs and provides paid time off for study.

These are great programs, and just two examples of how businesses can help their employees and increase the bottom line, all at once. Not only are workers learning portable on-the-job skills, they are also working toward a college degree. At the same time, Convergys and UTC benefit from a strengthened internal talent pool, allowing the companies to provide more career opportunities for their employees.

When it comes to improving education and training for American workers, every sector of society has a role to play. It’s not just about government programs and investments, although they certainly are critical. It’s also about what businesses can do every day to solve the challenging issues facing the American workforce.

The "Common Core" standards-setting exercise presupposes that the SAME K-12 academics standards (at least in math and in reading/writing/speaking/listening) that prepare young people to succeed in college will also meet the needs of the modern workforce. The American Diploma Project said much the same thing. Whether this is ACTUALLY true is a testable proposition that I think hasn't been fully tested. But it's not a bad surmise that well-educated high-school graduates (note, please, both the "well-educated" modifier and the "graduates" noun) will be versatile and likely ready for the kind of back-and-forth between job and education that is more characteristic of American society now than ever. Employers should, of course, make sure that they're fully engaged in vetting and helping to shape the Common Core project, but the "work teams" and "feedback groups" designated by the NGA and CCSSO are mighty thin (one might fairly say bereft) in this regard. That could turn out to be a problem!

Where’s the entrepreneurship? Springboard made some sound recommendations, but it reads like the predictable managed economy platform of big biz/labor.

In contrast, yesterday Tom Friedman noted the Great Inflection and the ‘maker economy.’ For 15 years, we’ve talked about lifetime learning, it’s time to talk about lifelong entrepreneurship—the ability to apply knowledge and skills to dynamic market conditions.

With the return of rational lending, it will be small business that leads us out of the Great Recession. Freelancers and small businesses will increasingly rely on informal just-in-time learning. Along with DIY and peer-to-peer learning, new online providers with thrive, so will entrepreneurial community and technical colleges.

Springboard got recommendation number one right—completion incentives (replacing perverse churn-n-burn incentives public universities) should result in significant improvement in degree attainment.

However, it would have been a very different report with a focus on a post-inflection learning ecosystem for entrepreneurs.

Since what people are calling the “Great Recession” began in December 2007, the nation has lost 7.2 million jobs. Earlier this month, however, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that “only” 11,000 jobs disappeared in November, suggesting that the economy could be on the verge of a turning point, at which the number of jobs being added will outnumber the jobs being cut.

But often overlooked in the jobs added/jobs lost conversation is the fact that many of the jobs lost over the last twenty-three months probably will not be coming back. For that reason, it is imperative that individuals look to boost their educational credentials. The Springboard report offers several major recommendations to guide policymakers during this critical period of reinvesting in our workforce.

Even though the Springboard project focuses on individuals who are out of the K-12 system, I see common themes between it and important reforms in K-12.

First, is a greater emphasis on completion rates, both in postsecondary and K-12 education. When No Child Left Behind was first signed into law, it used test scores for accountability purposes to determine how well a school or district educates its students, but largely ignored graduation rates. That’s like measuring a runner after each lap of a race, but completely ignoring which runners actually cross the finish line. Now both federal administrative action as well as the Every Student Counts Act, introduced by Senator Tom Harkin and Representative Bobby Scott, would ensure that test scores and graduation rates are weighted equally in accountability systems so that schools have balanced incentives for both graduating their students as well as raising their test scores.

The Springboard project similarly would stress actual completion rates at the postsecondary level. Currently, the United States’ college completion rate places it a dismal fifteenth out of twenty-three Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries with comparable data. To boost completion rates, the Springboard project calls for changes to the current incentive system, which rewards colleges based on the number of students enrolled, to a system that rewards completion rates of education and training programs. It suggests that federal and state policymakers repurpose a small but significant portion of present funding to reward education institutions based on outcomes, including earnings and employment.

But financial incentives for graduating more students from college are only half of the battle. We also need to ensure that more high school students graduate prepared for the workplace and postsecondary education. According to the latest results on the ACT, only two thirds of the high school graduates from the Class of 2009 were academically prepared to earn a “C” or better in a first-year college English course. Even worse, nearly half of these graduates lacked the reading skills necessary to succeed in social science courses such as economics, history, and political science and less than 25 percent were considered college ready in each of the four subjects that ACT tests (English, math, science, and reading).

This becomes significant with the growing recognition that the skill levels necessary for success of those immediately entering the workplace are largely the same as those necessary for success in college. Being unprepared for either the workplace or college means that these students are likely to need remedial classes. And whether the remediation takes place in the business place or community college, there is significant cost in time and dollars to providers, taxpayers and students.

The second common theme is around common standards. At the K-12 level, the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices are coordinating a state-led effort to create Common Core State Standards for college and career readiness that will represent the knowledge and skills that students need to be prepared for college and careers and compete with their peers internationally.

Similarly, the Springboard report calls for nationally recognized workforce certifications and credentials that would attest to an individual’s qualifications and certify that he or she has attained the specific skills needed for employment.

As our society becomes more mobile, it is even more important for workers to have a credential or certificate that they can take from one business to another or one state to another. When you go to buy a car, you don’t ask whether it was built in Detroit, Nashville or even Nagoya; you expect equal high quality. Our nation must have the same expectations of global proficiency and performance for our worker and our students.

Increasingly important during what could be a jobless recovery is creating a seamless system that can provide each person with the ability to boost their education level in an effort to increase their attractiveness as a job candidate and boost their income-earning potential. The Springboard Project urges greater coordination in delivering worker training programs against the backdrop of more than fifteen million individuals who are unemployed. Millions more, many high school dropouts, have inadequate workforce skills for the current economy. Over the next two years, the federal government should actively invest, through incorporating many of the Springboard Project proposals, in our nation’s economic future by giving each person in the opportunity to move at least “One Step Up” in education attainment.

Such a determined approach could provide an alternative to the unemployment and frustration of those displaced by economic turmoil while also increasing America’s inventory of higher skill levels. Both the nation and many of its economically- stressed citizens will emerge better than they started. And even more education infrastructure will be added to an Information Age economy.

For anyone looking for recent historical precedent, the first GI bill following WWII diverted millions of returning soldiers from a nonexistent job market into various education programs. Today, no one questions the massive return on the federal government’s investment. This single initiative, conceived as a short term means to relieve the social pressure of so many potentially unemployed, had the long term result of launching thirty years of unprecedented economic growth.

The Springboard Project recommendations provide much of the roadmap to doing it again.

At a time when our nation is preoccupied by high unemployment rates, war, terrorism, health care debates, declining state economies, climate change, and a growing federal deficit, it is encouraging to see that the Business Roundtable is paying some attention to what is likely to be the most important determinant of the long-term well-being of our county and its people. In the words of Bill Green, Chairman and CEO of Accenture and Chairman of the Business Roundtable’s Springboard Project, “Education is our top national priority—and government, business, family and individual priorities need to reflect that. Nothing short of our future way of life is at stake.” Of course, we have heard similar messages before, and skeptics may be asking what makes this report any different than those that preceded it and have had little impact.

I am optimistic that the Springboard Project can lead to positive change. Through the Business Roundtable, the nation’s business leaders are joining a growing consensus that educational achievement matters more than it ever has. President Obama has asked every American to commit to at least one year of higher education or career training, and he has proposed the American Graduation Initiative to provide unprecedented federal support for his vision. At the same time, major foundations are now providing significant funding to community colleges to improve college access, success, and completion.

The Springboard Project Report, Getting head—Staying Ahead: Helping America’s Workforce Success in the 21st Century, references very clear data that education makes a difference. The current challenging economy has proved that people with more education and training have much less chance of being unemployed. Even in the midst of this historically deep recession, 61 percent of US employers say it is difficult to find qualified workers to fill vacancies at their companies, and business say they are struggling to fill 2.6 million jobs because prospective employees lack skills at a time when the national unemployment rate is at 10%. When the economy improves, companies will struggle even more to find the talent they need. It is clear that business stands to benefit from a more educated workforce, and it is equally clear that individuals are much better off if they get more education and training. Policy makers are coming to understand that society in general benefits from a more educated citizenry. President Obama has made increased educational attainment both a national priority and an individual obligation.

I believe the time is right for the country to pay attention to the Springboard Project, and I also like the fact that the report pointed out promising practices and assigned specific recommendations to state and federal policy makers and agencies, labor unions, individuals, education and training providers, and business. The project even commits the Business Roundtable to continued actions to advance its recommendations. Of course, I particularly appreciate goal number 5 in the report—to unlock the power of community colleges and two-year institutions. Now serving nearly half of all college undergraduates in the United States, community colleges have for too long been unappreciated and underfunded. While it was good to see that businesses pay a 49 percent premium for associate degree holders, I would like to see an even greater recognition of the associate degree on the part of both business and our colleagues in other sectors of higher education. All too often, significant state and institutional policy barriers make it difficult for students to transfer credits and to continue their education beyond the community college. And all too often, community colleges seem to be below the radar screen of major businesses that focus only on the research capacity of our nation’s top universities.

Those of us in the community college sector are already focusing on improving student success and completion rates. With the help of major foundations, we have projects underway to improve remedial education outcomes and student success in gatekeeper courses. We are learning what makes a difference in keeping students in college and helping them to achieve their goals. Of course, community colleges have several missions, and it has been a challenge to fit these institutions into any state or federal accountability system because of their complexity. Now, with the assistance of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Lumina Foundation for Education, community college leaders will be able to create their own framework of accountability and to set goals for improving outcomes.

Of course, community colleges cannot do this alone. We need the assistance of our colleagues in K-12 and universities to improve the transition experience for students. We need the help of state and federal policy makers to reward completion and not just access. We need the data systems called for in the report that will help us to provide the programs that are most in need and to help us assess their effectiveness. The Springboard Project report references several promising practices for policy makers to review, including the Washington State model, which rewards colleges for the number of students who achieve specific benchmarks (see this link). Of course, as the comments that follow this article point out, community colleges serve many other purposes for students, including lifelong learning, which the Springboard project report also highlights.

Perhaps more than anything else, I appreciate the commitment that we are not in this alone, that business leaders have offered to assist us to advocate for policy improvements that will enable our colleges to do a better job at educating and training students and at strengthening our society. I join Bill Green in hoping that the Report of the Springboard Project marks a beginning and not an end, and I welcome a partnership to move us forward.