How Education Reform Affects Business

According to Tony Bennett, Indiana’s State Superintendent of Education, there are just over 1 million students in the State of Indiana.  Around 160,000 of them don’t graduate from high school every year. 

 

160,000 people.  Take the population of Carmel, Indiana and double it.  That is the number of people who enter the workforce annually, and are under-educated by the least of state standards.

 

Think about how changing our state’s education system affects you as a business owner.

 

1.     Ability to Think – The result of education should be that a student can actively solve problems on their own.  We don’t want students to be able to pass a test.  As business owners, we want someone on our team who can creatively contribute to moving our business ahead.  Will the proposed reforms put our students in a better position to contribute?  Does legislation that only looks at test scores and graduation rates support teaching styles that will encourage cognitive flexibility? 

 

2.     Competition – Without competition, business gets soft – and so do teachers.  In your 12-years of educational experience did you have a teacher who you KNEW was mailing it in?   Based on how their contracts are written, ineffective teachers are incredibly tough to remove.  Teachers should be adjudicated on performance, and that evaluation should not solely be based on test scores.  Why not?  See number one.  Top notch teachers produce top notch students, who become top notch employees.

 

3.     Choice – Uniform reform and standardization are not going to solve our education crisis.  In a TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson, he highlights the fact that rural, urban, and suburban teaching styles should differ, and in order to get the most impact, teaching styles should also vary per student.  Don’t put a student on Ritalin just because they’re hyper.  Consider their learning and behavior style, and stick them in an art class – the hyper student may be a physical right-brained learner.  Other students may need vocational training, while others will thrive in a liberal arts context.   Choice is about more than where you send your child to school – it’s about choosing a method of education that will ensure that students developmental success.  Properly educated students become successful support for Indiana’s economy.

 

4.     Economy – Our current education system is built for an industrial economy; not a creative and technological one.  Whatever decisions we make about education should reflect the needs we will have for employees in 15-30 years.  Just like mass advertising, assembly line, bell ringing, mass education doesn’t work anymore.  Right-brained, problem solving, and experiential teaching styles, applied to the right students, is what’s going to train our youth to be the business leaders of tomorrow.

 

I challenge you as a business owner to think about how education reform will affect your business as it grows over the next 15 years.  Will our new education system reforms prepare your new hires to support and lead you as a dynamic business visionary?

 

Jamar Cobb-Dennard is a MegaRev™ Business Development Coach, and creates rapid revenue growth for small business owners.  For 6 Business Development Must Do’s You’ve Probably Missed, please visit jamarspeaks online.