HIGH SCHOOL REPORT CARD #5 A WhereB do we go from here? Five years ago, AIMS launched its annual High School Report Card for Atlantic Canada. By publishing it in partnership with Progress, the busi- ness community has received a clear and consistent message: schools need your help. The question is, what have you done about it? >>> C PROGRESS, APRIL 2007 27 HIGH SCHOOL REPORT CARD #5 ational and international test Resist thinking that the skills gap results continue to reinforce emerges between post-secondary N the findings of AIMS education education and the job market. The skills and school-reform research, yet it is far too gap starts the day your children enter the edu- easy to look at those results in the abstract. cation system and gets wider as they move It is easy to say, yes, the system is in trou- through it. Making the system better from day ble but my child’s teacher is good. Or yes, one will help society and your business in the Nova Scotia ranks 34 out of 71 regions test- long run. ed in the world, but my child’s school is excellent. Bottom line: All 1,175 schools in Run for school board yourself, this region can do with more support, more or even for higher elected office. focus on the challenges, and more celebration If tough decisions based on facts must be of successes. made, then businesspeople are among the For its part, the education establishment best-suited to get that done. has responded to the AIMS report card. New measures of school performance and student Do the work the provincial gov- success now exist across the region. ernments can’t or won’t do. Help Teachers’ unions have begun to explore fur- build new alliances and create new influencer ther what successful schools look like and groups to counter the power of old entrenched how to measure and report such success. ones. There are teachers, administrators, and Objective testing methods are being recon- academics who believe reform is not only nec- sidered. More information is being made pub- essary but also possible and imperative. Find Project3 1/15/07 11:07 AM Page 1 lic. Parents, students, teachers, administra- them, work with them, and develop and sup- tors, and taxpayers know far more about port their ideas. schools in Atlantic Canada today than they did just five short years ago. That openness Don’t abandon the public sys- provides an opportunity for real change to tem. Even if you opt for private school, occur within our education systems. Here’s get on the school advisory council or the how you can help: parent-teacher association or the home and school association of your local school too. Be open about your choices and your options. If you choose to live in Send your employees back to certain neighborhoods because they are school. Educators can use coaches, served by better public schools, talk about it. If reading buddies, and experts in just about your children attend private schools, talk about every field. Bring the kids to your businesses, why. As an employer, what are you looking for especially at the middle and high school lev- in public schools and what things do you most els. Offer internships and job training; it’s an often find lacking? If we don’t highlight the investment in tomorrow. problems, we can’t find the solutions. Consider investing in scholar- Put a face to the skills gap and ships and bursaries for at-risk or the pressure for education reform. underperforming students to secure tutors You are the leaders in your communities, so after school or to go to a specialized school. lead. Send a letter to the school in the Businesspeople know that it isn’t how much area where your plant or office operates. you spend but rather how you spend it. Congratulate the school’s staff on doing well in whatever area our report card shows them Another truism is equally applicable, and I will doing well. Focus on more than the overall leave it with you as you review this year’s report rankings. Even the lowest-ranking schools in card and its accompanying feature stories: The every province have strengths to build on. most critical assets any organization has are its human resources. Get involved. If help is needed, offer resources. For example, if your local school is Charles Cirtwill is the acting president of the challenged in science and your business Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, as well employs scientists, maybe they could encour- as the head of the AIMS’s Education and age students to see the career opportunities. School Reform Project. 28 PROGRESS, APRIL 2007 HIGH SCHOOL REPORT CARD #5 Can business save education? Increasingly worried about literacy levels, Atlantic Canadian business leaders are beginning to take action BY MEREDITH DAULT f you want to get a job at one of T N U Michelin’s three factories in R B A Nova Scotia, you’ll have to T S I R do something you probably H C / O haven’t done since leaving T I O H school: write a test. Since 1995 the tire P K C giant has been giving an entrance exam O T S to all of its prospective hires. Are they I making the grade? Barely. “We are losing about 50% of the people who take the test,” says Jeff MacLean, Michelin Canada’s manager of employee relations and recruitment. He says that while most of the people who take the test have graduated from Canadian high schools, barely half of them have the basic literacy and numeric skills needed to work in a modern factory. What’s worse, he says the “base skills” are those that are theoretically being taught at the junior high level. It’s a concrete illustration of what many business leaders have been sensing for years: that Atlantic Canada’s educa- tion system is not providing the skills that employees need for the modern educated, it’s going to become increas- “What we’re hearing anecdotally,” he workplace. “There’s either a crisis or an ingly difficult for Atlantic Canadian says, “is that the quality of public educa- impending crisis,” says Nova Scotia employers to find qualified workers. tion is not rated very high throughout business veteran Allan Shaw. “We’re Couple that with a demographics Atlantic Canada.” According to Mills, the close to a serious problem.” problem—an aging population—and the highest level of satisfaction is in Prince Shaw is the recently retired CEO of fact that the brightest minds often flee the Edward Island, where 64% of residents the Shaw Group, the Nova Scotia Atlantic region in search of more oppor- rate the quality of education as excellent building and real estate conglomerate. tunity, and it’s evident that the business or good. In Nova Scotia that number He’s enthusiastic and passionate about sector has a problem. “There’s an drops to 48%, and it’s dropping more education: For 16 years he served on impending shortage of employees,” says and more each year. The unfortunate Dalhousie University’s board of gover- Shaw. “Maybe there’s even one now.” result? It all has a bearing on business. nors, and he is currently executive in Pollster Don Mills agrees. As presi- “I think students coming out of school residence at the university’s School of dent and CEO of Halifax–based Corpo- are not as well prepared as they used to Management. More recently, he was rate Research Associates Inc., he has be, especially in terms of communication named chair of the Halifax Chamber of made it his business to know what’s on and language skills,” says Mills, who Commerce’s task force on education. the mind of Atlantic Canadians. He feels that even today’s university gradu- Shaw believes it’s becoming clear that insists that education always emerges ates aren’t up to standard. “From an unless our recent graduates are better as one of the most important issues. employer’s point of view, we see it all the PROGRESS, APRIL 2007 31 HIGH SCHOOL REPORT CARD #5 time—they aren’t as good as they need improve the overall quality of education, to be, and they still come out the other a move that directly supports what the end lacking the necessary communica- business community is seeking. “We tion skills.” Mills’s company has had to should know,” says MacDonald, “if implement an in-house writing-mentor- we’re spending our education dollars ship program to get literacy levels up to effectively.” Still, Mills isn’t totally satis- an acceptable standard, even among fied. He feels that it’s up to the business employees with MBAs. community to start asking questions The solution may be found in imple- about why the public education system menting a consistent school curriculum isn’t working, “because right now, across the Atlantic region and measuring nobody is asking those questions. There’s results with standardized testing, which a dialogue that needs to be created Mills’s research indicates most people around this issue. We need business support. “Parents want to know where leaders to start saying things out loud.” their child stands,” he says. “They want When it comes to business and to know if they need help, if they’re literacy, for example, there isn’t going to keeping up, if they’re making progress.” be a single solution. However, education But, more importantly, standardized experts agree that the secret to building a testing allows for comparisons between strong, confident, and well-educated schools.