Business leaders eyeing better student training

As public school systems across the state begin to adopt the national Common Core State Standards, business leaders such as A. Roger Guillemette, CEO of West Warwick’s Guill Tool & Engineering Inc., will be watching closely for how those standards will help close Rhode Island’s skills gap.
And, in a more general sense, they will want to know what they offer to better train students for the business world.
At an educational forum held the morning of Oct. 7 at the Fidelity campus in Smithfield, state and education officials, as well as members of the business community, gathered to talk about the common-core standards. They were among the approximately 90 people who attended the event sponsored by the Rhode Island Public Expenditures Council, a business-funded, nonprofit, public-policy research group.
The common-core standards are one part of Rhode Island’s ongoing campaign to reform public education at the elementary and secondary levels, a campaign fueled in part by the $75 million “Race to the Top” competitive federal funds that state Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist helped bring to the state last year.
Gist in a later telephone interview stressed to Providence Business News that the common-core standards were developed with the input of several prestigious national business groups, such as the National Governors Association, the Business Roundtable and the Council of Chief State School Officers, as well as higher education representatives.
As a direct example of how the common-core standards are already improving fundamental education, Gist pointed to the remarks of Bob O’Brien, superintendent of schools in Smithfield, at the Oct. 7 forum.
O’Brien explained to the gathering how his teachers are now working to prepare reading materials for kindergarteners that will include informational, nonfictional text, as well as the usual fiction. An emphasis on nonfiction reading is part of the common-core standards for reading and writing, Gist noted. Business leaders in general have urged educators to incorporate more informational texts in their lessons rather than fiction.
Gist has been all over the state promoting Race to the Top and explaining the common-core standards, speaking with chambers of commerce, Rotary Clubs and other business groups such as the RIPEC forum on a regular basis.
“The bottom line is for us to have the best public school system in America,” she said, support is needed from “every single Rhode Islander.”
The standards cover lessons in mathematics and English language arts, K-12, with literacy only (not content) goals in history/social studies, science and technical subjects in Grades 6-12. Achieve Inc. in December is slated to unveil “Next Generation Science Standards,” now being developed, to supplement the standards, according to the state education department.
At the forum, discussion focused on the work educators are undertaking to implement common-core standards, a process the state hopes to conclude by the 2013-14 school year. And, when it came to business concerns, it was members of the audience who raised the topic.
Liana Ferreira Fenton, a business owner, educator and member of the Middletown School Committee, asked what businesses can do to help reform education.
The answers she received reflected the same age-old approaches educators generally take toward business. Judge a science fair or bring the kids to visit a business to see, for instance, how a professional laboratory works, said science teacher Shannon Donovan of Scituate High School, current R.I. teacher of the year.
Melinda Smith, director of curriculum in Lincoln, suggested that businesspeople could join school advisory boards. Joseph Amaral, principal of Portsmouth Middle School, said Raytheon Co., a national manufacturer that handles a lot of government defense work, regularly provides tutors and shares information on careers with his school. In the same vein O’Brien, Smithfield superintendent, said Fidelity helps out in his school system.
Another business representative, Guill Tool & Engineering Inc.’s CEO, Guillemette – spoke of the need to better train workers for manufacturing jobs. He suggested a meeting of stakeholders in manufacturing and education would be helpful.
Guill Tool is a 50-year-old business with 70 employees that designs and builds tools. Contacted later by telephone, Guillemette said students should be trained in practical math, drawing and measuring. “Math helps us in any walk of life,” he said. “But they don’t teach it the right way.” Teachers should show students how math is used in such chores as figuring out a mortgage payment or the proper way to angle a building.
Drawing seems a rather old-fashioned skill, and Guillemette acknowledged that computers routinely create drawings. But, “every day, I do a drawing, with a pencil, because I have to explain something to somebody,” he added. “Drawing is very important if you’re going to be an engineer, a mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer, a designer, even a dress designer, you need to know how to draw.”
President of the local chapter of the National Tooling & Machining Association, Guillemette has not given up on his idea of having a meeting of people “who love Rhode Island,” including small-business representatives, manufacturers, politicians and educators “to see if we can come up with a plan and if we can do it.”
“Educated people who know manufacturing,” he said, “will always have a job.” &#8226