By Bill O'Connor
Business Council of Alabama

The single greatest obstacle facing business and industry in the state today is finding workers with the skills needed to fill existing jobs. Everywhere I go, members of the Business Council of Alabama speak of the need for workers who can read, write and figure, who also can communicate and work well with others as part of a team. Our state has many challenges in meeting work force needs.

More than a third of our current pool of workers don’t have a high school degree and a quarter of those with high school diplomas really can’t perform above a sixth grade level. One in seven of our future workers who are still in school have fallen behind and are reading below their grade level.

However, the outlook is changing, and the stage is set to finally do something about education in Alabama. Alabama’s high school graduates of 2000 will have passed more English mathematics and science courses than students anywhere else in the nation.

Beginning in 2001, Alabama’s students will have to prove they can perform at an 11th grade level, rather than the current eighth-grade standard, to receive a diploma.

Alabama’s student test scores are at the highest point ever, and the state’s dropout rate is at the lowest ever. State School Superintendent Ed Richardson and the Alabama Board of Education have worked tirelessly for the past several years to raise the bar in Alabama education.

But education is too important to leave to educators alone. As Alabama’s No. 1 consumer of the state’s education "product", business must be involved and take a leadership role in changing the face of education in Alabama. The board of the Business Council of Alabama has accepted that challenge and has made education an integral part of its legislative agenda in 2000.

Business has proven that when it unifies and takes a stand on an issue, such as reforming Alabama’s civil justice system or averting a state tax crisis as it did in 1999, we have the strength to accomplish our goals. We need to take that momentum and pour our hearts and souls into improving education and the future work force of Alabama.

At the center of what needs to be done are teachers. A recent study showed that students who have two or three effective teachers in a row make tremendous leaps in learning. For that reason, the bulk of the BCA’s legislative agenda for education this year deals with training teachers well, putting the best ones where they are needed most and rewarding them properly for their dedication to our state’s most precious commodity, our children.

The BCA board advocates $500,000 in state seed money go for a Best Practices Center to serve as a research and development clearinghouse for effective innovations and professional development for teachers and principals. The board also supports an estimated $1.5 million in state funding to recruit talented teachers from specific fields or to regions of the state where there are critical shortages.

Alabama’s business leadership also would like to see incentives go to a consortium of higher education institutions to develop high quality, content-based masters degree programs for teachers.

The BCA also would like to see natural education budget growth go to increasing teachers’ salaries to the national average. Alabama’s children deserve the best teachers we can give them; and Alabama’s hardworking economic producers deserve the best pool of talent we can produce.

Support for good teachers is just one element and the beginning of what the BCA has pledged to do to help improve education in Alabama. Everyone’s input and help are needed. Women business owners, like yourself, can have a significant impact. Women own about 113,500 businesses in Alabama, or about 35 percent of all businesses in the state. Those women-run businesses generate $40.3 billion in sales and employ 327,000, according to the National Foundation for Women Business Owners.

Research by that same group has shown women business owners are most likely to give their support to education-related groups and issues. You’ve got to be involved. BCA member or not, you will hear from us about how you can help put education first in Alabama.

Don’t sit idly by and leave it to the educators or other businesses. Get involved. Help us help the state to produce the educational product your business deserves.

The greatest asset of a community is its intellectual capacity. The future of your business and our state depends on that capacity meeting demand.

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