Post-Meeting Memo: BHEF Member Meeting (Winter 2011)

Executive Summary and Overview

BHEF members convened in Ft. Lauderdale for what was characterized by many attendees as the most informative and provocative meeting in recent years. The meeting featured former Florida Governor and potential future presidential contender Jeb Bush and former Washington, DC Mayor Adrian Fenty, both of whom called on policymakers and business leaders to be bold and tenacious in taking on education reform. Both asserted that business support and leadership are vital to advancing a powerful reform agenda that will help to create the innovation workforce necessary to keep cities, regions, and states economically competitive. BHEF members resonated to this call, which shaped the discussion throughout the meeting.

BHEF business members emphasized that the demands of the global economy have fundamentally increased the competitive challenges facing U.S. business, the economy, and the U.S. workforce. Yet, in the face of these challenges, too many Americans remain complacent, mistakenly believing that their schools and skills are world-class and that their future career prospects are bright. This mindset stands in stark contrast to reality, as relatively few students are adequately prepared for college and the workplace, and even fewer are interested in high-demand fields that fuel the innovation economy.

Members reflected on (1) the premium that this global economic integration places on innovation; and (2) the demands that innovation places on both organizations and workers, fundamentally altering the workplace and the skills needed to thrive. This premium on innovation reflects the increasing complexity of the problems that business is required to solve today. Innovation, in turn, requires increased emphasis on creating "learning organizations" where employees are lifelong learners. Workers must possess not only exceptional technical skills but "soft skills," and also must be able develop new skills while maintaining existing ones.

Nobel Laureate Carl Weiman, President Obama's associate director for science, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, delivered a provocative presentation on his research into transforming science education. This research relates to how students think in order to obtain a far deeper understanding of issues and to better retain knowledge—two critical ingredients in developing the type of talent that BHEF's business members were identifying as key. In so doing, he issued a challenge to BHEF's members to address the fundamental issue of teaching at the college level.

In addition to developing deeper and targeted skills for the workplace, especially in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), members agreed that business and higher education must work together to identify and address a structural misalignment between education and workforce needs: Too many students and adults are training for jobs in which surpluses exist, while high demand jobs, particularly those in STEM fields, go unfilled. Close collaboration between industry and higher education will help ensure that the education pipeline is producing both the quality and quantity of graduates needed by the U.S. workforce.

Members recognized that there is considerable work to be done to break down pervasive complacency and create a national sense of urgency about college and work readiness, college completion, job growth, and competitiveness. They agreed that BHEF is uniquely structured and positioned to lead this conversation, to develop an infrastructure for leadership, and to take action on these issues. Members agreed to specific action items in both the Securing America's Leadership in STEM Initiative and the College Readiness, Access, and Success (CRI) Initiative to address these issues.

The "Key Takeaways" included at the end of each plenary session description in this memo highlight the major themes and action items from the meeting.

Keynote Remarks

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush kicked off the meeting Thursday, Feb. 3, in a room overflowing with members and guests interested in hearing the potential future presidential contender discuss his visionary reform efforts, which took place during his tenure as the 43rd governor of a state whose education system was in complete disarray and failing its students. Bush, prompted by audience questions, discussed his "A+ Plan" that mandated standardized testing in Florida's public schools, eliminated social promotion and established a system of funding public schools based on a statewide grading system using the FCAT test. Bush also talked about his support of school vouchers and charter schools, as well as a successful program called the Florida Virtual School, a distance-learning program that allows students in rural areas of the state to take Advanced Placement classes for college credit. In higher education, Bush mentioned his "One Florida" proposal, an initiative that effectively ended affirmative action admissions programs at state universities.

Questioned about whether there's a role for the federal government in education reform, Bush replied there most certainly was and that President Obama has done a "relatively good job" of making education a national priority, but that he wishes he were "more radicalized." He also said that the Title I monies in No Child Left Behind should be used for "more provocative reforms" and ought to be broader, rather than just "funding the blob." Had he to do it all over again, Bush said that he would have made better use of technology and expedited his efforts even more.

Bush called on the business community to step up and show leadership in education reform that will in turn serve to create the jobs necessary to keeping America economically competitive.

That evening, meeting host Lew Hay, III, Ahmad Ababneh, Stacy Fleenor, and Richard Shaheen gave an insightful and in-depth overview of NextEra Energy Inc.'s operations and the opportunity that renewable energy poses for the country's future and what kind of industry workforce is needed to propel such an industry forward. In addition, on Saturday, Feb. 5, several BHEF members, including Chair Bill Swanson, were given a fascinating tour of the company's system control center near Miami. Many thanks to Lew and to Moray Dewhurst, vice chairman and chief of staff, NextEra Energy Inc., for the experience.

During the luncheon on Friday, Feb. 4, keynote speaker Carl Weiman delivered a provocative address on his research and insights into improving teaching and learning in STEM disciplines. Weiman said that the purpose of science education is not only to train students who are the next generation of scientists, but also to train a scientifically literate population. To make science education effective for a large and diverse fraction of the population, reforms in science education are necessary so that students can understand and use science like scientists do. Weiman presented results of research that he and his colleagues conducted that found dramatic learning gains were achieved by students at the college level who are taught using conceptual mastery approaches that use cognitive psychology and account for new understanding of how the brain works. Weiman noted that in order for students to develop deep understanding and expertise, instructors need to become "cognitive coaches" who help students explicitly examine and correct their mental models through "deliberate practice." Members were highly engaged and supportive of Weiman's point of view and expressed interest in inviting him back for our June member meeting in Washington, DC, to further discuss the policy implications for creating a highly skilled and capable STEM workforce.

Opening Panel Discussion

Friday morning opened with a lively discussion with Adrian Fenty, former Washington, DC mayor; Renu Khator, president, University of Houston, and chancellor, University of Houston System; Dennis Nally, chairman, PricewaterhouseCoopers International Ltd.; and John Veihmeyer, chairman & CEO, KPMG LLP, on the topic of education reform, which emphasized the importance of mayoral leadership backed by a bold vision that puts students first. Eduardo J. Padrón, president, Miami Dade College, moderated the conversation.

Padrón asked Fenty why education reform was a top priority for his administration. Fenty responded that the DC school system was not working well and that he wanted to maximize the city's productivity. When the panel asked about lessons learned and other reflections, Fenty cited the change in DC's governing structure as crucial. Washington previously had a board in place, but Fenty felt it was imperative to bring the DC schools under mayoral control, which he did with support from the city council and the business community. Fenty also said that hiring Michelle Rhee "broke the mold" of just hiring career superintendents. While Rhee had not spent a day within the school system before taking on her position, she made tough decisions that had not been addressed by her predecessors: she slashed the central administration by half, reduced the number of schools by closing 27 under-populated and low-performing ones, implemented Saturday school, and improved the use of technology.

The panel was curious about the role business leaders played in Fenty's efforts. Fenty replied that all he accomplished would not have happened if it were not for the buy-in from the business community, and also cited the influence of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Joel Klein, former chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, in helping to sway the DC city council in favor of mayoral control. Fenty also echoed Bush's call to policymakers and business to lead education improvement efforts in this country that will provide the necessary innovation workforce.

Plenary Sessions Summary

Plenary Session I — Equipping Networks of Leaders: Creating Sustained Education Improvement

The first plenary session was led by Eduardo J. Padrón, president, Miami Dade College, and masterfully facilitated by Jim Honan, senior lecturer on education, Harvard Graduate School of Education, and focused on the lessons learned from the tremendous work that has been done in Louisville, and how other BHEF members' and their communities can adapt this successful model in order to align the education system with high demand jobs and to ensure regional economic growth. Five key themes were woven throughout the discussion, including how to connect an optimal pipeline with workforce demands, how to strengthen the education and workforce alignment, how business leaders can best support education improvement efforts, how community leaders have shared responsibility for a variety of education and workforce outcomes, and how education and business leaders can ensure public awareness.

Padrón opened the session by noting that Miami has similar trends as rest of country: Only 50 percent graduate high school and only two thirds of them go to college. As a result, two years ago the city initiated "One Community, One Goal" to identify industry with the greatest growth potential.

BHEF College Readiness, Access, and Success Initiative Working Group Co-chair David Jones, Jr., chairman and managing director, Chrysalis Ventures, reported on efforts underway in Louisville. BHEF has provided strategic guidance for the effort over the past several years. Jones noted that although only half of the 130,000 students in the local school system graduate college-ready, the community had historically believed "that this is okay." But when Louisville discovered it was in the lower one third of comparable cities on this key benchmark, attitudes began to change. This new attitude, coupled with support from BHEF and a growing recognition that businesses will go elsewhere if they can't meet their workforce demands, led to the community with support from the business community and the mayor to coalesce around an important new goal. The result was the signing of the Greater Louisville Education Commitment, which aims to produce an additional 55,000 degrees by 2020. The new non-profit, 55,000 Degrees, was subsequently launched to coordinate the effort.

David Maxwell, president, Drake University, also reported that Des Moines is in the early stages of putting together an initiative similar to Louisville's. As part of this effort, community leaders engaged Market Street Services to perform a workforce risk assessment index on the likelihood of sustaining a workforce. Though Des Moines ranked 37 out of 335 (meaning that Des Moines is competitively positioned to sustain its workforce), nothing in the study addressed future workforce needs. ACT data, however, does examine labor force predictions and indicates that there is a projected 16 percent increase in jobs, but that only 11 percent of students are interested in careers necessary to the area's sustainability.

Members discussed the need for people to be equipped to be lifelong learners, and the fact that counselors can help students understand the range of job opportunities that exist or will in the future. Business leaders can help bring urgency to the problem of education and workforce misalignment by helping to define the meaning of "college ready," and how by determining how to measure this benchmark.

Key Takeaways:

• The demands of the world's economy have fundamentally increased the competitive challenges that the U.S. economy and workface face. Business, along with higher education, must play key roles in building or sustaining support for long-term improvement in education attainment in communities and helping to formulate and drive a greater sense of urgency around the need to address these challenges. BHEF will be exploring expansion of member-led projects in Des Moines and Oklahoma City along these lines. BHEF also will watch and learn from the work underway in Boston, Houston, and the other STRIVE cities. These lessons should be reflected out to the BHEF membership.
• BHEF should use the data we already have to build the case for urgency around these education issues. Metrics and data provide common language that facilitates communication between different stakeholder groups. BHEF should capitalize on the unique resources of BHEF members—including ACT data—to analyze education and workforce alignment patterns and further support education attainment.
• Community leaders must have a shared responsibility for a variety of education and workforce outcomes. BHEF should continue to equip business and higher education leaders with the tools and resources they need to lead these joint efforts, collaborating with other organizations in this space when possible. Business leaders in particular must also be positioned to advocate to government about the education and workforce imperative.
• Adults—employees and the unemployed—are an essential source of new credentials and degrees that will meet states' and regions' workforce demands. BHEF should continue to track federal, state, and local efforts targeting this demographic and connect members with each other.
• U.S. students and their parents need to understand global competitiveness, the premium that the global economy places on innovation, and the demands that innovation places on workers and organizations.

Plenary Session II — Preparing the Next Generation of STEM Workers: Transforming STEM Undergraduate Education

Mark Wrighton, chancellor, Washington University in St. Louis, and BHEF's new STEM Initiative Working Group co-chair, kicked off the afternoon by framing BHEF's focus on strengthening STEM higher education and workforce outcomes. Wrighton noted that students have tremendous passion for making the world a better place to live, citing global challenges in areas such as energy, food and clean water, and information technology, but that they need to be better problem solvers in order to successfully tackle these complex issues. Rick Stephens opened discussion by noting that the STEM workforce challenge is real for companies like Boeing, as 20 percent of their employees are eligible to retire in the next five years. He hypothesized that in order to solve the workforce supply challenges, given current budget constraints facing higher education, we must focus on increasing the "yield" in STEM majors in higher education, by doing a better job of retaining those students who begin in STEM majors.

Other business members concurred about STEM workforce challenges in their companies and pointed to the need for improved STEM skills at all levels of employment, from entry level to senior management, and across all types of businesses and industries, not solely those traditionally thought of as STEM-focused. Members also concurred that students need to be lifelong learners given the rapidly changing nature of STEM jobs, and able to deal with complexity, have broader inter-disciplinary skills, and be able to work in teams, among other attributes.

Members from government agencies agreed with business leaders' assessment about the STEM workforce challenges, but added an additional caveat related to government agencies' challenge in two areas: workforce demographics and the recently announced federal pay freeze, which may lead to even greater difficulty in attracting and retaining talent, particularly in STEM fields.

Carl Wieman noted that recent renewal of the COMPETES Act may address some of these challenges, but that better coordination is needed among agencies. The new interagency coordination called for in COMPETES will help with coherence and strategic planning, as well as focus on promoting what works, and noted that BHEF should play a leadership role in these efforts.

In this respect, several members pointed to successes that could be scaled or adapted. For example, UTeach, a ground-breaking program to prepare secondary science, math and computer science teachers initiated at the University of Texas-Austin, has now been replicated at 23 universities. The university also has a new program, the Freshman Research Initiative (FRI), which offers first-year students the opportunity to initiate and engage in authentic research experiences in chemistry, biochemistry, nanotechnology, molecular biology, physics, astronomy and computer sciences while being supported and mentored by faculty and graduate students. Early results are very promising, as students in the program have higher retention rates in science majors and higher GPAs compared to their peers, particularly among Hispanic students.

Members also pointed to cooperative education as a tested and proven model that should be revisited and expanded. Coop education not only provides students with classroom-based education combined with practical work experience but is a terrific opportunity to strengthen collaborations between industry and academic institutions. In addition, the University of System of Maryland has focused on collaborating with community colleges in Maryland to strengthen pathways in STEM majors in areas like cyber and engineering.

Key Takeaways:

• A comprehensive, national strategy is needed to staunch attrition, improve learning, and connect undergrads to STEM careers, particularly in the first two years of college, when the majority of losses occur.  BHEF will work with PCAST and other groups to help shape this national agenda.
• Workers need exceptional technical skills, "soft skills," and a new way to think about developing and maintaining skills.
• BHEF and its members should play a leadership role in developing new collaborations among business, higher education and government that improve STEM undergraduate education. Both business and government can play key roles in helping to support and scale up these strategies.
• BHEF will work with the administration to advance new provisions in the COMPETES Act, which authorizes the planned expansion of research funding for crucial federal agencies, and also includes programs that could bolster the number of students who earn STEM degrees and choose STEM careers.

Plenary Session III — Collaborating to Meet Industry's Demands for STEM Skills: Professional Science and Engineering Masters Programs

During Plenary Session III, BHEF Vice Chair Brit Kirwan, chancellor, University System of Maryland, led a discussion regarding how business and government can collaborate to meet industry's demand for highly skilled STEM professionals.

Stephen Weber, president, San Diego State University, shared his campus' successful experience in developing Professional Science Degree (PSM) programs, noting that the PSM is the first major new degree focus since the MBA. Weber indicated that there is strong demand for PSM graduates, given their focus on developing workforce skills and interdisciplinary knowledge, with graduates of many programs hired even before graduating, despite the current economic slowdown. These programs have been successful, in part, due to the involvement of business in developing these programs from their inception. Across the California State University System (CSU), almost two dozen programs are underway, with more planned. These programs will produce more than 1,000 highly valued graduates in the next two years. Charlie Reed pointed out that CSU's focus on expanding the PSM has been well-served by the development a advisory board that includes high-level corporate leadership.

Christopher Valentino cybersecurity director, Northrop Grumman, noted that due to the dramatic growth in demand for cybersecurity professionals, his company collaborated with the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, SAIC, Battelle and other companies to create a new Master's in Professional Studies program in Cybersecurity. This program aims to equip cybersecurity professionals with the interdisciplinary and management skills needed by Northrop Grumman and other employers.

It was suggested that BHEF and its members can play an important role in expanding PSM programs by facilitating collaborations between corporations and research universities. In addition to supporting their employees' participation in PSM programs through tuition assistance or reimbursements, it is imperative that employers work closely and continuously with institutions to grow the PSM brand. Participants also agreed that a real opportunity exists for adapting the successful PSM model to STEM undergraduate education, and that BHEF could take the lead in this.

In discussing a state focus on advancing STEM education, the Science Foundation Arizona was highlighted for having received a $100 million investment in science from the state. The foundation is a non-profit public-private partnership that, among other things, invests early in individuals who have the highest potential to drive innovation and a high quality of life in Arizona.

Key Takeaways:

• It is crucial for business, higher education, government and funders to work together to ensure graduate education is responsive to rapidly changing demands for STEM professionals.
• Promising programs such as the PSM degree require more support and awareness, particularly from business and government, in order to ensure their continued growth.

Conclusion

BHEF and its members have a clear path to follow, with considerable work to be done in breaking down pervasive complacency around the state of America's schools and education system, and in creating a national sense of urgency about college and work readiness, college completion, job growth and competitiveness. BHEF is uniquely structured and positioned to lead this conversation, to develop an infrastructure for leadership, and to take action on these issues.

Through the CRI, BHEF will continue to build a dynamic platform and tools that harness the influence and resources of BHEF and its membership to improve college readiness, access, and success, with a particular focus on meeting regional workforce needs. Particular attention will be given to communicating the urgency of the workforce challenges facing our country and equipping members with the necessary resources to lead education and workforce alignment efforts.

The meeting also provided a venue for BHEF members to advance its new focus on strengthening STEM higher education in order to prepare well-rounded STEM professionals with both the technical and soft skills needed to succeed in the workforce. This means that business and government need to partner with higher education to help staunch attrition, deepen learning in the classroom, and connect students with real-world learning opportunities in STEM careers through research experiences, internships, cooperative education, and new graduate education programs such as the PSM degree programs.