TO:        BHEF Members

FROM:  David J. Skorton, BHEF Chair
              William H. Swanson, BHEF Vice Chair
              Brian K. Fitzgerald, BHEF Executive Director

RE:        BHEF Strategic Direction

DATE:   March 19, 2010

The Executive Committee convened recently to continue the discussions from the winter meeting in El Segundo regarding BHEF's strategic direction.  An overarching question permeated both the wrap-up discussions among members in El Segundo and the Executive Committee's discussions: 

How can we find new ways to leverage BHEF's unique membership to spur action to address the complex education issues that confront the U.S. today at the federal and state levels?

With that question in mind, this memo synthesizes our conversations in El Segundo, summarizes our conclusions relating to both BHEF's agenda for the upcoming 18 months and identifies key strategies we expect to employ to pursue that agenda. We have sought to capture the sense of the membership expressed at the winter meeting and hope you'll agree with our conclusions. We welcome your feedback and look forward to working with you to advance this work.

BHEF ACTION AGENDA

Building on the advocacy and programmatic work from BHEF's two initiatives – the College Readiness, Access and Success Initiative (CRI) and the STEM Initiative, as well as input from members during our meeting, BHEF will focus on the following agenda going forward.

Pre-school through High School (P-12) Education

Our discussions in El Segudo focused on two important processes that are unfolding in Washington and in states across the country relating to P-12 education: the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), and the development of common state standards. The latter, an effort led by the National Governors' Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, would replace the current patchwork of uneven state standards. (See February 24 Meeting Memo, Plenary I) Members agreed that both efforts are important to advance as part of BHEF's college readiness agenda. They agreed that BHEF should work with other business groups to:

• Ensure that reauthorization of ESEA restructures current law, such that it will result in more students graduating from high school college- and work-ready

• Encourage states to adopt the Common Core Standards' college-ready math and English standards, develop and adopt common science standards thereafter, and utilize common assessments to measure progress against these standards.

STEM Education

At the meeting, BHEF staff presented key initial insights from the development of BHEF's U.S. STEM Education Model, created by Raytheon and donated to BHEF in 2009. The research and the systems analysis underpinning the model demonstrate that interventions at key points in the STEM education pipeline can produce significant increases in the number of students who graduate from high school interested and proficient in STEM. They also indicate that investments in strengthening STEM undergraduate education can yield high and immediate returns. (See February 24 Meeting Memo, Plenary II) Consequently, BHEF should work with its partners to:

• Promote the highest leverage investments in STEM education that maximize the number of STEM-capable students and workers, including activities and policies that increase:

• opportunities for all students to "do STEM"
• student awareness and interest in STEM
• recruitment, retention and renewal of highly effective teachers
• undergraduate persistence in STEM disciplines
  
  
• Raise awareness and change public attitudes about the importance of STEM education

Undergraduate Education

Members at our meeting heard from experts about troubling trends that point to stagnating educational attainment rates in the U.S. population. Members discussed the impact of capacity and financing constraints in higher education -- factors that will likely further contribute to lower baccalaureate attainment by restricting students' access to higher education and choice among institutions, among other factors. Members also discussed trends in state financing and how these threaten the sustainability of higher education. (See February 24 Meeting Memo, Plenary III) As a result, members agreed that BHEF is uniquely positioned to:

• Promote programs and policies to increase associate and baccalaureate degree attainment in support of workforce needs
  
  
• Assess the ability of American higher education to maintain its world leadership, in light of major challenges, including capacity and resource constraints; and explore potential solutions.

Graduate Education

Members discussed the impact of trends in P-12 and higher education on the enrollment of U.S. students in graduate education, especially STEM disciplines, as well as the impact of global competition for the best graduate students. Members also discussed the importance of federal investments in R&D for graduate education (See February 24 Meeting Memo, Plenary IV) and agreed that BHEF should:

• Support increased funding for federal agencies (e.g., NSF, NIH and DOE) that support graduate education, including support for R&D infrastructure and for students that contribute to the innovation workforce
  
  
• Ensure that graduate education is responding to current and future needs of the innovation workforce.

STRATEGIES

To implement this agenda, we have synthesized members' suggestions at the winter meeting and the Executive Committee's deliberations to identify three basic strategies:

1. Advocacy – we will seek to strengthen BHEF's and our members' effectiveness as advocates for this agenda with policymakers, thought leaders and leaders of other organizations.
   
2. Collaboration – we will deepen BHEF's collaboration with our members and members' academic and business organizations.
   
3. Leverage and dissemination – we will leverage the unique capabilities and tools BHEF has developed to disseminate what we have learned and enhance our ability to collaborate effectively.

To elaborate briefly on each of these, we heard members express great interest in BHEF's better equipping them to be effective advocates and in strengthening BHEF's advocacy. The Executive Committee believes that, at a minimum, this involves: (1) informing our members through BHEF's semi-annual member meetings and BHEF-provided information, policy briefs, and Web content; (2) focusing BHEF's advocacy agenda along the lines outlined above; and (3) equipping our members to be effective spokespersons with the media about these issues.

As to collaboration, we expect to heighten existing collaborative efforts with academic and business organizations that are either led by our members or in which they are deeply engaged. Examples of member-led organizations include the Association of American Universities, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, and the American Council on Education. Business organizations, such as the Business Coalition for Student Achievement (BCSA), the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), and the Business & Industry Coalition for STEM Education (BISEC) all are organizations in which our business members play significant leadership roles and with which BHEF has developed important ties.

CONCLUSION

We thank you for your commitment to BHEF and to strengthening U.S. education for the betterment of our nation. We look forward to seeing you at our summer meeting on June 24-25 in Washington, DC. The action agenda outlined above provides numerous potential topics for our upcoming meeting. More information about the meeting will be forthcoming shortly.