Educational Inequity

Educational Inequity: Why Businesses Should Care About Their Community’s Education

    A big problem that I have noticed while working in a warehouse setting, is the lack of basic skills needed to be a productive employee. Some of the warehouse associates (general labor) are lacking in problem solving, computer, mechanical, and in some cases even language skills (this may be due to English being their second language). So where does this problem come from and how can we solve it? I’m about to offer a solution that would kick-start an end to educational inequity.

    As you can imagine, one of the biggest problems companies face is finding talented employees. That applies to all companies, from giants like General Electric to your local corner store. But the difference is that General Electric, because of their sheer size, has more freedom in who they can employ and where they choose to be located. Those corner stores and small businesses don't have

Great Lakes Science Cennter & MC2 Campus

the same luxury. They have to find their employees from their surroundings because it would be too costly to relocate. Now what if their surroundings are filled with with high school dropouts? In effect, they will be forced to hire lower-skilled employees because they can't afford the expensive personnel searches that larger corporations can. The staffing of lower-skilled employees will likely inhibit their growth. This low skilled labor environments also means that large corporations are not as likely to move their operations to those communities. They would be unable to obtain enough skilled laborers willing to make the commute. This combination could create a "dead zone" where there is little economic growth either from inside or outside i.e. small local businesses growing or large corporations coming in.

     So what does this mean to those local businesses? In short it means they should take interest in the education that is occurring in the communities they will be hiring from. Local businesses and school districts need to be involved in a two way dialogue that starts with the question "What can I do for you?" They need collaboration.

    Two schools come to mind for me when I think about this type of collaboration: Robert A. Taft Information Technology High School & MC2 STEM High School. Those schools  have partnered with

Robert A. Taft IT High School

Cincinnati Bell and General Electric, respectively. While GE's partnership is quite a bit more extensive than Cincinnati Bell's (part of the MC2 STEM H.S. is inside of GE's campus) they are quite similar in many ways. Both companies are providing their high schools with invaluable resources like dedicated tutoring & mentoring program and internships that could offer the students a direct path into a full-time job, In GE's case there are even content  instructors for MC2's project-based learning.

    These partnerships are just a small part of the greater solution to educational inequity that needs to being corrected in all of our communities. Consider that after MC2 enacted their partnership with GE, the graduation rate has almost tripled from 31.1% in 2003 to 91.4% in 2010. Partnerships create opportunities for educational growth that otherwise would not be available to underprivileged  students. So if you run a local business in your community or know somebody that does, it can't hurt to start the conversation. Who knows, it might help your city grow.