Quick Notes: Trends & Talk About Town

By Dennis Quick

“Either we collectively do a good job of providing quality education to our children, or we collectively suffer.”

That is what Charleston County School District Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson told the audience at the Mount Pleasant Business Association’s May luncheon.

Goodloe-Johnson emphasized we need to care about all Charleston County public school students, not just those students in our neighborhoods. It is a message the entire Lowcountry should hear. If we want our region’s public schools to become educational gems attracting businesses offering higher- paying jobs, we need to extend our concerns beyond what is immediately in front of our faces.

I particularly like Goodloe-Johnson’s use of the adverb “collectively.” Regardless of what rugged individualists might thunder, we are in this education battle together. Lest we forget: the Lowcountry has a 40% high school dropout rate. That is a problem for everyone, especially businesses.

Everyone from the moms and pops running neighborhood stores to the corporate top brass has a stake in our public schools, which produce the majority of our workforce.

In earlier columns, I suggested that schools and businesses get to know one another better. Employers should visit schools to chat with the kids and explain to them the importance of learning subjects like math and English and how that learning can be used. Schools should organize field trips to companies to see what the working life is all about.

I now venture further. Business executives and owners should engage classrooms to help them solve real business problems.

For example: Let’s pretend I am a business owner, and my widgets are not getting to the marketplace fast enough. Is it a production problem? Distribution? After I explain our company’s operations, the students figure out the problem and tell me what it is. I take the solution back to my managers. If the solution works, or is at least do-able, I reward the class by cutting a check for school supplies and whatever other materials the kids need.

Incidentally, during her speech at the MPBA luncheon, Goodloe-Johnson pointed out that Charleston County schools lack money for instructional supplies and suggested the county raise taxes to cover these costs. Although raising taxes might be inevitable (and justifiable), businesses paying schools for services rendered would soften the tax blow.

Local businesses could work with schools to form problem-solving contests. Companies could toss the schools a business problem of the month and donate money to whichever schools provide the winning solution. If we wanted to get carried away, we could establish problem-solving leagues in our school districts. Schools finishing the “season” with the most money in the till are the champions. Champions would be rewarded a monetary bonus from businesses participating in the contest.

Ideally, the problem solving would require students to use math, English and reasoning skills.

Is this a nutty idea? Maybe. But what have we to lose? The point is that kids would be applying what they learn in the classroom to the “real world.” They would be immersed in actual business problems. And I’ll bet you anything they would rise to the challenge.

They would because they would see adults taking them seriously, believing in them and trusting them. All of this adds up to respect. When students realize we respect their intelligence and capabilities, they perform. Just ask Chicago educator Marva Collins. Collins, who back in the 1970s was featured on CBS’s 60 Minutes, is famous for teaching “un-teachable” ghetto kids in a building that had all the charm of a warehouse. The kids went on to become academic and professional successes.

That is why I would open my business problem-solving contest to all public schools, regardless of their location, regardless of their academic reputation. Give the kids an opportunity to participate in the business world, and their attitudes toward school and life will change for the better.

Traffic turmoil. Let me gripe—again. Recently, I tried driving from the Business Journal’s Mount Pleasant offices to Trident Technical College to photograph a subject for a story. I took Interstate 26; the subject, who also works in Mount Pleasant, took Interstate 526. It was 5 p.m. and raining. Both of us got stuck in traffic so overwhelming that we cell-phoned each other and postponed the shoot. When another, sunnier day came, it took me a good hour to get to TTC. The photo subject beat me by about five minutes.

That is a further argument for mass transit.

Dennis Quick is a senior staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@crbj.com.

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