Regional President Speech

Remarks by Cathy E. Minehan President Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Community Leadership Exchange Panel "The Role of Business in Public Education" September 30, 1996 o Moose and Bill have given you some insights into ways in which private sector and public sector work together to improve the BPS. Through Boston Compact which is administered by the Boston PIC. Through Boston Plan for Excellence which provides access scholarships, and this year begins to direct its resources to whole school change. o No secret, however, that despite the fact that PIC & Plan around 10-15 years. BPS have not improved the degree we all would like--test scores aren't there, drop-out rates not what we would like, and certainly pool of entry-level employees needs significant remediation. o Why? - a) Urban education tough--high rates poverty, immigration, social/drug issues. b) Despite compact etc., never had all the players working together. The schools, the unions, the school committee, the mayor, the private sector. c) Never had a focus on total change--many, many small programs, lots of pockets of excellence, but nothing taken to scale. 2 o What's Different Now? Everyone working together--new union contract, appointed school committee, mayor w/primary focus on education, private sector focused on results, higher education committed to BPS grads. Know we have to accomplish systemic, rather than simply programmatic, change--we have to change how the student and his family think about school, we have to change how schools are organized, and how teachers teach, and we have to change how employers view entry-level workers and what their initial job experiences are. That requires two things: 1) leadership--we have, 2) careful setting of goals and measurement of results. o Goals and Measurements One of the key vehicles for systemic change in BPS is the School-to-Career Program. In 1994, we were awarded a Federal grant of $ __ to take a fledgling STW program we had developed more to scale; at the same time, state of Massachusetts wpm $ 26 million over three years for a statewide program. In both cases, funding had finite horizons. We had to use it to make our infant programs viable; moreover, these programs had to be effective enough that they 3 become, at least in part, the budgeted efforts of the BPS. To do that we had to set goals and measurements to prove that STC is effective for students, for schools and for employers. This hasn't been easy, but we're now on the cusp of installing both quantifiable goals, and specific measurements to track student progress -- by academic gains, attendance, mastery of OT J SCANS skills, and by post-graduate education/employment (since 1983 tracked this) schools progress -- by the degree of restructuring accomplished, and the number of full-blown STC pathways that are being implemented employers -- by the numbers participating at all levels (summer jobs, on-site training, full STC integration) the number of students engaged, wages paid, and hopefully soon by surveys assessing satisfaction This process of setting goals, and measuring results is only possible when all parties - students, parents, teachers, administration, Mayor, private sector, higher education, all are committed to a successful outcome in BPS Measurement isn't easy--inevitably, we'll come up short in one area or another at some point, but it's vital if we are not to waste this very special moment in 4 time that we seem to have right now to make the BPS the best urban school system in the U.S. That's the end game here--our community deserves no less and we need to make this happen.

Cathy E. Minehan (1996, September 29). Regional President Speech. Speeches, Federal Reserve. https://whenthefedspeaks.com/doc/regional_speeche_19960930_cathy_e_minehan

@misc{wtfs_regional_speeche_19960930_cathy_e_minehan,
  author = {Cathy E. Minehan},
  title = {Regional President Speech},
  year = {1996},
  month = {Sep},
  howpublished = {Speeches, Federal Reserve},
  url = {https://whenthefedspeaks.com/doc/regional_speeche_19960930_cathy_e_minehan},
  note = {Retrieved via When the Fed Speaks corpus}
}