'A Catalyst For Educational Improvement'

By Roy J. Bostock

I recently chaired a project on improving education governance and management for the Committee for Economic Development, a national nonpartisan policy organization of top business executives. The report we produced, Putting Learning First: Governing and Managing the Schools for High Achievement, was the CED's fifth education study and the product of more than 10 years of ongoing research and vigorous debate by a committed group of business leaders on the most effective strategies for improving student achievement.

Among the report's key conclusions was that change cannot be mandated from the "top down"; it must be generated from the "bottom up" by teachers, students, administrators, parents, and school board members.

However, bottom-up reform does not mean that policy makers at higher levels of government and education leadership should abandon their efforts to improve our public schools. On the contrary, we will not be able to re-energize teachers and students in the classroom if we fail to provide them with effective governance and management support at the local,...