SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA JOB MARKET : WEATHERING THE WORKPLACE : BUSINESS GOES BACK TO CLASS

With workers skilled in reading, writing and math already in short supply and that shortage expected to worsen over the next decade, businesses increasingly are getting involved in education at all levels.

From tutoring individual students to school district policy decisions, employers have discovered that they have a stake in the educational system.

“Business is becoming more and more aware of the fact that students today are not prepared to fill the entry-level jobs,” said Janet Keyes, Western regional vice president of the National Alliance of Business. “Companies that have a major entry-level work force are seriously concerned. High school graduates can’t do the jobs.”

Small businesses and those that have need of clerical workers have found that they can’t expand because they can’t find enough qualified help, said Brad Butler, the former chairman of Procter & Gamble who now chairs the Committee for Economic Development, a nonprofit business think tank. “And,” he said, “this situation will get a lot worse before it gets better.”

“Businesses’ interest comes from the fact that our competitive posture depends on the quality of our human resources,” Butler said. “It’s a battle we’ve been losing for 20 years.”

So concerned is business about the quality of the work force that a multibillion-dollar preschool education program proposed by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) was embraced by executives of major corporations, including Goodyear Tire & Rubber, General Electric and Time Inc.

During testimony before the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee earlier this year, the executives recounted the difficulty companies are facing.

“In our tire plants you can’t have a guy who can’t read or write running a million-dollar machine,” Robert Mercer, chairman of Goodyear, told the committee.

General Electric is having trouble finding job applicants who “meet our requirement of either being ready to work or ready to train,” Frank Doyle, G E senior vice president, told the senators.

“Business doesn’t usually come to the government asking it to spend more money,” a Kennedy aide said recently. “They’re concerned about not having a skilled work force in 10 to 20 years.”

Businesses now see early education as a worthwhile investment, the aide added, because they are spending millions of dollars to retrain people who lack very basic literacy.

Butler said that about 25% of American children are not prepared to enter the first grade. “They are nowhere near prepared for the learning process,” he said. While the average is 25%, he said, in some inner-city areas the figure may be as high as 70%. So preschool programs--such as Kennedy’s proposed Smart Start--and even prenatal care programs are being encouraged. “Business needs to be a vigorous advocate of early intervention,” Butler said.

In addition, he noted a steep cost to society. The CED reports that each class of dropouts costs America $240 billion in lost tax revenue as well as the costs of welfare. Butler said that is a conservative estimate.

By getting involved in the public school system, both in policy and at individual schools, businesses hope to improve graduates’ basic skills as well as lower the dropout rate.

“We need to make a lot of changes in public school management,” Butler said. “We need to change the corporate culture of education.”

One of the problems, he said, is that most schools are held accountable, in terms of funds, only for attendance--how many seats are occupied. “The schools aren’t rated on what a child learns,” he said, so businesses need to participate in policy decisions, from acting as advisers even to encouraging their employees to run for school boards.

Companies can help by stimulating and sponsoring pilot projects aimed at improving education, Butler said, and education must be deregulated to make room for flexibility and participation at the classroom level.

For a more direct approach, corporations can get involved with local schools. Through an “Adopt a School” program, business can give employees relief time for tutoring and supply books and extra equipment, said Keyes of the NAB.

“We have a number of Adopt a Schools where we do a lot of tutoring,” said Myrna Plost, director of public education and volunteer programs at Los Angeles-based Atlantic Richfield. “We’ve also been very active in encouraging education reform. We think education is of primary importance.”

Arco also awards grants to educational programs, Plost said. For example, she said the company donated $300,000 so the movie “Stand and Deliver” could be aired on public television. The film, based on a true story, shows how Garfield High School math teacher Jaime Escalante turned around a group of poorly performing students.

The company also is a sponsor of the Jaime Escalante Mathematics Awards, which recognize outstanding math teachers who motivate their students to achieve.

While early intervention and reforms in public education will help produce better qualified future employees, lack of basic skills remains a serious problem in the work force today.

“This has been very, very difficult for businesses to acknowledge,” Keyes said. “You don’t want to admit you have a work force that’s unable to do the job.”

For many companies, it has become a situation that can’t be ignored.

“In the past, there were enough (skilled) people coming in the door so companies didn’t have to worry,” Keyes said, but many companies are now working with community colleges and adult schools to help people who are unable to fill out a job application.

Other businesses, she said, are working with colleges and adult schools to help their employees learn basic skills, “to bring them up to speed for that company.”

With technology being introduced in the workplace, employers are much more willing to retrain workers, Keyes said, and many do so on a continual basis.

A two-year study of American productivity, released this month by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, cites a lack of proper on-the-job training as a real flaw in the workplace.

“A lot of what passes for training is just following Jill around on the job,” said Suzanne Berger, head of MIT’s political science department. “Many times, formal training programs are extremely narrow and simply gear up people for a specific assignment.”