Leaders Take ABCs of Business to School

Hungering for a new work force in these heady economic times, Ventura County businesses are increasingly eyeing the county’s public schools, hoping to groom the next generation of workers through a combination of new and old techniques.

From long-existing programs like Junior Achievement, which is making a major push in the county this year, to the county’s growing school-to-career program, many business leaders are calling for improved cooperation between the two institutions--and increasingly are looking at reaching younger and younger students, in elementary and middle schools.

“You can go to any company here and there’s a tremendous shortage of qualified people,” said Kenneth Bauer, the head of human resources at Newbury Park-based Xircom. “We need to engage them at a very young age, so they’ll be intrigued and we can pique their interest.”

Junior Achievement is a program that historically has been aimed more at urban schools, but boosters hope to reach suburban Ventura County with a program that reveals to students such business notions as balance sheets and profit-and-loss statements. Last year, about 1,000 Ventura County students were involved. This year, organizers want 40,000.

The organization exposes children, starting in kindergarten, to the world of business--from listening to speakers to setting up their own ventures. Program directors, who are working with the county school superintendent’s office, have received a $10,000 grant for the program’s first 20,000 participants.

“This is not some biased, corporate-structured thing,” said Jim Schultz, executive vice president at EOS Corp. in Camarillo and a member of the board of directors of the Southern California chapter of Junior Achievement. “It gives people credibility.”

In addition, the superintendent’s office is putting an extra focus on the school-to-career program. This summer, Ventura County schools began disbursing a three-year, $3-million grant for job training awarded late last year, part of the vocational programs that sprouted after President Clinton signed the federal School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994.

The Ventura County superintendent of schools office applied for $500,000 in 1995, but the county school board rejected the grant, arguing that the vocational programs decrease time spent on academics.

Eventually the superintendent sidestepped the board, but school-to-career is on wobbly legs countywide, after an early start during the last school year.

“The businesses all seem ready to go in Ventura County,” said Anthony Michaelides, a school-to-career coordinator in the superintendent’s office. “They love to have teachers and students in. But we have teachers say, ‘I don’t know about this.’ They think we want kids to decide on their careers, but we just want students to see them.”

The problem lies in persuading more teachers and students to get involved in the program, which has placed student interns at such places as St. John’s Pleasant Valley Hospital and California Edison. The program has just begun working with VisionLink, a Web site that helps match students with internship possibilities. But more businesses than students are interested, Michaelides said.

Critics say business involvement means less time for reading, writing and arithmetic. Business involvement in education could be considered recruitment or could force students into a particular career track long before they’re ready, said Andrew Hagelschaw, senior program director at the Center for Commercial-Free Public Education in Oakland.

But business leaders say they only hope to see a gradual increase in youth involvement. A teacher might spend a day in the business world to teach from first-hand experience. A first- or second-grader might take a tour or listen to a class speaker. A middle-school student might pick up an internship.

That way, they argue, it’s an ongoing process.

“I don’t see a fine line between education and business. I see a melding,” said Penny Bohannon, president of the Ventura County Economic Development Assn. “Business is education and education is business. Once we realize that we’ll have a better work force.”

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