Business initiatives for better schools; companies' efforts to improve education are making a difference for students nationwide

Nation's Business, Sept, 1992 by Joan C. Szabo

Companies' efforts to improve education are making a difference for students nationwide.

Kragie/Newell, a small advertising agency in Des Moines, Iowa, recently decided to devote all of its public-service efforts to the Des Moines public schools. "Helping local kids achieve is one of the best investments we can make in our community," says Jack Kragie, chairman of the board.

Kragie is representative of business people from across the country who have joined in the national effort to help improve public education.

This participation is growing rapidly through the work of individual entrepreneurs like Kragie and their local chambers of commerce. The Center for Workforce Preparation and Quality Education, an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has documented information on 1,300 education initiatives sponsored by local chambers throughout the country.

Here is a sampling of those initiatives, seen through the work of five individual business people striving to bring about fundamental changes in the nation's school systems:

Guiding Young Students In Des Moines

Jack Kragie and Liz Newell own Kragie/Newell, which employs about 75 people, and through their firm they lend a hand to the Des Moines public schools. The husband-and-wife team first became involved in education reform in 1988, when one of the couple's large corporate clients asked them to help with a local project.

The project, known as Smoother Sailing, has since become well-known nationally for the effective counseling it provides to children in kindergarten through fifth grade. A large number of counselors work with students individually, or in small groups, on such issues as divorce, anger, friendship, and study skills. The program provides one guidance counselor for every 250 students, compared with the national average of one for 850 students.

The idea for the program came from a number of business and community leaders who wished to provide a preventive-guidance program for younger children. They thought that such an approach in the elementary grades would produce big dividends by increasing academic achievement and reducing dropout rates, suicides, teen pregnancies, and drug-related crimes.

Kragie/Newell donated its public-relations services to increase community awareness of the program, which was launched in 10 pilot schools. The couple packaged the program, named it, and developed a video to explain its benefits. Funding for the program was initially offered by Des Moines businesses, including 16 area McDonald's restaurants. Eventually, Des Moines voters agreed to increase their property taxes to support the program so that all 41 elementary public schools could offer it.

As a result of the success of this counseling program, Kragie/Newell's commitment to and involvement with local education continues to grow. In addition to Smoother Sailing, the firm is involved in Partners for Progress, a program that provides each Des Moines public school with a business firm as a "partner." Kragie/Newell is partnered with Edmunds Academy of Fine Arts, one of two magnet schools in the city's school system.

Because Kragie/Newell is a small business with limited resources and time, Liz Newell says, "one of the things that we have done to help make our commitment more manageable is to get a lot of our staff involved. This gives the employees a real sense of pride."

The firm also has benefited from the programs, Newell says. "We are known in the community for being very much tied to education. That is helpful to us as business people."

Rewarding Students' Academic Success

H. William Lurton is in the business of encouraging students to succeed. As chairman and chief executive officer of Jostens, Inc., Lurton oversees a company that provides schools with a host of products that recognize student achievement--class rings, yearbooks, and caps and gowns, to name just a few. A company with $860 million in sales last year, Jostens is headquartered in Minneapolis. Lurton also is the 1992-93 chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Lurton's commitment to rewarding students for their scholastic success goes beyond business interests. What started out for Jostens as a marketing effort to increase its potential customer base has turned into a nationwide movement that is helping reduce the high-school dropout rate.

Jostens became interested in the program when a few of the company's scholastic-sales representatives saw it in action at Conway High School in Conway, S.C. The program, which was launched there by Larry Biddle, an assistant principal, applied successful corporate concepts in the school setting. Through a structured program of rewards and recognition, Conway High School students who were the top scholastic achievers became campus heroes.

After several years of helping promote the program, Lurton moved to establish a private, nonprofit foundation--the Renaissance Education Foundation--so that other corporate sponsors could help fund it. Procter & Gamble, Hershey Foods, and Ernst & Young now take part in this expanded sponsorship effort.