Why Mentoring Youth is Good for Business and Education
By Rich Greif, Director of Marketing & Partnerships and Zeeba Khalili, School Partnership Associate, Mass Mentoring Partnership
Massachusetts’ future depends on today’s youth developing the 21st century academic, professional, and interpersonal skills critical to success in our evolving economy. Yet we are still faced with tremendous challenges in meeting this need. During the 2010-2011 school year, an average of 44 students dropped out of high school every day. Additionally, only 40% of low-income students are proficient in math and only 50% of low-income students are proficient in reading. Schools recognize that many students need more than just academic support to make it through high school successfully. Too many students have no significant adult involved in their education for a number of reasons. These students often move through the school system without having anyone to provide encouragement, support or validation as to how much value education adds to their lives.
To address this gap, schools across the state are increasingly turning to structured one-on-one mentoring with caring adults as a way to provide both academic and social and emotional support to students. Today, nearly two-thirds of youth-mentor meetings take place at a site such as school or community center according to the Mass Mentoring Counts 2010 report. It is an effective tool to keep students engaged in school and connected to their academic performance, and has been shown to reduce truancy. Mentoring can improve students’ confidence in their scholastic abilities, their overall academic performance, and the quality of their class work. Program evaluations have found that youth in mentoring relationships present better attitudes and behaviors at school and are more likely to attend college than their counterparts.
As the demand for mentoring relationships in schools grows, it creates a unique opportunity for companies to partner with local schools through mentoring programs. This not only improves outcomes for students, but also enhances the ability for companies to recruit and retain talented employees. Studies have found that 87% of employees feel greater loyalty to socially engaged employers and 75% of executives believe that a corporate volunteer program significantly impacts a company’s ability to recruit and retain talented employees, enhancing the company’s image as an “employer of choice.”
Companies such as MassMutual have a strong belief in corporate responsibility and community involvement, and acknowledge that by working with mentoring programs, they can impact education in their community. MassMutual came to Mass Mentoring Partnership in 2010 for assistance in developing a formal mentoring program with technical high schools in Springfield. With the assistance of Mass Mentoring Partnership, MassMutual partnered with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Hampden County to develop a Career Pathways Program in two high schools in Springfield.
Career Pathways is a site-based mentoring program at MassMutual’s Springfield headquarters. Recommended 10th grade students from Roger Putnam Vocational Technical High School and the Springfield High School of Science & Technology are matched with MassMutual employees until their high school graduations. Students meet with their MassMutual mentors weekly and take part in a Career Pathways curriculum focused on preparing the students for careers in financial and technology fields. By working directly with the youth in their community, MassMutual continues to help lead Springfield’s students to academic success and bright futures beyond high school.
By mentoring youth in local communities, companies can not only ensure a better future for our youth, but for their workforce and ability to compete in today’s economic environment. To learn how your business can get involved, visit www.massmentors.org.
Mass STEM Plan a Model for Others
Last week, the National Governor’s Association convened the “Massachusetts Learning Lab for Developing a State STEM Plan” in Boston. STEM “Teams” from nine states attended to share experiences and learn from Massachusetts to develop strategies for developing and implementing STEM agendas in their states.
Attendees were welcomed by Lt. Governor Tim Murray and state Secretary of Education Paul Reville, both of whom highlighted the Tapping Massachusetts’ Potential report as providing a framework for the state’s STEM agenda. A variety of panels discussed topics such as: the process Massachusetts employed in developing and implementing its statewide STEM Plan; integrating STEM into other areas of education policy; national efforts to align industry support to advance state STEM goals; and how public-private partnerships can support state STEM goals and strengthen STEM education.
The state teams completed the day by taking the information they heard during the event and developing a framework for Action Plans for advancing STEM agendas in their states. The teams included representatives from business, government and education from each state. State’s represented included Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Utah.
In coordination with that event, Gary DiCamillo has an op-ed, Talent is our Competitive Advantage, on the Mass High Tech News website, highlighting the progress being made here in Massachusetts. Gary DiCamillo is managing partner at Eaglepoint Advisors LLC and serves as chair of the Massachusetts Business Roundtable’s Task Force on Education and Workforce Development. He is also a member of MBAE’s Advisory Council.
While we in Massachusetts are always conscious of the work left to be done to fill the workforce pipeline for our STEM industries, opportunities such as this one also remind us that we indeed have a competitive advantage in many ways.
MBAE is a member of the STEM Business Leaders Coalition and thanks the Massachusetts Business Roundtable for its leadership on this issue.
STEM Teacher Shortage Demands Action
A study released this week by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) examined the postsecondary majors and teaching certifications of a sample of high school teachers. The data was based on a survey of high school teachers during the 2007-2008 school year.
What it found with regard to STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields was no surprise – only about 70% of chemistry and physics teachers majored and hold a teaching certificate in those subjects. The number was 50% for earth sciences and 75% for math (which actually edges out history where only 2/3 have majors and certificates in that field). STEM qualifications pale in comparison to 82% of English teachers, 90% of art teachers and 95% of music teachers who hold a bachelor’s degree or higher in their field.
Although a teaching certificate or college major is not a direct indicator of effective teaching, one has to wonder how even a stellar teacher can do their job in the scientific and technical subjects without the requisite content knowledge. If your district uses seniority-based teacher layoffs, the situation may even get worse during these challenging budgetary times.
Massachusetts task forces have developed plans and lots of meetings have been held, but it is now time for immediate action to educate our students for the STEM jobs, and opportunities, that are in their future. This begins with training and supporting the qualified teachers we need to inspire and teach our children. Our state’s economy depends on it!
Business Coalition Gets Results on STEM
In June of 2009, fifteen business and technology associations in Massachusetts joined to form the STEM Business Leaders’ Coalition and released a groundbreaking report, “Tapping Massachusetts’ Potential: The Massachusetts’ Employers’ STEM Agenda.” At the urging of EMC Corporation, the group, convened by the Massachusetts Business Roundtable and including MBAE, joined to issue a statewide call-to-action to express the business community’s sense of urgency for action, warning that the state’s social and economic competitiveness and prosperity require increased focus and investment STEM teaching and learning. The report set goals, and issued recommendations to achieve them, on how to inspire, recruit and train a pool and pipeline of STEM talent. It called for a “forward thinking, integrated strategy to build the talent infrastructure necessary” to meet the workforce requirements of a 21st century, globally competitive economy.
The call-to-action from the business community caught the attention of public leaders. After release of the report, the Patrick-Murray Administration quickly created the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council, chaired by the Lt. Governor. The Council’s first task was to create the state’s first Statewide STEM Plan, which was released last month before nearly 700 people at the 7th Annual STEM Summit in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. At that event, the Lt. Governor acknowledged the business community’s impact as the catalyst for this effort:
“This report [the Statewide STEM Plan] came from a call to action. A year ago June, at the Museum of Science in Boston, the Massachusetts Employers STEM Agenda convened by the Massachusetts Business Roundtable issued a report that identified a major gap, and a need for better coordination, leadership and resources for STEM.
I heard you.
The Governor heard you.
Our Secretaries of Education, Labor and Workforce, Economic Development, and their teams heard me telling them we had to move on this. And less than a year ago Governor Patrick issued an executive order creating the STEM Advisory Council and appointed me as the chairman.
The Commonwealth’s first ever 5-year strategic plan for STEM was based on the recommendations of the six subcommittees of the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council, and the work of state agencies in collaboration with the council. This plan goes further than we have gone before by setting goals with key benchmarks and a timeframe to meet them, and by creating a system of governance to oversee the plan’s implementation.”
The call-to-action was heard, STEM is at the top of the state’s public policy agenda, a Statewide STEM Plan and strategy has been developed, and an infrastructure is being formed to implement it. So now what? What should be the role of the business community in general, and the STEM Business Leaders’ Coalition specifically, moving forward?
With the original purpose of the STEM Business Leaders’ Coalition successfully achieved, the group reconvened to determine the business community’s next step. From that conversation, four actions emerged as next steps:
- Keep pressure on top political leaders.
- Articulate that a top down management structure would be the most effective in tying the goals of the statewide plan to the activities in the regional networks.
- Develop a set of key messages/priorities that the business community would use in its engagement at every level of the Plan’s implementation process, from our engagement on the Council down to the networks. These would define our expectations as a business community and measures of success.
- Help to guide, and perhaps populate, the regional networks and make it easier for business engagement.
A recent poll of the members of the Massachusetts Business Roundtable identified STEM as one of three top priorities. The issues identified in the TMP report persist, and business leaders in states across the country and nationally are motivated and organizing in ways not seen in decades. In the TMP report, the 15 business and technology organizations pledged to work with all stakeholders to move the STEM agenda forward to ensure that the students emerging from the state’s education system can not only execute well, but create the next wave of innovation. We remain firmly committed to that pledge.
