The Inextricable Link Between Business and Educational Leaders.

Individual opportunity and national prosperity always have been two sides of the same coin.

Once the coin was made of coal and iron compounded with muscle and sweat. Today the coin is made of silicon chips compounded with learning.

Learning occupies this central place because today's technologies demand far more "mental muscle" than did technologies of the past. When I started with Illinois Bell back in the mid-1950s, the basic tools for many of our outside workers--our linemen and installers--were screwdrivers, pliers, simple circuit testers, and the hooks used to climb utility poles. Now, as virtually everywhere, the tools are computers and software and other leading-edge technologies such as fiber optic transmission and digitalization and compression.

The higher skills these tools demand can only be built on what we have traditionally considered the intellectual skills--the ability to read and understand the written word; to communicate clearly with other people by the spoken and written word; to think through a problem or situation; to calculate; and to analyze abstract problems.

Hence, employees do not need advanced training per se from public schools, but the solid academics that make advanced training possible. Solid academics must be the foundation for any school-to-work transition program we undertake.

An effective school-to-work system would:

* keep educators current on what academic abilities the new jobs require--for example, algebra rather than general math;

* do a better job of equipping youngsters who are not going on to college with the academic skills that will prepare them for training in technical and vocational skills; and

* ease the transition from school to a promising job.

Community colleges and post-high school technical schools should play a major role in this. Employers would work closely with them to keep training in tune with the skills that jobs require. In some cases this training would point students toward specific areas of opportunity.

Intern programs, part-time on-the-job training programs, and apprenticeship programs would be part of this system. Educators would work more closely with one another--K-12, for example, with community colleges and technical schools.

The constant communication combined with a habit of cooperation are key to making such a system work. Neither educators nor employers can do it alone. Nor can government. It takes all of us plus the interest and cooperation of parents.

While employers are only one part of this collaborative effort, I definitely see a new and larger role for them in public education, one that requires a more intense involvement than in the past. Business, for example, should offer advice on skill-oriented curricula that is a match for today's technologies and should help in developing standards for performance. We also should seek to create opportunities for youngsters to learn on the job.

As in the past, business should provide leadership in the public arena and be willing to commit employees time to mentor and tutor. Business also may need to provide additional monetary support, particularly by donating equipment.

The role of business is not to tell educators how to run schools; it is to let them know more specifically exactly what knowledge and skills young people need to make their way in the information age and to help develop the processes and institutions that will pass these skills along.

This will happen only as all of us together build a permanent partnership and develop a lasting collaboration among employers and teachers and administrators at all levels of education. If we don't, everyone loses--especially our kids.