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40 °F Forecast | Road Cams Thursday, December 16, 2004 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Wellness Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People MARKETPLACE Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Classifieds Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend October 26, 2004 Bank executive calls for higher school standards By GREG STILES Mail Tribune Kerry Killinger admits he doesn’t have all the answers when it comes to developing competitive skills among today’s students. Nonetheless, Washington Mutual Inc.’s chief executive sounded a clarion call in Medford Monday for the business community to support higher education standards through financial backing and involvement with students. "What can we do to make it happen?" Killinger challenged a Chamber of Medford/Jackson County Forum gathering at Rogue Valley Country Club. "It’s real important for the business community to step up to the plate and understand this and say, ‘We’ve got to get our kids to a higher level performance than we ever had in the past,’ " Killinger said. "The bar that was set a few years ago just isn’t satisfactory. We’re going to have to do more and do it better." He cited Bellevue, Wash., one of the most affluent and successful school districts in the country. Bellevue’s eighth-graders have out-performed students across the country in math and science. Advertisement "But I also found that their test scores for the eighth grade were behind students in Korea, Japan, Singapore, Belgium, Hong Kong and the Czech Republic," the banker said. "Clearly, the mind set is that if we have one of the top school districts in this country behind some of those other countries, it kind of gives you the magnitude of what we need to do." He said that educators, collectively with business owners and parents, need to commit to higher standards, knowing those standards will progressively get tougher to keep pace with the global marketplace. "One of the traps we’ve gotten into in the country is that we’ve taken education and, in many cases, put it off to the side and said, ‘Why don’t you guys go ahead and keep educating the kids the way you did five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago and 20 years ago?’ "How many of you are running your businesses the way you did five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago and so forth? I have a saying in our company that I need to totally reinvent our company every five years. If we look today like we did five years ago, I have failed as your leader because the world in competition is changing." He said 60 percent of employers hiring recent graduates find them deficient in grammar, spelling and writing, among other areas. Among college-bound students, 53 percent are relegated to remedial or catch-up work that should have been learned in high school. "We’re estimating, on a national basis, that we’re spending about $2 billion a year just rehabbing folks on skills they should have learned in high school. "One of the thing we lose sight of is how fast many of these other economies are moving up in the quality of the education they have," he said. He applauded the pending reorganization of North and South Medford high schools into 400-student units. It will enhance the schools’ rigor, relevance and relationships, he said. "Part of the solution is keeping kids engaged so that they feel education is relevant to their future," Killinger said. "It’s very important to let the kids know, as clearly as we can, that the requirements to be successful in life are higher than in previous generations." The decline of competitive skill didn’t occur overnight and won’t bounce back in a year or two. "From the 1950s through the late 1980s and into 1990, we saw a continual erosion in our worldwide competitiveness in the K-through-12 education system," he said. "I think there has been some progress. Unfortunately, the world has not set still, so we have to keep raising the bar in what we’re doing." Reach reporter Greg Stiles at 776-4463 or e-mail [email protected] . Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2004 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. 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