(00:00:00) The time now exactly 12 o'clock. Good afternoon, ladies and (00:00:06) gentlemen. I'm Ed Spencer former chairman of Honeywell and was fortunate enough to be one of the people here in Minneapolis. And st. Paul who helped found the Minnesota meeting. It's a great pleasure to welcome all of you to the Minnesota meeting today. We also extend a warm welcome to our radio audience throughout the Upper Midwest who are hearing this program on Minnesota public radio's midday program broadcast of the Minnesota meeting are made possible by the law firm of Oppenheimer wolf and Donnelly with offices in Minneapolis. St. Paul and other major cities in the US and in Europe. The Minnesota meeting is a public affairs form which brings National and international speakers to Minnesota members of the Minnesota meeting represent. This communities leaders from corporations government Academia and professions. The next scheduled meeting will be on October 11th. And our speaker is Barber conable who is the president of the World Bank Minnesota meeting is pleased to present today's speaker David Kearns chairman and CEO of Xerox Corporation who is going to address our group on the topic winning the brain race a bold plan to make our schools more competitive. David is a major proponent of educational reform in this country. And is the co-author along with the Hudson Institute analyst Dave Doyle of a book called The Winning of the brain race. Mr. Kearns joined Xerox in 1971. He was in charge in his career of The copier and duplicator group in charge of international operations became president and Chief Operating Officer in 1977 chief executive officer in 1982 and chairman in 1985. I would also add that early on our two careers crossed when he came out to Honeywell to try to sell us copiers with some success and I retaliated by selling Xerox computers with some success. Mr. Kearns believes that the United States cannot hope to compete in the global marketplace with inadequate schools today. He's going to discuss the importance of values in the school's the role of teacher professionalism and strengthening education the pivotal character of Core Curriculum, and the need to introduce effective performance standards following days presentation questions will be addressed from the audience. There are cards at your table to jot down the questions for discussion genma Rasik executive director of the Minnesota meeting and Steve Young and attorney with Winthrop and Weinstein will be circulating among the audience with microphones to manage the question and answer session now, it's a great pleasure for me personally to present. Mr. David Kearns. (00:03:10) Thank you very much. I haven't been delighted to be here. and somewhat intimidated Minnesota has such a great reputation for a commitment to education but I am going to charge ahead. I had a meeting and a little Reception Area before the reception had nothing to drink nothing to eat and no chairs and about 20 people who were firing questions the way at me and I hope we can continue that continue that after my my comments I believe that there is no more important. Issue than that of Education in the United States and I see it as not another issue along with drugs the security of our nation. Balanced budget and and on and on but a solution to those to those problems. I don't want to spend a lot of time cataloguing cataloguing the failures of our public education system in the United States because I think they're rather well-known. But I would like to spend some time this afternoon talking about the interplay between schools and healthy competitive economy and offers some ideas for your considerations. Now not surprisingly Business Leaders have cared about education for a long time. And I guess it was over two centuries ago that Adam Smith said that a wealth of the nation is in its people and that has never been more true than it is today. In our complex and interdependent Society. There is an understandable tentation to say that all issues are complex. Lots of them (00:04:56) are. (00:04:59) But I believe that at least the case statement on education is a simple one. And that is that we cannot compete in a world-class economy without a world-class Workforce and we cannot have a world-class Workforce without a world-class school system. Now that truism is one which I believe that most people will accept but what's it mean? What do we do about it? That is still. Much too spirited debate in our country and unfortunately mostly debate and not so much action. And I would like to discuss four broad issues here this afternoon. Who is the competition? What does it mean to be educated for the economy of the future what Shooters our schools look like to meet those objectives and lastly. What do we need to do to get from here to there? Now in particular I have been trying to send the message to the nation's Business Leaders and that is that we as Business Leaders all around the nation must organize a national Crusade. The national Crusade for Real Change in education and not education reform. I do not like the word because we need fundamental restructuring of our entire public education system. Now, I believe that if we must do that because if we don't our way of life. And this country's economy will falter and will fail and I believe that we must do this because I believe if the business Community does not do this. I believe that no one will And we must do so because it's Clemens Soul said and referring to war if we this issue is too important to leave only to the Educators. We cannot and must not exclude the Educators, but it cannot be left only to the educators. In a great democracy education is everybody's business but it's a special importance to Business Leaders today because of the way that wealth is created in today's modern world. It is the product of of Applied human intelligence. It's the product of brain power of Entrepreneurship of imagination and innovation. Physical plants and goods are themselves the product of brain power take a company like our own lots of people say it's our products and our software that make the company go what we are selling is solutions to problems. Xerox machines and software provide the organizational and intellectual leverage and they do for brain workers. What hand tools do for a blue-collar worker? They provide the mechanical advantage now if you can Thomas have to be convinced of this but the public of large and the nation's policy leaders must become convinced of this the era of strong backs and Deft hands is behind us and the future belongs to the educated. Now let's turn to the competition. As American Business Leaders know only too. Well the key competition that we have today is coming from Japan. Indeed the Japanese economic Miracle is one of the great success stories of all time. They Rose From the Ashes of the defeat of World War II to become a preeminent economic power in the 70s and the 80s in every Market in which the Japanese compete most of their products are world-class and indeed in many product areas their products have set the world standards for quality. And the Japanese have demonstrated a new the virtues of hard work Enterprise and a commitment to real quality they've done so without raising an army and have done. So with almost no natural resources. They truly believed that the wealth of their nation is in its people and if the Japanese economic Miracle has one single cause I believe it is the quality of the Japanese Workforce and no Nation. No nation has a better qualified Workforce and no nation has had a longer. Period of impressive consistent economic growth and I believe there is a powerful connection between the quality of the works force and the quality and the quantity of the output but typical Japanese worker enters the workforce with a high school diploma that he is equal to four years of college in the United States and some place between ninety and ninety six percent of all Japanese youngsters graduate from high school by way of contrast 700,000 youngsters drop out of school in the United States each year and another 700,000 graduate get a diploma. That means almost nothing at all. That is 50% of all of the young people. There is no way that we can compete with half of our young people being educated and 90 to 95% of our (00:10:31) competition. (00:10:35) Imagine what it would be like if American employers were assured of a stream of high school graduates who could not only read and write but could follow complex instructions. Imagine a Workforce that understands complex verbal instructions and is able to issue them as well. Imagine a Workforce that is highly motivated committed to Quality is punctual polite and neat and imagine workers. So well educated by the time that they reach the workplace that they are ready. (00:11:08) For workplace (00:11:09) training. That is the workforce that the Japanese begin with the Japanese have deliberately created a school system designed to advance the national interest. The school system they had did not exist before World War II. They had an Elite Education System. They decided as a matter of national policy to have a first-class world-class education for everybody in their country and designed a system where their students go 240 days a year in hours go a hundred eighty their students do twice as much homework is our stew and that is why I believe that researchers that have asked the question in Japan and in the United States and the question is what accounts for academic success the American say ability and the Japanese say effort. But we can play to our strengths as well. And the one thing that they are doing is educating their workers before they enter the workforce and we can do that too. Because business cannot afford to do the school's product recall work for them. And the Japanese have been proud for some time of saying they have the best bottom half in the world and we for too long have been satisfied with saying we have the best top half that will not allow us to compete. Now what do American youngsters need to know to be able to go to work and be prepared for the positive future does America need more and better vocational schools now I will get in trouble for this as I do everywhere as I go and there is a ringing answer to that and it is no business is prepared to provide the vocational. And Technical trainings if they come to our business has educated business will train if the schools educate no one needs to go to public schools to learn how to fix a xerox machine. Now there are some good vocational schools in this country. Not many but a good Vocational School must also teach a Core curriculum. At issue is the capacity of American workers and managers to continue learning over their lifetime surveys conducted by the committee for economic development reveal that that is absolutely key among all employers the most important Knowledge and Skills that a new employee can bring to the job is learning to learn skills problem solving and communication skills. Now how to workers acquire such skills. They acquire them through a broad in the Deep curriculum. We like to call it liberal arts. We understand it. It's not complicated. But that's what workers need to know before they go into the workforce is have a broad (00:14:00) education. Now (00:14:02) at least through high school or should be a solid foundation in the basics English grammar and composition history and geography Science and Mathematics computer science and an understanding of the great documents of citizenship including the Magna Carta the Bill of Rights and Martin Luther King's letter from a Birmingham Jail knowledge of this kind is absolutely essential and the high-tech service economy of the future because it is the foundation of further knowledge in addition to providing the academic and intellectual foundations for work and citizenship schools must teach the values of democracy and the values of work. I must stress The Humble Virtues Of punctuality reliability and neatness and they must also teach the more profound values of honesty loyalty and integrity. It is too late to teach that at the Harvard Business School. These things are Central to a functioning social order. Schools could not escape the task of teaching values if they wanted to imagine a school in which youngsters are promoted whether they attend class or not whether or not they study or whether or not they do well in class schools the treat students that way send a clear message get by anything goes and no one cares messages of this kind do great harm and they program youngsters for future failure. And by the way of contrast imagine a school that sets high standards and holds each student to them in such schools achievement is real Mastery has meaning and graduates are accomplished men and women who can hold their heads high with pride. And they can then take their place in the workforce or in higher education. No school can be value free just as no business or no Society can be value free and just as we identify goals and objectives in business and Target them for accomplishment. So too must schools identify the values that they stand for and then stand behind them and measure them a failure to do so above all hurts those that are most in need and that is the poor and the dispossessed what greater disservice to a poor youngster than a bogus diploma from a school that refuses to impart the values that we adults know are absolutely essential to future success. And if this is what our schools must do that's impart both knowledge and value values. What should they look like? The hard truth is that today's Public Schools? Are by and large Monopoly providers? They are not subject to the pressures of consumers. And the case of schools. There are numerous small monopolies called school districts 15,500 of them around this country. If you're smart and well off you can choose a good Monopoly and avoid a bad one you buy into a good neighborhood or you pay tuition to a private school. It's no surprise that the poor cannot do that. But think of it the people most in need of good schools are least able to find them. They're stuck with government-issue education. As Business Leaders think about this. In your own localities, one of the best things that we can that each of us can do is ask ourselves this question. Is there a school in my locality? That is unsuitable for children. Now we know what the answer to that question is and I will Hazard a guess that every single person in this audience indeed every friend and relative of yours in this audience think that they have the wit intelligence and sensitivity to choose a school for their children. And in fact they do so and they do it wisely and if it works for us, then it will work for everyone. Indeed. That's what I believe democracy is all about and one of the most interesting school districts in this nation is in Spanish Harlem. It is 100% (00:18:26) Choice. (00:18:27) There is no compulsory assignment of students to schools. Everyone chooses the school they attend so popular is this approach And so improved are some of the schools that affluent white youngsters are now asking to attend those schools (00:18:48) as well. (00:18:51) Choice and markets work among schools as it works among business firms. So I fly gal who was the deputy superintendent and drove much of that in until recently in District 4 in Spanish. Harlem was asked recently why he thought Choice worked in a poverty-stricken community like Spanish Harlem and he had a simple answer. He said what's good for the rich folks is good for the poor folks. Talking about choice in Minnesota makes me feel a little uncomfortable because the state has clearly been out in front. But I also know that this subject is still intense about how people feel about it. It's a little like, mr. Gorbachev is finding out Port of perestroika is right, but it sure is painful and choices right but it's tough. (00:19:44) But it's worth it. (00:19:46) The Keystone of restructuring is to create a public market a set of relationships in the public sector that mirror the best in the private sector and that means Choice among schools for teachers as well as students to create voluntary communities of scholarship. And the great secret of the Market of Choice and diversity is that markets harness individual effort and enthusiasm on both sides of the equation both for the buyer and the seller now, how do we get there from here? To get there. We need Business Leaders in each Community around the nation to insist that public education begins to learn new lessons to learn lessons from successful firms that are in the market the choice and diversity and competition are terms as suited to education as they are to private Enterprise. The biggest risk that I think that we face as a nation is that we will continue to talk about education restructuring, but not do a great deal about it. And before closing I would like to turn briefly to for concrete steps that can be taken to accelerate the pace of Education reform first mobilize the nation's Business Leaders and organizations to press for restructuring and real choice to to begin a serious National debate about National standards. Third to Marshall are limited Federal resources to improve education and fourth. We must support the politicians and the Educators who are willing to take the risk for Real Change. First the nature the nation's major business organizations the committee for economic development The Business Roundtable the National Alliance for business the chamber Commerce the N am these kinds of organizations and there's similar organizations in each of the major communities must begin to pull together and start to force real change. I for one think it would be worthwhile for them to work together. Immediately to work with the schools and the politicians and the research universities push for change quickly. Second the issue of national standards is beginning to get. a lot of attention in the recent annual Gallup poll was remarkable that Americans in the public seemed ready to endorse national standards. Now, there are a lot of problems with this it raises huge issues that cannot be lightly dismissed. We have a long and honored and appropriate state and local control of Education. But the issue issue is beginning to be debated and when Dennis Doyle and I wrote the book we said each of the 50 states must develop tough standards, and I believe that this is the way that this will happen and that we will end up with the facto standards, but the standards must be real and they must be tough for both teachers and for students. And that's where you must help with your organization's and drive that within your own communities. We must face into the facts that we are the only industrialized society that do not have national standards and in anticipation of Europe 1992. The European Roundtable of Industrials has proposed the plan a pan-european baccalaureate degree be created. The degree would be roughly equivalent to a high school degree in this in this country. The new European degree would be based on the highest standards in place in the European countries today. In other words. It isn't to take the medium standards and bring everybody down to it. It's to take the highest and raise everybody (00:23:43) up. (00:23:45) Might interest you to know that one of the standards is that each student graduating would have to master 3 languages? the mother language English language and another now the reason I just want to hit on that is that we've been focusing on the far East. The Europeans are coming on strong. And they too have issues like we do in France and in Europe and Germany and in the England and in Germany, and they are on the Move we may find ourselves not behind the Japanese and the Taiwanese but behind the Europeans as well third. Let me turn my attention to Washington George Bush said he wanted to be the education President. We must help him become the education president. He can use the bully pulpit to do that. I believe the federal government should have a limited role. But one area that I feel strongly about is in research the federal government spends about a hundred and fifty million dollars a year in education research and eight billion dollars a year in medical research. There's a paltry amount of money, but we need to begin to spend money. And how young people learn and how we apply technology to help us LeapFrog the rest of the world. Xerox put 5 million dollars into a new Institute for research on learning it's tied in with Stanford University of California Berkeley and number of other good education schools. A number of other corporations have now started to put money into that and that is not figuring out how you put machines in a classroom. It is the study of applying artificial intelligence to really trying to understand how people learn and how we might begin to apply that to whole new educational processes and fourth. We must support the political leaders and Educators who are willing to take the risk for real restructure and the governors are absolutely key. So we must push them but we must support them. We cannot take on all the Educators or we will not be successful and there are a lot of people in the education Community who do in fact want to change and we must put their arms around those people who are willing to take the risks and who have some of the answers and to a system. But the time has come for us through and Remediation and to end failure and we must do this and have made substantial progress by the end of the year 2000. We cannot go into the next decade in the same situation or we will have failed. So it is up to us to get this on the political agenda and to drive it and I believe that the business Community can play and must play a major role to centuries ago Thomas Jefferson said if a nation expects to be ignorant and free it expects what never was and never will be it is our task those of us that are assembled here that have had the opportunity by our own education. And have the opportunities and experiences in the business and the education community and whatever we do it's to take that advantage and leverage it and get something done. Thank you all very much. (00:27:31) Thank you very much. Mr. Kearns (00:27:34) again for our radio audience. This is a Minnesota meeting with mr. David Kearns the chairman and CEO of Xerox Corporation and now has come the time for audience question response and comment from mr. Kearns both Jane boracic on that side of the room and I will come to you with the microphone if someone has a question or comment for mr. Kearns Jane is the one down there. (00:27:58) Mr. Goods, perhaps I could start off by (00:28:01) a challenging you want to point you made me quite upset tongue-in-cheek. I'm a child of the 1960s and what you've told us is that the age of Aquarius will never Dawn that Woodstock was somehow a mischievous illusion that we need to go back to the Protestant ethic and hard work and discipline and become like these Japanese surely you must have some good news for us somewhere. Well, I not certainly going to get in debate about Woodstock are the Protestant ethic being a good Irish Catholic from upstate, New York. I I won't tell any jokes about the Scandinavians if you don't beat on me as an Irishman. What I'm saying is that we have some strong underpinnings in this country and public education is one of them. We've let it get away from us and we got to rebuild it and restructure it. And inside of that that there are values in this country that we know are important everything is not relative and I feel very strong about that and we know what those things are and we decided for some reason to walk away from that and we need to walk back to it. And we need to take tough stands. I'm not talking about teaching religion in the school. I don't think we should do that and I don't think we should debate it. I do not support the voucher system as it's been called and that's taking public funds and putting him into the private and parochial schools because I don't want to debate the issue. We do that frankly around the around the country very successfully at the college and university level, but it's not time to do that right now. And I believe that we know now the kinds of things that can work and I think we need to get on and do and the pressure and do and the pressure of them pressure them for change and I believe that there is a strong work ethic in this United States in the United States. And what we need to do is to start to provide the leadership and the environment so people can do something with it. And that takes leadership. Thank you. We have a question from Emily and Staples. Mr. Karen's I appreciated your talk. But one of the critical elements in improving education is going to be teachers and obviously teachers are not being valued in this Society nearly as highly as businessmen and business people and I'd like you to address a little bit about how you see the whole teaching profession being upgraded to make these (00:30:20) Visions occur. (00:30:23) Well, you're absolutely right. I agree with everything that you that you said and I'm not here to plug my book. In fact, I don't even get the royalties. They go back in but Dennis Doyle would love to have me put a plug in for the book. We addressed that hard on. First of all, we need to have a market Marketplace be alive and well in the teaching Community if there's a shortage of physics teachers, which there are in this country, there's half as many physics teachers as there are high schools. We need to pay people more money to go into physics if it's tougher to teach in the large Urban centers, which I believe it is we should pay more money for people to go into work into those into those areas when we talk about choice of schools. One of the key points that I made is its choice for the teachers as well. I want the school's not just to compete for students but to compete for faculty as well third point I'd make is that I feel strongly about what's called School based management. The simple thing is about what school based management is the principals and teachers run the schools. And the district's becomes support organizations in that telling organizations. And what we've got to do is to begin to create an environment where people not just get paid more money to teach if they're good. They're good. But also can teach an environment where they feel that they're getting getting something done. And it's a you got to get the schools better to get going and it's kind of a circle but there are a lot of young people in my opinion that would go in the teaching will start moving moving in that direction. If if we start to do some of the structural changes, but the really good people only a small handful. Let's see it kind of a social Duty and we can't survive on people just going into education as part of the social Duty we needed as part of the economic structure if we're going to succeed and we need to give much more support to (00:32:09) the (00:32:12) to our education schools. I don't want to insult anybody here, but we have an anomaly in the in the United States that are University and college system is the Envy of the world are great research universities are better than the great research universities and other places and the in the country, but our education schools are not as good as the other professional schools. They need to be we need also to track to attract the very best there there as well and we can do that and I think that people will begin to do it. When they see that it is important and that people care about it. And I think you'll find a lot of people going into education. One of the problems that we have is you know today the statistics on the young people going into education versus other disciplines is that they are not as high on the intellectual scale today and that's because we have not made it as attractive as it needs as it as it needs to be but it's absolutely imperative. We do that I'm on the board of the national national board for Teacher standards. I believe that that we can push that as well and I think the unions are getting ready to help. (00:33:22) It won't be easy. (00:33:24) Everybody thinks they want change, but they really want change for the other fellow and I'm no different than anybody (00:33:29) else. Thank you. Mr. Kearns a question from John Schreiner. Looking forward to this auspicious classroom setting today. Mr. Teacher. I did some homework on the weekend. I read your book and I found it impressive indeed. I have two short questions first on the role of parents, which you mentioned whom you mentioned seven or eight times in your book generally with regard to the issue of school choice you foresee any other significant roles for parents to have in the education process of an ideal School scenario and question number two is about accountability, which is quite a buzz word these days and usually is discussed in conjunction with testing to see how much curriculum knowledge has been taught by the teacher and learned by the students but there's another area which for many parents Is more or even more important than curriculum and content and that is the teaching? Talent and style of the teacher and the personal Integrity of the teacher being such a prominent role model for our children, and I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on assessing teaching talent and personal qualities of individual (00:34:47) teachers. I'll try and be short I get nervous when I get around the pedagogical things, (00:34:51) but (00:34:56) Let me just say this that. Some of the good models for parent involvement there in the public system, but there are a lot of the good private schools and what you will find is a parents are absolutely involved in the in the school. They're there and they are (00:35:11) around (00:35:13) the schools in the inner cities that are making the changes and are making some of the things the parents are there and around and involved. In two school systems that I know and I know it's happened in others. Where the school contract in Rochester New York this in the school contract the teachers and the school system made a trade off. Each teacher takes on 20 students that they care for. They call them on the weekends. They are available for the students to call them at home and to work that the trade-off was they gave up bathroom Duty guard Duty hall room duty so that they would have time to do other things and it's the community the parents that are doing those things Debbie Meyers School in New York city that has had such great success where they went to a dropout rate that was over 50% It's down now to 5% They even have the custodial staff in the school as well as the teachers. So it's 1 for 13 and the dropout rate is a cause and effect if kids think somebody cares they are not leaving school. So there is a way to get it and that's where parents parents can really help and it's a regular and ongoing ongoing involvement. I think it's a that's a more difficult difficulty answer about teachers being role models. In fact, they are Role Models because the kids do see them and some are good. And of course some are some are not and that's when many people say well are people in schools that I don't want teaching values because they're not my values. Well, I say that's hogwash because when you don't teach values you are teaching something that is absolutely clear and I think you can teach values and by the way as you begin to put that in the curriculum, then the teachers also will be involved. And what you teach you learn? And I'd be I think this is an interactive of an in an interactive process. As we make the school's a more attractive place for teachers to be we will get better and better people both intellectually and people with broader backgrounds going into the going into the school. So it's a it's a long it's a long process but there are a lot of Role Models out there today. There's a lot of outstanding teachers that have hung in for one reason or another so we don't have to look far. The third point I'd make is there's some excellent work going on Ted Sizer at Brown as a coalition for a Central Schools are about a hundred schools now involved who are looking at where some of these models are the both parochial private and public schools and they're expanding it in the education commission for the state's your Governor up until just recently headed that and Frank Newman runs that is now combine that with with whether with the coal essential Coalition and they're going to expand that to more schools to start seeing where these role models aren't to do some studies. (00:38:11) Studies on this. Thank you. Mr. Koontz a question from NED wall. Mr. Kearns from what I read the Japanese success seems to be predicated on a certain rigidity a loss (00:38:22) of control and a loss of Freedom the Harvard track begins in kindergarten can we incorporate their standards and their success without giving up the kind of Freedom we have and without injecting stress into the classroom for young children. I don't know the answer to your question, but let me start with a premise and that is that we should not copy everything that is done in Japan. There's a lot of things in the Japanese society and culture that they're not adaptable to our society in there's a lot of things in the Japanese culture that aren't any good. And the Japanese are scared to death of the creativity in the Ingenuity of the United States and they're more Japanese studying our education system in the United States today and there are American studying the Japanese education system. So I think you start with the premise of trying to find out what it is that they do do. Now. One of the things that they do in Japan is a parent involvement is huge in Japan. The parents are involved in the education process. We ought to copy that by the way, that'll help the parents as well. So that's a plus but I think to go to the rigidity of testing. In Japan would be a great mistake and one of the reasons that I'm a supporter of Education research at the federal government for them to spend some money with our with our education schools. And the research universities is to start doing real research and what are the right mechanisms to test and to understand and what should those standards be now? I wouldn't cast out the SATs and some other things in the meantime because that's all we've got but it is very clear that there can be better methods to understand and I think that there can be some combination of better discipline and get this create creativity that we've got. I don't know if I mentioned it here before dinner, but the Japanese universities that I mentioned this already here at the Japanese universities are not any good. It's R&R after you get through this rigorous education process through High School. You get iron are for four years. Then you go to graduate school in Europe or the United States. So there are things in Japan that we do not want to that. We do not want to copy and are not necessary to do but there's some good lessons but I started with the Japanese lesson is one of national policy that education is fundamental to the success of the nation if we start there and we put it on the agenda, then you can start working these other the other issues, but we got to get it on the political agenda and start testing and trying (00:40:42) some of these things. (00:40:44) Thank you for question B everything. (00:40:45) Mr. Kearns a question from David Andrews. Xerox offers a warranty with each of its products what warranty would you offer your restrict the consumer of your restructured educational program? (00:40:59) I think the school should warrant there. They're out there output. That's the student whose only one customer the school really has and it's my opinion is a student with a measured that way. When I first gave this got on this track, which was in Detroit a number of years ago. a school principal Outside of Los Angeles really took me on and she said starting and I'm she put it in the paper wrote to all the businesses and she said I guarantee our graduates if any of them can not make it through your schools of your training program. You send them back to us and we will do what is ever necessary to bring them up to. I mean, she jammed it right down my throat. You know, she just like that and if you get standards for graduation and that's why we've got this terrible thing going on with some kids that hit believe the diploma they have has value and it doesn't and they can't understand why they can't succeed. That's why I keep banging away. You get a Palma a diploma. That means something and by the way to get that you got it in my opinion do away with things that really bother people you got to run the schools here around that is mean kids go all go it goes when they can go they may have to work but then they can go with the other times. It means that when you're when you're 6 and you go get to be seven you don't necessarily go to second grade. It means that you that you do you stay at each level until you're prepared. But you may go through English at a high rate in math at a slow rate. There are whole lots of things that must we must start to get at then when the youngster walks out of school. First of all, they will not have any problem getting a job. We're running for a huge job. She crisis in the late 1990s in this country and educate a child with an education a diploma Around The Core Curriculum that I'm talked about will get a good job and get paid very well that I would guarantee right (00:42:50) now. Thank you a question from Joseph a Geo. Yes in the smaller group. You mentioned this kind of a pie shape system where the wealthier families would put their kids in schools with the or under class or poor kids in the city. I'm wondering about the incentive for that. It seems too simple to just say just put more money in these inner city schools and and they'll do better and they'll be an incentive to send them. I think there's a genuine fear of the wealthier families or the think that if just like in football if you play football with better football players you get better if you associate with worse, they're not going to advance as much and they're afraid of the inner-city schools. And what's the real incentive for them to really enrich their kids by sending them there? (00:43:40) Well, let me just get a couple things straight. First of all what I said and what I didn't say, first of all, the pie shape concept is one for racial balance, not necessarily educational balance that was done having to do in the A number of communities around to get to get a racial and economic balance in the school's when I talk about a choice system. I'm talking about a modified free market system. We must have racial and economic balance and targets and so forth to get that to get that right second. If the money goes where the needs go in other words, if a student needs more help they should get more state or local money. There will be schools that will begin to get developed to help people with particular needs particular desires and their work and their requirements today and it does work at the college in the University. We have a selection system today that that that works and it works very well and there are there are darn fine schools around this country other than Stanford University and Harvard or Princeton or whatever School University of Minnesota that you want to put in the top P the top of there are a whole lot of other very good schools that have developed attractive things for young people to to go to because of their particular requirements. That's how the system would begin would begin to work a lot of problems with it. I admit that but we're never going to find out. And there will never be any changes unless we force it because it is difficult. Most businesses don't change. And the reason they don't change as rapidly as the auto because the changes are so onerous it's very difficult for them to do and they don't change dealer in real (00:45:22) deep trouble. (00:45:25) We change that Xerox restructured the company because we found out that the Japanese were selling copiers in the United States for what it cost us to make them now that's not hard to figure out after you there. If you don't do something about that you will be out of business. Now it's those kind of pressures that force you to do the onerous kinds of things. And a lot of businesses are unable to do that without changing the management. Now what we got to do is to put the pressure on the system to start the try these kinds of things because all of them are fraud mean I can give you a list that's 10 times as long as the list that you gave me just now literally 10 times as long as all the things that are wrong in the problems of choice, but I will tell you if we don't get some kind of free market approach to the system. We will have the same discussion here 10 years from today and that is (00:46:17) unsatisfactory. Thank you. Mr. Kearns Lucy Taylor has question. Mr. Kearns, you mentioned the importance of parent involvement has Xerox Corporation considered giving its employees time off to attend parent-teacher conferences. (00:46:34) The answer to that is that that yes, we have we have not implemented it as a specific policy. We should that is one of the discussions that that they were having among daycare and a whole set of all the things that we're trying to deal with but there isn't any question we have what I would call a rather liberal practice and policies written about personal time off. So we start I think it'll level it's where you go and how you do that, but there isn't any question that in today's society and the work the makeup the demographics of the workforce that we must find Solutions solutions to that and a lot of the things that we have we have done. We have flexible work hours now at almost every location around the world where we are where where people can can work with their supervisor to structure their work hours. And we thought when we first started doing this in the middle 70s going to be an absolute disaster. It has not at all. It didn't impact negatively the business one iota if anything, it's been positive people feel better about it. It just a whole lot of the things don't work. We just do it on a basis that you can't decide each morning when you wake up what the flexibility will be for that day and So thank you mister, but you're right if parents are going to be involved and they must be involved with their children. They need some flexibility to deal to deal with that. (00:47:59) Thank you. Mr. Kearns again for our radio audience. This is a Minnesota meeting (00:48:02) with David Kearns chairman and CEO of the Xerox Corporation talking about education. (00:48:07) And now a question from Ruth use them. Mr. Kearns, could you please elaborate on how you see business impacting on education? (00:48:21) Well business impact on Education First I start with putting pressure for change second. I think you have to work at the at the national level and I talked about that in some of the kinds of things that that the Business Roundtable for example is involved in another National organizations and really start to work into work at the federal the federal level real change in my opinion. And where the where the business Community can help is in the communities, right your local local communities one of the major things, for example where business can help and is in many cases we have done a lot. In quality training and the quality processes in this country. In the big corporations, those are absolutely applicable. To school administration and to the school systems. That's a that's something that we can actually help and to work with and and and provide assistance in there are many good school Partnerships and there are many bad school Partnerships. I don't know if Ted called re ever came in here today told me last night he was going to going to come but but I think Ted it was you that used first used the phrase about some feel-good Partnerships with businesses kind of do them. All you do is Shore up a bad system. So you got to make sure that when you're involved you're not just making yourself kind of socially responsible. You got to be in there and making sure that Real Change Change takes place and when you get in to get into something like Choice, which is a politically tough issue and administratively difficult to do. Businesses can help rally the political and the community support for those kinds of those kinds of those kinds of programs. That was a whole rash and I want to take the time to go here of what different companies are doing with different schools around the country that are in fact first class types of things getting it getting involved. I do not think we should get involved in the pedagogical types of things. We're not qualified to do that type the type of thing. So I see it in a political standpoint in some modest way some funding people will come back often and say well business has got to fund the public school system that's nonsense one. We can't afford it and to the the United States the United States public would never put up with business funding a public school system. We would have decided to do away with the public school system. So that couldn't be done for a number of reasons just in case you were on that (00:50:55) point question here from John Wraith. I agree with much that you say about freedom of choice, but there's one thing that keeps worrying me that is if you have complete freedom of choice. Can we have it without (00:51:12) penalizing that lower half (00:51:14) of the students many of whom live in your inner city slums (00:51:19) where I live? Let me say again. I believe in a modified free enterprise system. We must have economic and racial balance in those schools. And we must ensure that the funds go where you need it the most and if you if kids in the inner city, and at the lower part of the economic scale need more assistance, then we need to move funds that way and when you package those that those two concepts together, it starts starts to come through now, I didn't spend time on it today and but one of the key things that the federal government must fund and the president is said that they would do this it will take him a while to get there but only 25% it's maybe even twenty percent of all eligible Head Start kids get Head Start help today in this country. We know that Head Start works. We know head start work. So there are other things that must go along and I think it's we need to be careful. I tend to focus on choice because I think there are business kinds of things that can lessons and understanding from an experiential standpoint that can that can that can help but there but if all we did was choice We would not fix a system. There's a whole set of other things that need to be done as well. But I do think choice is key because I think it can be the Leverage The Burr under the saddle and the driver to get out from where we are currently because we are not moving ahead. There's a lot of good things that are happening around the country but someone asked me before we got started here today, I guess it was Dave Cox, I think said something to me. He says it used you sense any real momentum and the answer to that is no we have momentum of talk but not momentum for Action. (00:53:05) Thank you a question for mr. Robert doctor. Thank you. I'd like to question your statement a little bit on the worth. Excuse me work ethic in this country. I'm the father of three teenage daughters. I feel I've put them through some of the best education available in a Twin Cities both in public and private schools have been involved on two different school boards and of watch very closely how the school system works Vis A Vie the desire for the students to learn. The biggest difficulty I have had as a father and as a school board member and as a business leader has been the desire to work hard the thing I've always fought with my children is the message that they constantly get from the major corporations in America and how their products are going to make their life easier not better almost everything that comes through in terms of commercial messages is not how if you work hard and this is the tool we give you you're going to accomplish more it's if you work at all and this is the tool we give you you're going to have an easier life and believe me. I have fought there for many many years now education is a very difficult process for a student and if they don't come in with the knowledge that they have to work very hard to accomplish it. They're not going to accomplish it. Question. What can we do? Well, (00:54:34) we have to be careful about attacking 250 million people in this country and say then I understood and working hard (00:54:40) and a lot of people (00:54:41) who have two and three jobs and they really do work hard and they are (00:54:45) young not just old or (00:54:47) middle-aged. There are a lot of young people in school and in college and university level that work really (00:54:56) hard. (00:54:58) And we have a lot of people at Xerox that work hard. and having said that there is it an issue building at a rapid rate all tied in with I think drugs and a whole lot of other things that I think come way ahead of whether or not we were advertising ease of (00:55:14) use for product. (00:55:18) I'm not sure that. That that I have at least seen that that piece as an issue. I think there's plenty of been written a lot talked about that hard work does does get you ahead we've got it. We've got an issue but we have a core in this country. We know what hard work is. It's understood we do not have to describe it. But we need in particularly in our large urban areas in my opinion. We need to create an environment where the young people understand that hard (00:55:53) work will get them someplace. (00:55:57) And right now there are other avenues. other than hard work to do it and they and there are choices for the young people we must do away with some of those choices and we must make being in school more attractive attractive than it than it is. Someone said something the other day and television that having to do with the drug thing, which we fortunately have got high on the agenda. Now and they were challenging of how easy it is and how desires it is for the young people to go and sell crack at a thousand dollars a day or two hundred dollars a day. Now people talking about $2,000 a day. And I think it was Charles Rangel Congressman in New York and said may be able to make a lot of money but it's damn dangerous and I don't know anybody's got their hand up says he want to go (00:56:46) to war. (00:56:48) And that's what it is. It's dangerous. There are a lot of unattractive things as well. And we got to start raising that raising that balance but that's a piece that I am I am the least concerned about. And when people at Xerox if they're not working hard working hard enough, that's my fault. Not theirs. It's because we have not created an environment that makes it attractive enough for them to do that or we haven't trained them well enough and so I think that we have to be as a society and as business Community to say, it's our job. We're in charge of the communities. It's not somebody else and we start we needed to be attractive and to make it make it worthwhile for people to work hard so we can do that. This nation can be can be generated. We need leadership. It's going to take time. It's going to take some patience and that's why I keep coming back put your arms around and support the Educators the politicians and the people who were really willing to willing to go out and do this because there's a core of people in this country at all levels economic and racial who are really willing to make this thing work and we got to go find him and and God, I got six kids six grandchildren some work hard and some don't thank you very much. Mr. David Curry. You've heard David Kearns chairman and chief executive officer of Xerox Corporation at Minnesota meeting prior to the question-and-answer session. He spoke on the topic winning the brain race a bold plan to make our schools competitive lie broadcasts of Minnesota meeting are made possible by Oppenheimer wolf and Donnelly providing commercial corporate litigation and international legal services to businesses in 40 countries around the world.