Any discussion of education reform should also include changes the schools must make to become more family-friendly. For example, teachers conferences have to be held when parents can get there. The Point is that schools and parents have to work together. If schools are barriers to that, they have to change. If businesses are a barrier, they have to change.
Families look a lot different today.
Many families need our help, and business is the catalyst that can create community action to provide it. You've all heard me talk about New Vistas, our high school for teenage mothers at Honeywell headquarters, so I won't go into detail about it. We see the school as a way to help the parent, that is the student, give her child a decent start in life. Second, business was the catalyst - it happened only because business took the initiative. In the public sector, the polifical booby- traps, the public questions and budget problems alone would have taken years to resolve.