Transcript Slide 1

Charters, Communities & Chambers
Breakout Session 2
11:45 – 12:30
Kali Boatright
President & CEO
Ryan Mahoney
Director of Public Policy
Andrew Lewis
Chief Programming Officer
Douglas County Chamber of Commerce
Georgia Chamber of Commerce
Georgia Charter Schools Association
“We must understand that in the 21st century, the race for
human talent will define the global winners and losers
more than any other factor. America’s first priority must be
to fully educate, train, and retrain our own people
throughout their careers.”
Thomas J. Donohue
President and CEO, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Consider the following:
• 1.2 million students drop out of high school
every year.
• The United States ranks near the bottom in
graduation rates among developed nations.
• Out of every 100 low-income students, fewer
than 10 will ultimately graduate from college.
How does this assist you when speaking
with a local chamber of commerce?
•Annual losses exceed $50 billion in federal and state income taxes for
all 23,000,000 U.S. high school dropouts ages 18-67
•A high school dropout earns about $260,000 less over a lifetime than
a high school graduate and pays about $60,000 less in taxes
•Health-related losses for the estimated 600,000 high school dropouts
in 2004 totaled at least $58 billion, or nearly $100,000 per student
•Increasing the high school completion rate by just 1 percent for all
men ages 20-60 would save the U.S. up to $1.4 billion per year in
reduced costs from crime
Action Steps for Local Chambers of Commerce: Support for
Individual Charter Schools
• Serve on charter school boards.
• Encourage employees and peers to serve on charter school boards or
volunteer at the school.
• Loan executive time for business functions of charter schools.
• Publish charter school events and job opening.
• Make start-up or expansion grants to charter schools.
• Provide a facility or loan guarantee to a charter school.
• Help launch a charter school that trains students for a specific field or
industry.
Where to find this information:
Corporations, Chambers, and Charters:
How Businesses Can Support High-Quality Public Charter Schools
Institute for a Competitive Workforce (U.S. Chamber of Commerce)
http://www.publiccharters.org/files/publications/ICW%20Report.pdf
The Social Costs of Inadequate Education
TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
http://mea.org/tef/pdf/social_costs_of_inadequate.pdf