Minding their business: when it comes to improving the public-education system, school officials say they depend on the help of industry leaders.

• Position: BUSINESS EDUCATION ROUND TABLE - Industry overview - Discussion

Businesses have much to give North Carolina schools, but they need administrators to invite them in first. Likewise, business executives must keep school administrators informed about what they require from the workforce. Those were some of the many opinions expressed during a recent business-and-education round table hosted by GlaxoSmithKline PLC at its U.S. headquarters in Research Triangle Park. Participants were June S. Arkinson, state superintendent of public instruction; Carl E. Harris, superintendent of Durham Public Schools; William C. Harrison, chairman of the state Board of Education; Bryant Kinney, vice president for regulatory and government affairs, Duke Energy Carolinas; R. Andre Peek, vice president of IBM Global Technology Services' communications sector, Paul Sale, director of human resources for Cisco Systems Research Triangle Park/U.S. Connected Sites; Bill Shore, director of GSK's U.S. Community Partnerships; and Tricia Willoughby, executive director of the North Carolina Business Committee for Education. Since the round table, Harris has accepted a job, which he begins Jan, I, as deputy assistant secretary for policy and strategic initiatives for the U.S. Department of Education. Ben Kinney, BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA publisher, moderated the discussion, sponsored by GlaxoSmith Kline, Cisco Systems, Duke Energy and IBM. Following is a transcript, edited for brevity and clarity.

How can business leaders provide effective input to state education leaders and policymakers?

Atkinson: Business and industry can apply firm yet gentle pressure. I view economic development as being a partner with education and business and industry. It's a part of marriage. And just like in marriage, it is much better if we have love. Education is much better if we have business and industry as a part of that initiative.

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Kinney; I view the educational system as a supplier, and we're the customers. Being involved in the education system is being a good customer. I can't fault my supplier if I don't tell them what I need. With the median age of our workforce being about 50, in the next 10 to 15 years we need a real good vendor.

Peek: As businesses, we know what kinds of skills are needed much sooner than the institutions. What we want to do is to get that information about what's relevant into the schools so that the workforce that we need will be enabled.

Kinney: We're going to be a completely different type of business than we were over the last 100 years as we go to digitizing our grid and renewable energy and other things. So a 21st-century workforce is absolutely critical to us, in addition to traditional craft labor and other skills that we're going to need.

Shore: We're looking at a situation where the U.S. is now 28th in the world in terms of science and math, where we have 30% or more of our kids--and more than 50% of minority kids--dropping out of high school. If we're going to be able to replace our employees as they retire, we need every single one of those students to be potential employees for us. But it's obvious those dropping out are not going to come to work for any of our companies.

Harrison: Part of our challenge is we, as a public school system, are doing exactly what we were designed to do. When our system was founded, it was OK for 30% to drop out. There were jobs for them. It was OK for some students not to have a higher level of education. Those of us running the system and the community at large have not kept up with demands in the marketplace. We have too many people in too many communities who are satisfied with the status quo and don't understand that the status quo no longer meets the needs.

Sale: It's not a nice-to-do anymore. It's a strategic imperative. We have to be involved in the dialogue. It's a joint responsibility. We can't leave it for education alone anymore. It's got to be a right function to create the rights strategy for the future.

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How is technology being used in grades K-12, and what are some ways that businesses help?

Harrison: I've heard students interviewed and say they have to power down to come to school. Willard Daggett, who is a futurist, said 20 years ago that it took 40 years to get the overhead projector out of the bowling alley and into the classroom. We need to do much better. We need to ensure that we are facilitating instruction for students in the way in which they learn, rather than us teaching in a way in which we are comfortable. I think about video games and the interaction they have in this environment where the feedback is immediate, specific and rigorous. There is a specific objective, and they need to be exposed to instruction that reflects that. That's how students live, and we shouldn't change the way they live when they come to school.

Harris: What we don't recognize today is that our students need to know far more at a much earlier age than we've asked students to know in the past. The only way we can absolutely extend the learning of a student's day is through technology, something that students can have access to beyond having face-to-face interaction with the classroom teacher. We need to expand it into the curriculum so the can...