State chamber pilots Show-Me Scholars program in four districts

~ Business leaders will visit students to encourage them to take tougher classes.

The Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry Education Foundation plans to use business leaders to encourage high school students to take rigorous academic classes in an effort to provide employers with a more skilled work force.

Fueled by a grant, the state chamber will pilot its Show-Me Scholars program in four school districts this year and hopes to extend the program to at least a third of Missouri's 524 school districts by 2010.

Daniel Mehan, president and CEO of the state chamber, said the program might expand to the Cape Girardeau School District within the next few years, possibly as early as 2008.

"I guarantee that we will approach Cape," he said.

The state chamber is experimenting with the program in the Jennings and Rockwood school districts in the St. Louis area, in the Houston School District in southern Missouri and the Mexico School District in northern Missouri. The goal is to set up a permanent statewide program.

Demonstrating success

"The thought is we would be able to demonstrate success with the program and then earn some private support," Mehan said.

The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, or WICHE, awarded a $300,000, two-year grant to the Missouri chamber to implement the State Scholars Initiative, a national business-education partnership.

Missouri was one of four states chosen to participate. Also chosen were New Hampshire, South Dakota and Wyoming.

According to WICHE, 20 other states already have participated in the program.

Mehan said the state chamber will hire an executive director to run Missouri's Show-Me Scholars program. The program is slated to kick off in the next three to four weeks.

Under the program, business leaders in Missouri will visit students in eighth grade and above and urge them to take tougher classes.

John Mehner, Cape Girardeau chamber president, expressed interest in the program. "From what I know it is a good idea," he said. "We want kids to challenge themselves."

Sometimes high school students take easier classes in an effort to get higher grades, Mehner said. "This program would bring real life people in to tell them not to be afraid to take more difficult classes," he said. "It requires getting volunteers into the schools."

He said the Cape Girardeau area has many business leaders who could be called upon. "We have locally lots of people who can go in and tout math and sciences," said Mehner.

Central High School principal Dr. Mike Cowan welcomed establishment of the Show-Me Scholars program.

"We welcome any endorsement we can receive from any civic or academic organization that encourages our kids to take a more rigorous academic course of study," he said.

The Show-Me Scholars core course of study includes four years of English, three years of math (algebra I and II and geometry), three years of science (biology, chemistry and physics), three and a half years of social studies and two years of a foreign language.

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education already has strengthened academic requirements. Freshmen who entered public high schools in the fall will have to have three years of math and three years of science to graduate. Previously, the requirement was two years of each, Cowan said.

Students, he said, benefit from tougher math and science courses. Research shows they typically earn higher ACT scores, he said. Minimum ACT scores are part of the admission requirements at many colleges.

A majority of Central graduates go to college, Cowan said.

Cowan said Central encourages students to take the harder courses by weighting grades. "It awards students extra grade points for taking the more rigorous schedule," he said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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