By Akindele Akinyemi

While stakeholders in urban areas are busy trying to figure out how to fix the broken educational system in our communities urban conservatives need to think out the box to solve problems. In fact, we should officially divorce ourselves from useless rhetoric. We must make education the #1 issue on our platform. This means we will need to go beyond a band-aid approach to the educational crisis such as school vouchers. These talking points are meaningless if we do not put any teeth behind what we are saying.

You cannot talk about job growth in any area until you address education first. The reason? Without the proper training by taking the time to learn the skills first you will be going to a job unprepared. In an information age we must train our inner city to be prepared.

Then we must connect the dots. Education is not just domestic but global. We are connected to the Internet daily. Therefore, the whole global education experience is right at our fingertips. However, we have some who are stuck in the early 20th century who feels that we should not promote global education.

How silly.

It’s time that we remove labels from the political lexicon that we hear on TV or in social networking sites on a daily basis and come together to solve the real issues of the day. The global market is rapidly expanding and people need to get out of this tribalistic mentality and begin to understand that they will be left behind if we do not move into the future.

In order for us to connect global education to urban communities we need to look at three items.

(1) Improving the delivery of education to the inner city through public-private partnerships.

(2) Creating the innovation of teachers and students through the effective use of 21st century technology.

(3) Developing the capacity of the local information technology industry.

In order to attract global partners (both private sector and international donors) the conditions must be favorable. Its important for us to build the capacity of the local information technology industry for the development of innovative learning solutions in partnership with world class firms, creating economic value that will lead to mutually beneficial business opportunities.

The concept of a public-private partnership (PPP) recognizes the existence of alternative options for providing educational services besides public finance and public delivery. Although there are many forms of PPPs, including partnerships where private organizations support the education sector through philanthropic activities and high engagement ventures, we need to examine how PPPs in which the government guides policy and provides financing while the private sector delivers education services to students. In particular, governments contract out private providers to supply a specified service of a defined quantity and quality at an agreed price for a specific period of time.

Private participation in education has increased dramatically over the last two decades across the world, serving all types of communities—from high-income to low income families. Although governments remain the main financiers of education (at least of primary and secondary education), in many countries private agents deliver a sizable share of education.

Presently, the only form of public-private partnership that exists in the inner city are charter schools where a private Educational Management Company partners with the public entity of the school to maintain the day to day operations. Now we need to take a step forward and connect this with the rest of the planet. Once again, educational entrepreneurship is the way of the future as we begin to connect cities like Detroit to other parts of the globe. You cannot transform Detroit from an automotive market to a global financial market unless the right educational tools are in place.

Urban communities who are serious about improving education must be able to understand the growing consensus of public-private partnerships. These partnerships can be extremely valuable for economic and social development both domestic and abroad. They can bring an injection of extra resources into the public sector. Equally important, the private sector can contribute skills (e.g., innovation, project management, performance measurement, technical expertise) that will help the public sector in tackling critical issues. The private sector can benefit from a strengthened position and reputation within society, a long-term “return” on social investment in the form of a more prosperous economy, and the opportunity to innovate and test new products and services.

One issue that I often hear in places like Detroit is the excuses we make as a community. We do not need to come down to anyone level of thinking (especially if we are still fighting over unions, free-markets, etc). Its time for our community to wake up and realize that we are in a technological age that is steady advancing. Therefore, we need to upgrade our way of thinking and execute a plan that will be sustainable for the next 50 years.

Ask yourself this:

a) What characteristics should an inner city (and its government and society) have to attract global partners and to facilitate public private partnerships?

b) What vision is required to attract partners in the first place? How, where and by whom can this be most powerfully articulated?

c) What sort of resources are required to allow the initiative to succeed? What type of partners need to be engaged?

d) How should partners work together to execute and deliver on programs? What competences and working arrangements are required?

e) How are partners aligned and the initiative directed? How are strategic problems tackled and choices made?

These are real questions that require critical thinking and concrete solutions. Notice I never used any tag lines like “liberal”, “socialism”, “capitalism”, etc. This is not a time to deal with political labels when we are trying to solve an issue that has become global.

Urban conservatives understand that a well-respected, transparent and effective government system as well as strategic connection to the inner city to international community are steps that will attract governmental, social strategic conditions to allow industries and the private sector to invest in the educational environment that will help spur economic development.

While we waste precious time arguing over who should control education we need a more realistic approach to moving academia forward. Innovation and entrepreneurship are central drivers of job creation and economic growth. We should already work with those to develop global partnerships to enable the creation of an innovation landscape through the development of entrepreneurial skills and innovation-friendly policies.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Akindele Akinyemi is an independent Republican who is the author of “Academic Revolution”, a series of essays dealing with the neeed for more specialized charter schools in urban communities. He has a B.S in African American Studies from Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan and a M.A. in Education with an emphasis in Curriculum and Instruction.