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Business Roundtable Celebrates Fifth Anniversary of No Child Left Behind Act
Calls Bill a Key to U.S. Competitiveness and Emphasizes Need to Sustain and Strengthen Law During Reauthorization This Year
Washington, DC – Business Roundtable, an association of 160 chief executive officers of leading U.S. corporations, today celebrated the fifth anniversary of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act and reaffirmed its commitment to working with Congress and the Administration to sustain and strengthen the law when it is reauthorized this year. Business Roundtable has a long-term and continuing commitment to standards-based education reform, both at the state and national levels, and sees this milestone as an opportunity to reflect on progress made to date and renew its belief in the law’s goals.
“No Child Left Behind is the centerpiece of our nation’s education policy, and education is one of the keys to the United States’ ability to compete in our rapidly changing world,” said Business Roundtable President John J. Castellani. “NCLB is helping to raise student achievement and close the achievement gap. Given the central importance of education to our nation, it is vital that the law be strengthened during reauthorization.”
Business Roundtable remains strongly committed to advocating public policies that improve U.S. education performance and workforce competitiveness. As part of this ongoing effort, on January 16, 2007, the Business Coalition for Student Achievement – a broad-based business community effort co-chaired by Art Ryan, Chairman and CEO of Prudential; Ed Rust, Chairman and CEO of State Farm; and Craig Barrett, Chairman of Intel – will release a set of recommendations to improve NCLB during reauthorization.
“We look forward to working with the Administration and Congress on the reauthorization of this historic law, and we applaud the efforts of Secretary Spellings to be both more flexible and more firm, as appropriate, with state implementation of NCLB.” concluded Castellani.
For more information on Business Roundtable and its education-related initiatives, visit www.businessroundtable.org.
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Business Roundtable (www.businessroundtable.org) is an association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies with $4.5 trillion in annual revenues and more than 10 million employees. Member companies comprise nearly a third of the total value of the U.S. stock markets and represent over 40 percent of all corporate income taxes paid. Collectively, they returned $112 billion in dividends to shareholders and the economy in 2005.
Roundtable companies give more than $7 billion a year in combined charitable contributions, representing nearly 60 percent of total corporate giving. They are technology innovation leaders, with $90 billion in annual research and development spending – nearly half of the total private R&D spending in the U.S.
