Pepper to schools: Invest in leaders

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Pepper to Schools Article

By Ben Fischer • bfischer@enquirer.com • March 25, 2010

The thing about fixing America's schools, says former Procter & Gamble chief executive John Pepper, is that we know what works. It just doesn't happen often enough.

In a lunchtime speech to 500 business people and educators Thursday at the Hyatt Regency, downtown,, Pepper laid out three major goals he thinks both the nation and Greater Cincinnati should pursue to result in lasting solutions to under-performing schools.

Tops among them, Pepper said: Develop more excellent principals and teachers.

Also, he said, the community needs to invest more in early childhood education, and community groups and individuals need to help schools with tutoring and other partnership arrangements.

Those are all proven tactics, and society needs to embrace them to truly make child development "our highest priority," he said.

"In my lifetime, we've never had more ideas on what to do to achieve that priority," Pepper said. "We need the will, the persistence and the courage to do it."

Pepper spoke after the Economics Center for Education & Research, based at the University of Cincinnati, gave him its Founder's Award at its annual awards event. The center specializes in teaching grade-school children economics and financial planning at area schools.

In preparation for the speech, Pepper said he interviewed 40 experts, including the principals of Taft Information Technology High School and Withrow University High School, two Cincinnati public high schools that have seen test scores soar in the past decade under highly regarded principals.

Beyond any other reform initiative, schools must invest in making its principals and teachers better, he said.

"Personal leadership makes things happen," Pepper said. "And nowhere have I seen that more clearly than in our schools."

Schools should follow corporations - including P&G - that have made leadership training for executives a top priority, he said. Cincinnati Public Schools and the state of Ohio both have worthwhile principal development programs, he said, but it's not enough.

"In my opinion, the development of our principals today, nationally, and locally, is woefully inadequate," he said.

Pepper, currently chairman of the Disney Corp., worked in various positions at Procter & Gamble from 1963 to 2003, taking over as chief executive and then chairman in his final years. Since the 1980s, he has taken a special interest in education, helping create the Cincinnati Youth Collaborative.

Pepper also emphasized the importance of preschool and other programs to prepare the very young for formal schooling, citing research documenting how investing in the very young forestalls bigger problems when they grow up.

He praised local examples such as Success by Six and Every Child Succeeds.

He also singled out Cincinnati Public's new community learning center models and the Strive coalition as success stories in fomenting more community involvement.

Pepper waded into political territory by addressing the issue of school funding. He said teacher salaries are too low, and said that schools - as currently structured and managed - will always need more money.

"We're facing a significant and I fear, ongoing gap in government revenue versus societal needs," Pepper said. "We are going to need to make bold changes - bold changes - in organization designs that we have, and we're got to make smarter, better choices in how we spend the money we've got if we're going to be able to close this very genuine and real gap."