Charter School Movement

We had a fantastic discussion yesterday at our Economic Impact Forum on Charter Schools. More than 40 business and community leaders joined us for an opportunity to chat with three of the charter school leaders in our region:

Greg Abel - Langston Charter Middle School
Fred Crawford - Greenville Tech Charter High School
Mike Sinclair - Brashier Middle College.

The level of energy, passion and knowledge that each of these leaders brings to their jobs was evident at the meeting.

A few summary points about the discussion:

1. Charter schools are public schools and their student population reflects the demographics of the general community. They have as many children in poverty, with special needs, etc. as does a "regular" public school. They are not "skimming" the best students from the system.

2. Charter schools can act as the R&D arm of the public school system, demonstrating what works (and, in some cases, what doesn't) so that those practices can be integrated into the larger systems. This is what Clayton Christensen's book Disrupting Class is all about.

3. Charter schools are similar to small, entrepreneurial firms in that they are very customer-focused and have to be very agile to activate and respond quickly to issues that arise with the students they serve. There is a lot of promise in their small size.

4. The results from these particular charter schools are extremely promising, with almost all students moving on to higher education. They operate under that assumption that there is a major difference between being college-eligible and being truly college-ready.

5. For students that complete at least 20 transferable credit hours of college coursework, there is a 90% chance of their graduating from college. Thus, a good deal of energy is spent ensuring that students are availing themselves of the college courses at Greenville Tech.

6. How can businesses get engaged? One area is in spreading the word about charter schools to your peers. Currently, many of the applications being submitted for entrance to charter schools comes from word of mouth. Help spread the word. Other ways of getting involved include serving as an evaluator on senior projects for Greenville Tech Charter High School, offering to speak in classrooms or even to serve on boards.

For you can find additional information on these Charter schools at:

Langston Charter Middle School
Brashier Middle College
Greenville Tech Charter High School

A great resource for learning about what charters are all about can be found at Palmetto Charter Network.

Advantage Greenville Program Survey

Thanks to Adam Landrum of Merge and other members on the Advantage Greenville Program Sub-Committee. They are currently conducting an internet survey about what our members want to hear about in 2010. They are also calling members of AG.

Full results of the survey are not yet available, but, for what it's worth, here is the tag cloud generated from the question - I consider my membership in AG valuable when..

able build business community connect continue development economic economy effort environment events exclusive feel general goal going greenville grow growth helps ideas impact important increased information interesting issues keeps leaders learn local meet members membership network opportunity participate people programs provides relationships specific toward trends truly understand upstate utilize value

created at TagCrowd.com

I think the terms listed show some of the inherent value found in our group and it's an interesting way to visualize survey results, too! More details to follow.

Senator Graham addresses Advantage Greenville

We had about 130 business and community leaders in attendance today as we heard from US Senator Lindsey Graham. He laid out his vision on Afghanistan, health care, energy policy and more. Thanks to our presenting sponsor - Brown Mackey College.

Our next luncheon will be held on December 3rd. Stay tuned for details!

Advantage Greenville Events

The fall is a busy time for AG. Here are a few of the things coming up for our members:

October 15th - 12th Annual Oyster Roast at CU-ICAR
October 19th - Luncheon with US Senator Lindsey Graham
November 11th - Charter Schools Economic Impact Forum
December 3rd - Health Sciences South Carolina luncheon.

Thanks to Brown Mackey College for sponsoring our luncheon on the 19th.

Behind the scenes, we are working on a community talent attraction, retention and development strategy for 2010 and beyond. We have also created several sub-committees for volunteer engagement: Economic Scorecard, Marketing and Membership and Programming.

Look for some good things ahead for AG! We hope you will join us.

AG at NEXT Innovation Center

About 40 Advantage Greenville members met yesterday for lunch at the NEXT Innovation Center to learn more about NEXT and how the new facility fits into the economic development strategy of the community. For a great overview of the NEXT facility, check out this video on www.GreenvilleHD.com.

A major point made at the event - While the community needs to continue to recruit industry (e.g., branch plants) to the area, we also need to build our own companies that are headquartered in Greenville. With the latter, you keep more of the wealth in the community and the impact on quality of life is several factors higher than with branch plants. This is NOT to downplay the importance of branch plants to the region. We just need to grow more ScanSources, Datastreams and Hollingsworth-type companies.

With that said, the Innovation Center is already drawing attention on a regional and national level which will help us recruit more high-impact entrepreneurs to the region.

NEXT continues to build the regional entrepreneur eco-system. We hope Advantage Greenville members take some time to learn more about the programs offered as well as about the new facility. Take that information and help spread the word in the region as well as beyond when you are traveling. You never know where it might lead..

Missing Advantage Greenville?? - Part I

If you didn't participate in Advantage Greenville event in July, you missed two great events. First, Mark Bounds, Deputy Superintendent of Education for the State spoke about Jim Rex's five points for education:

• Dramatically Accelerating Innovation
• Improving Choice
• Increasing Accountability (while lessening test burdens)
• Elevating the Profession of Teaching
• Ensuring Fair & Equitable Funding.
  

Bounds shared at least three or four initiatives under each of these areas that are helping to move the needle on education in South Carolina.

He recommended a book that is seems to be undergirding a lot of thought and activity in Columbia - Disrupting Education by Clayton Christensen. Many of us in the economic development community know Christensen's seminal work - The Innovator's Dilemma. Christensen has taken the same lens of theoretical research to the education sphere. I highly recommend the book. It has changed my opinions on many things about education, especially about how valuable charter schools can be to enhancing innovation in the system. More on that and other Advantage Greenville happenings later..

Are you ready to Grow in Greenville? Attend the Greenville Grow Expo. http://www.greenvillechamber.org/growevite.htm

New Video Featuring Greenville - Check it Out!

Greenville Location Featured in Video in GE Annual Report Online

The online version of GE's 2008 Annual Rport has a video segment highlighting Greenville and the local facility which was chosen to represent the GE Energy Infrastructure businesses. Please take a minute to view the video as it demonstrates the importance of this business to the future of GE and it gives some accolades to Greenville in the process. See http://www.ge.com/ar2008/ and click on the photo of the gas turbine rotor at the bottom.

Getting the Word Out About Greenville's Great Restaurant Scene

Advantage Greenville Members:

Please take note of the information below sent out by Table 301 regarding a nationally-known restaurant writer in town over the next couple of days. This is a great opportunity to get a positive message out about our community. It would be helpful to have LOTS of folks out and about during this time!

Thanks for all you do for Greenville.

Hank Hyatt
Vice President, Economic Development
Greenville Chamber
hhyatt@greenvillechamber.org


Good morning all,

I wanted to send out a notice to you all asking for some additional support this week in the restaurants. We have a well known Restaurant writer flying in on Wednesday of this week. This really is a big deal and a tremendous opportunity not only for our restaurants to get reviewed and receive national exposure, but for Greenville as a community. To learn more about John Mariani, click on www.johnmariani.com. He writes columns in various publications, most notably for us, Wine Spectator, Restaurant Hospitality, and Esquire Magazine of which he is most well known for the "Best New Restaurants of the Year" which comes out in the November issue each year. I have been working on getting him here for 4 years now, so let's hope for excellent results.

I really want the restaurants to show well and for the seats to be full, so if you all can look at your schedules and if you have an opportunity to entertain or just come out socially for dinner either Wednesday or Thursday, please plan to join us and have the restaurants and downtown buzzing with enthusiasm.

Thank you,

Carl Sobocinski
Table 301 Restaurants
www.table301.com
www.euphoriagreenville.com

Economic Impact Forum - Air Service Update held Friday..

About twenty five community and business leaders met with Gary Jackson, Executive Director of the Greenville-Spartanburg Airport Commission, on Friday to discuss how the community can support GSP as it continues the process of recruiting additional airlines, flights and destinations for its customers. With economic development projects sometimes hanging in the balance, enhanced air service should be a continual priority for the region.

The bottom line is that airlines need to feel reasonably comfortable that they can fill the seats in their planes. They have tremendous access to mountains of data and can crunch numbers better than almost anyone. However, they need to understand the culture of a community and the local drivers that will shape both population and economic growth into the future. If the community can convince the airlines that the Upstate is different than other communities and poised for strong, continued growth; if the community can convince them that the business and leisure markets will support the airlines, we stand a much greater shot of adding service to GSP.

We will be calling on Advantage Greenville members over the next several months to ask about air travel needs as well as to secure letters of support, encouraging various airlines to give Greenville serious consideration for their plans in 2010 and beyond.

We hope you will help us in this process of supporting Gary Jackson and the excellent staff at GSP.

Economic Scorecard Update

Greater Greenville Regional Economic Scorecard - Update Coming Soon!

We are planning on unveiling the results from this year's Scorecard at the March 30th Advantage Greenville Luncheon. The Scorecard has provided a great tool to drive community conversation about doing what matters most for impacting community prosperity. The Scorecard has also driven the program of work for the Chamber. Currently, the Chamber is engaged in an education collaborative with other organizations seeking to foster a climate that underscores the value of education in the community. We are involved in an Advanced Education Partnership. We are creating a talent attraction strategy for the community, etc. All of these play a role in moving the needle on the Labor Force Education indicator within the Scorecard schema. Much work has been done but much remains to be done as well. We hope that you will join us in this important project. To register for the March 30 event (open only to Advantage Greenville members), click here.

To view a copy of last year's Scorecard results, click here.

2009 Advantage Greenville Update - Feb 9

The first month of 2009 has passed us by and left many of us wondering what additional surprises could be in store for the remainder of the year. While we are certainly aware of the potential havoc the economy has played on many of our businesses, Advantage Greenville is keeping an eye to the longer-term as it continues its work on focusing the community's attention on doing what matters most to increase per capita income in our region. Our programming for you in 2009 will reflect this longer-term focus as well as provide you with an excellent opportunity to network with other business and community leaders in the region.

The first Advantage Greenville event of 2009 will be held at 8 a.m. on Friday, February 20th. This Economic Impact Forum will focus on the importance of recruiting a low-cost airlines to GSP, including an update on recent initiatives and a discussion of what the business community can do to support this process. Recent studies show that GSP is losing more than 50% of its catchment area population to Charlotte and Atlanta and that GSP remains one of the highest-priced airports in the country. Inadequate air service can often be a deal breaker for economic development projects. Come hear from GSP officials and be part of the effort to overcome this obstacle to bringing more high-paying jobs to our area.

To register for the Economic Impact Forum, click here.

The 2009 Advantage Greenville Regional Economic Scorecard will be released on March 30th at the 1st Quarter Luncheon. Details will follow shortly. We will also hear from both Butch Kirven and Knox White on the State of the County/State of the City. This luncheon promises to be quite interesting, given all that is happening in the economy.

Finally, the Advantage Greenville Steering Committee is being re-organized, with a number of sub-committees being formed. These smaller groups will assist with efforts around the issue areas defined by the Economic Scorecard (e.g., education, entrepreneurship and innovation). Some of you have expressed an interest in serving. We will be getting back to all of you over the next several weeks to move this forward.

Thanks again for your continued investment in Advantage Greenville. Your support allows us to work on a number of issues important to the future of our community. Please contact me directly (hhyatt@greenvillechamber.org), if you have any questions or need anything from me.