ALBANY—Twenty-four New York State elementary schools in all parts of the state will receive the highest honor given to schools by New York State's private sector: the 2004 Pathfinder Award. The Business Council gives this award each year to honor schools that show marked improvement from one year to the next on students' standardized test scores.

Each winning school will receive its award at a local ceremony that will be announced separately. Award ceremonies will be scheduled over the next few months.

"The schools selected are models for the rest of the state,"said Business Council President Daniel B. Walsh. "They have shown that success comes after persistence and hard work. And we thank the teachers and students at the schools for shaping the minds that will one day inherit this state."

The Council awards the Pathfinder Award to two or more schools in each of 12 regions of the state based on improvement in students' scores from one year to the next on the state's fourth-grade English Language Arts and math standardized tests. The 2004 Pathfinder Award winners are:

Background on the Pathfinder Awards: The Pathfinder Award program is in its fourth year. Last year, 24 schools around the state received the award in the third year.

Winning schools are chosen by The Council. The awards are based on a range of criteria, including improvement in scores and the number and percentage of students tested. In addition, at least half of a school's students must meet or exceed state standards on the fourth-grade English Language Arts (ELA) and math tests before the school can quality for the award.

The Business Council generally gives Pathfinder Awards to two public schools in each of 12 different regions across the state. These regions are the state's judicial districts; awards are being made by those districts because appointments to the state Board of Regents are based on those regions. In some regions, if more than two schools show nearly identical levels of improvement, more than two may be recognized. Schools that win the award receive $1,000 for the school's programs and a trophy in recognition of the achievement.

The employers that have provided support to the Pathfinder Awards are:

• Anheuser-Bush, Inc.
• Apple Computers
• Buck & Pulleyn
• CH Energy Group
• ChevronTexaco
• Golub Corporation
• Consolidated Edison, Inc.
• Fleet Bank
• Frontier Communciations
• HSBC
• KeyBank
• KeySpan
• Metropolitan Life
• Pfizer
• The Pike Company
• The Pioneer Development Company
• Racemark International, LP
• Security Mututal Life Insurance Company
• State Farm Insurance Company
  

Background on The Business Council's advocacy for education: The Business Council has long been an active and forceful advocate of policies to strengthen the performance and accountability of the state's public schools, and has encouraged businesses and business leaders to become active partners with schools in their efforts to improve.

For example, The Public Policy Institute used state data to design the prototype for the state's school report cards. Today school report cards are released annually to give schools, teachers, parents, and students a sense of how their schools are doing compared to schools in similar circumstances and their own performance of the previous year. The Council has also supported the state's new academic standards and standardized tests based on them that measure the performance of students, teachers, and schools.

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