Abstract :
McGraw Hill chairman emeritus Harold W. McGraw Jr. founded the Business Council for Effective Literacy (BCEL) in 1983. BCEL monitors and supports literacy campaigns, underwrites public service media efforts on literacy, and is lobbying Congress for literacy legislation that would establish a national center for literacy. McGraw believes that the business community has become more aware of the need to promote literacy due to the negative financial consequences they are suffering from a workforce that increasingly lacks basic skills. McGraw believes business can be instrumental in lobbying federal, state, and local governments for legislation that will solve the two major problems of literacy and school reform.