Past Inductees

M. Blouke Carus
Vice-Chairman
Carus Publishing
2006

Blouke Carus is Chairman of Carus Corporation, a privately-held holding company, which owns Carus Chemical Company, the world's leader in manufacturing and application of potassium permanganate and a variety of manganese compounds. He is also Vice-Chairman of Carus Publishing Company, which includes Open Court General Books and 14 children's magazines: CRICKET, LADYBUG, SPIDER, BABYBUG, and CICADA (mostly fiction), the non-fiction MUSE, ASK, and CLICK (published in conjunction with THE SMITHSONIAN), and COBBLESTONE, CALLIOPE, APPLESEEDS, FACES, ODYSSEY, and DIG.

Mr. Carus obtained a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Caltech in 1949, after having served from 1945-46 in the U.S. Navy. He continued his studies in foreign languages and chemistry at Mexico City College, the University of Freiburg in Germany, and the Sorbonne in Paris. He joined Carus Chemical Company in 1951 as a Development Engineer and helped modernize the manufacturing process for potassium permanganate. He holds seven U.S. patents for his work during this period.

In 1962, with the family publishing house of Open Court, Mr. Carus developed a reading and language arts program based on the work of successful teachers. Over a 30-year period, this initiative led to Open Court's Collection for Young Scholars, an effective, research based K-6 reading and writing program. In 1970 he launched and supported an elementary mathematics program called Real Math with a much broader conception of mathematics than other programs at that time. This program was field tested over a 12-year period. The textbook division of Open Court Publishing Company was sold in 1996 to SRA/McGraw-Hill, and the Open Court reading program is now being widely used throughout the country, especially in California due to the Packard Foundation project to train Open Court teachers in 25 districts. In the last few years SRA/McGraw-Hill invested major resources in the latest edition of Real Math now available for use in schools.

Because of his lifelong interest in education, Mr. Carus has served, by Presidential appointment, as a member of the National Council on Education Research, which established policy for the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education. He also served as Chairman of the Citizens' Committee to establish Illinois Valley Community College. He was instrumental in establishing the International Baccalaureate North America (IBNA) in 1973 and was Chairman of the IBNA until June 1985; he was a Council member for International Baccalaureate in Geneva, Switzerland from 1977 to 1994, and he is still assisting the IBO as a member of the IBO Fund. Mr. Carus also initiated and led the "Foundation Officers," which eventually developed into The Philanthropy Roundtable.

In the last decade, as Chairman of the Illinois Manufacturers' Association (IMA) Education Committee, and together with other business associations, Mr. Carus has supported a variety of legislative initiatives focusing on development of a strong accountability system in Illinois. Due to Mr. Carus' long-term concern with school-to-work transition, Governor Edgar appointed him to the Illinois Governor's Task Force on School-to-Work Transition in 1994, and subsequently to the Illinois Human Resources Investment Council in 1996. He was Chairman of the Illinois Valley Education-to-Careers Partnership. Mr. Carus recently joined the Illinois Business Roundtable, which is focusing its efforts on the Illinois accountability system and strengthening teacher training in the basics.

In 2001 Mr. Carus was named Man of the Year by the Manufacturing Technology and Management Program of the Illinois Institute of Technology. He received the national Vanguard Award from the Chemical Education Foundation in 2002 and an honorary doctorate from Illinois Wesleyan University in 2003. In 2004 Mr. Carus received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Caltech, and this coming November he and his wife, Marianne Carus, have been designated for induction into the Hall of Fame by the Association of Educational Publishers.

Mr. Carus is married to Marianne Carus, Editor-in-Chief of the Cricket Magazine Group, and they have three children. His other interests include travel, reading, chamber music, and foreign languages. He and his wife reside in Peru, Illinois.