PCRD

Meeting the Challenge of Failing High Schools

Across the country, our high schools are failing. The Alliance for Excellent Education has outlined some of the costs of this failure. So, for example:

• 70 percent of eighth graders can’t read at grade level, and a mere 3 percent of all eighth graders read at an advanced level.
• Though fourth grade reading scores have risen in the past few years, America's eighth and twelfth grade scores have remained essentially flat since the 1970s.

Download a fact sheet here.

According to the Alliance, In Indiana:

• If the nearly 25,000 high school dropouts from the Class of 2007 had earned their diplomas instead of dropping out, Indiana’s economy would have seen an additional $6.4 billion in wages over these students’ lifetimes.
• If the high school dropouts who currently head households in Indiana had earned their diplomas, the state’s economy would have benefited from an additional $1.6 billion in wealth accumulated by families.
• If all of the students in Indiana who are estimated to drop out of school this year earn diplomas instead, the state could save more than $284 million in health care costs over the course of those young people’s lifetimes.

Indiana spends over $40 million each year to provide community college remediation education for recent high school graduates who did not acquire the basic skills necessary to succeed in college or at work. Learn more.

In rural America, we have a wonderful opportunity to re-invent our high schools. Read the inspiring story of one rural school district in Indiana.

At Purdue, we worked with Deb Howe, the superintendent, to help her realize her dream of a more dynamic rural community energized by a new approach to high school. You can read more about her initiative to re-invent high school in Rochester, IN here.

Only 64% of the ninth graders graduate in Mississippi. Mississippi has set a target to reduce the dropout rate by 50% in five years. Read more.

The dropout problem is gaining more attention recently. For example, Tucson’s Arizona Daily Star launched a series on the issue yesterday exploring social promotion. Read more.

Last week, the Detroit Free Press outlined some solutions. Read more.

At the same time, hearings are taking place across the state to address the issue. Read more.

South Carolina is addressing the issue by connecting businesses more closely to high schools. Read more.

Last month, AT&T announced a $100 million effort to reduce dropouts. Read more.

What would Indiana look like in five years if we set the same target as Mississippi: Cut dropouts by 50%?

Here are some basic resources to learn more about reducing dropouts:

Alliance for Excellent Education
America's Promise Alliance
The Silent Epidemic report from the Gates Foundation
National Dropout Prevention Center

An Example of a Clear Workforce Strategy

Every once in a while we come across a strategic plan that is exemplary in its clarity and detail. Here's one of the best ways to determine whether a strategy makes any sense: Look for an action plan.

If the strategy does not clearly outline "next steps", then -- chances are -- the strategy is more a statement of good intentions; or, worse still, a laundry list of wonderful wishes. (I once read a "strategic plan" with 127 different initiatives.)

Strategy is about defining a practical path to transformational goals. Strategy entails making choices and continuously adjusting to new realities. A clear action plan represents an predictor of a sound strategy; it provides a framework for making adjustments and moving forward by setting progress marks.

In economic and, especially, workforce development good strategy documents are relatively hard to find. (Interestingly, we find better local strategy documents in the UK, as opposed to the US.)

Here's a good example of a strategy document in workforce development. Prepared by SRI International, the report examines workforce issues in a region in Southwest Virginia. You can read more about the strategy here. You can download a copy of the strategy here.

A Lifelong Learning System for Mature Workers

As part of the Indiana WIRED initiative, the Tecumseh Area Partnership has developed a business plan for a regional Lifelong Learning System for older workers (45+) in North Central Indiana. The plan includes five recommendations to assist older workers to remain in the workforce and help employers attract and retain these workers. The following is an overview of the recommendations:

• Develop an informational funnel website for key learning opportunities.
• Provide fee-for-service consulting to employers through workshops and individual assessments related to mature and aging workforce issues.
• Provide direct services to lifelong learners
• Create and launch a Manufacturers Cooperative to secure and provide resources for training and development, outreach, and other basic human resource development or back office services.
• Explore the possibility for cable channel development to provide the public with information about various targeted careers and pathways to reach those careers. This will be researched during the initial year for future implementation.

The development of the business plan involved a 26-member task force and technical assistance from the Center for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL). The complete business plan is available here and a list of task force members is available here.

Using Information to Drive Regional Workforce and Economic Strategies

Remember when Ross Perot pulled out those charts during the 1992 Presidential Debate? Later, everyone made fun of him. Here's a secret, I thought it was pretty cool. Maybe that was the first glimpse of my inner data geek. For those of us working in economic and community development, data and information, and the way it is presented, is a vitally important part of what we do. How do we communicate economic trends to decision makers? How do help inform a large group of stakeholders so that they can reach consensus about where a community, region, or state needs to go? Thoughtful analysis and effective presentation can help.

A few weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration held a regional conference on Workforce Information Driving Regional Economies. Several workforce and economic development professionals (myself included) made presentations about how we use data and information to help us develop regional strategies. All of those presentations are now online and available here. If you want to get right to the Indiana stuff, my presentation, which focused on our Indiana WIRED initiative, is available here. Kathy Burns of the Tecumseh Area Partnership also presented. Her presentation is available here.

U.S. Department of Labor's View of the University

Last week (April 10, 2007) Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training of the U.S. Department of Labor Emily DeRocco was on campus to speak to students and faculty of the Purdue University College of Technology. She had some insightful things to say about the economy, the role of the university in workforce and economic development, and the importance of regional strategies. For example - "Universities are unique in that they are not only educators and purveyors of ‎knowledge, they are actually knowledge creators. This was a field traditionally ‎dominated by big business, think AT&T’s Bell Labs or Lockheed’s Skunk Works, ‎but is now shared with higher education. The research and development ‎facilities located at nearly every major university, particularly those focused on ‎engineering, provide a tremendous asset to the regions in which they are located, ‎provided that that knowledge can be turned into intelligence and application."

Her remarks are available here.

Three Counties Collaborate to Help Area Manufacturers Compete

Manufacturers in Benton, Fountain, and Warren Counties (Indiana) are having a bit of a problem. It's tough to find skilled workers. As a result, they are missing opportunities for more business and this three-county region is missing a chance for economic growth. The Wabash Valley Workforce Consortium (WVWC) stepped to task and came up with an innovative solution. WVWC is organized by the Warren County Local Economic Development Organization. To solve this problem, WVWC pulled together a strategic partnership that includes the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs, WIRED, Ivy Tech Community College, and the Manufacturing Skills Standards Council.

For the first time in this region, the Manufacturing Skills Standards Council (MSSC) certificate program will be available to the area's workforce. This certificate is seen as the "gold standard" among manufacturers. Worker's with these credential come ready to work in a high-performance manufacturing environment. Companies that hire MSSC-certified workers are much better positioned to compete and people with this certification are able to take on higher-skilled, higher-paid positions. In essence, everybody wins.

John Engler, President of the National Association of Manufacturers and former Governor of Michigan has this to say about the MSSC certification:

“This is a breakthrough with great implications for the future of manufacturing in the United States.  Introduction of this certification program underscores growing recognition that America must do a better job of training and educating our workforce to remain competitive in the global economy. MSSC’s federally recognized skill standards remain the most authoritative and comprehensive definition of the skills and knowledge sought by the nation’s leading manufacturers.”

For more information about this innovative partnership contact Warren County Economic Development Director Carol Clark via email.

Opening of the North Central Indiana REACH Center

Finding qualified workers is a challenge for many employers. Imagine a one-stop shop that could do everything from help a company analyze its available labor market, design customized employee recruiting programs, screen and qualify those applicants, and help train them. In North Central Indiana, that one-stop shop now exists in the form of REACH the Regional Employment Assessment Center for Hiring. This concept was developed by the Tecumseh Area Partnership and the ribbon cutting is May 10, 2007. Some of the specific REACH services include:

• regional labor market information
• customized worker recruitment
• employment verification
• marketing resources
• employee background and reference checking
• drug testing
• customized screening services
• business training
• access to grant funding

The North Central Indiana WIRED region has been a financial supporter of REACH and hopes to replicate another center in Kokomo in 2008. The REACH Center is located a 976 Mezzanine Dr., Suite B in Lafayette, IN. The ribbon cutting is scheduled for 10 am on Thursday May 10.