As for the content, I believe it is reasonably even-handed.  Like so many tools that economic developers use, incentives clearly have their place. They are not, however, the universal cure-all to economic development challenges.

What have I been up to?  There’s quite a story in the answer.  I left my employment in the world of quasi-public workforce (It was Indiana, and Governor Daniels has been privatizing a lot) to follow a family move to Columbus, Ohio.  After looking around and talking to more than a few people in my new town town, I found a place as an appointee of then-Governor Strickland to run one of his campaign platform’s workforce initiatives – one linking economic development goals and workforce development goals!  (Go figure!)  Managing a program of this size and prestige was the height of professional exhilaration and challenge, offering me countless lessons.  In rare down-times, I could only sit back and reflect on how humbling it was to be in a position to try to help so many Ohioans as the economy went into a tailspin around November 2008.

“Real life” took hold, however, when I learned that my wife was expecting a child – our first after roughly 15 years of marriage.  We had long discussed the possibility that one of us would give our theoretical children the benefit that both of us had as children, that of a stay-at-home parent.   After our son was born in May, we determined that (with some tough choices) I would be the one to stay home.  So I did, returning from paternal leave to work long enough to see my initial round of project contracts through to their completion on July 1, 2009 and then leaving with their expirations.

Of course, it wouldn’t be enough to just stay home and raise our son.  My wife and I also have had a running dialogue over the need for me to return to school since my undergraduate commencement in 1993, and it was clear that this interregnum in my professional life was literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to devote the time necessary to get my Masters degree in Public Administration.  For those who do not know, Ohio University in Athens, Ohio (about 90+ minutes southeast of Columbus) has an “executive” MPA program where live, in-class time is limited to one intensive weekend a month (the balance being self-study and online) over two years.  As I type this, I’m less than one week from graduation.

Simply put, I’m a very different person than the one you last read four years ago.  Age alone changes perspective, but the combination of relocation, job changes, life changes and now education achievement has both broadened and sharpened my outlook.  I have so much to share!

The outside world has changed, too.  The Bush administration and WIRED is gone, replaced by the Obama administration and green jobs (never mind the stimulus and its effect on the Workforce Investment Act!).  Our national economy – as well as the state economies in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan where I am most familiar – has gone through wrenching change.

There’s so much catching up to do, but I think that this post is the wisest place to start.  Over the days and perhaps weeks ahead, I hope to share some of what I’ve learned while I was away.  As time passes, I hope that Convergence will once again become a meaningful clearinghouse for useful information and insights regarding the fascinating world at the intersection of workforce development and economic development.

It’s been too long, but it’s good to be back.

Education Week, the national trade publication, has released its report “From the Cradle to Career: Connecting American Education from Birth to Adulthood.” The authors note: “In many ways, this year’s Quality Counts is a transitional document, as we move from an exclusive focus on K-12 education to a broader focus on the connections between K-12 education and the other systems with which it intersects: early-childhood education, teacher preparation, postsecondary education and training, and workforce and economic development.” The chart at http://www.edweek.org/media/ew/qc/2007/17ewi.h26.pdf contains some useful (provocative?) State comparisons on work readiness and education.

Vol. 17, Issue 26

Table of Contents

Press Packet: Quality Counts 2007

Web Extras

State Highlights Reports

The State Highlights Reports assemble important findings in an accessible format that allows readers to examine a particular state’s performance on this year’s indicators. For most indicators, national results are also provided as a benchmark against which state performance can be gauged.

Supplemental Ranking Tables

From Print

Executive Summary

Looking Through a Wider Lens

Quality Counts 2007 begins to track state efforts to create seamless education systems from early childhood to the world of work.

Overview: PRE-K-16

Improving Children’s Chances

Bolstering young people’s prospects for success requires stronger links in education from infancy to adulthood.

Spanning a Lifetime

The Chance-for-Success Index allows states to identify strong and weak links in the typical educational trajectories of their residents.

Table Chance For Success indicators PDF | Excel

Child Well-Being

Breaking the Cycle of Poverty

Reducing the disparities in children’s achievement will require reaching beyond the educational system.

Table Childhood Well-Being indicators PDF | Excel

Early Childhood

Paying Attention Earlier On

High-quality early education can help mitigate disparities in school readiness that exist between children of different socioeconomic backgrounds.

Commentary Early Intervention on a Large Scale

The economic benefits of ensuring good early-childhood development are clear. Now it’s time to design and implement a system to do it.

Table Early-Childhood Education Indicators PDF | Excel

K-12 Schooling

Gauging Student Learning

With its newly developed Achievement Index, Quality Counts 2007 offers another lens on K-12 academic performance across states.

Commentary The School-College Divide and Teacher Preparation

Rethinking the education school could put an end to the age-old argument over whether teaching is a profession or a craft.

Table K-12 Achievement Indicators PDF | Excel

Postsecondary Success

Moving Beyond Grade 12

The failure to prepare many young people for higher education is taking a toll on the U.S. rates of college enrollment and completion.

Commentary A Road Map to College and Career Readiness

Rethinking the education school could put an end to the age-old argument over whether teaching is a profession or a craft.

Table Postsecondary Education Indicators PDF | Excel

Workforce Readiness

Linking Learning to Earning

As the job market goes global, propelling more young people to higher levels of educational attainment is now being seen as an economic necessity.

Commentary A Continuum of Necessary Investments for Learning

Business, the U.S. education system’s prime consumer, sees a need for schools to think outside the traditional K-12 box.

Table Economy and Workforce Indicators PDF | Excel

International Comparisons

Losing Global Ground

The U.S. education system no longer stacks up as favorably as it once did when compared with those of other prosperous countries.

Commentary Elevating Performance in a ‘Flat World’

America’s international edge in student achievement is slipping, as other countries take education reform to heart.

Table International Perspective Indicators PDF | Excel

State of the States

State of the States: Overview

After a decade of tracking state policies in key areas related to elementary and secondary education, Quality Counts this year significantly broadens its perspective to look at the connections between K-12 education and the other systems with which it intersects.

The EPE Research Center Annual State Policy Survey

Table Standards PDF | Excel

Table Assessments PDF | Excel

Table School Accountability PDF | Excel

Monroe County: SenDEC Corp., $18,000; Magnus Education LLC, $13,910; Amdex Computer Inc., $12,905; Riverside Automation, $12,000; Micro Systems Corp., $7,878; Reflexite, $4,900; Genesee Group, $4,648.

Livingston: Hurricane Technologies, $6,189; ARKEMA Inc., $1,120.

Ontario: Tariff Affiliates Inc., $14,286; Surmotech Inc., $6,215; CTC Online, $1,600.

Wayne: IEC Electronics, $3,610.

Wyoming: Steel & O’Brien, $38,215.

I wish that descriptions of the traning grants were published, but congratulations to the grant recipients nonetheless!

[The WIRED project] has as its goals the support of local and regional entrepreneurship, preparing business for the aging population and mature workforce while equipping mature workers for jobs and building innovation and job growth in the industries of advanced manufacturing, advanced materials and agribusiness, food production and technology.

“We need to leverage all these assets; that’s what this grant is about,” said Smith. “It’s important to build networks; we’re trying to find the best ideas so everyone can use them.”

Neininger said asset mapping will be a focus of the group meetings in early 2007 so that through this sharing, White County, for example, might learn of a program in Tipton County that’s making it easier for entrepreneurs to get started. That idea then might translate to have the same impact here at home. Then, WIRED grant funds help make the project a reality.

But more research and information is needed so that White County can best use the funds it has available and part of that will come through public meetings over the next several months said Neininger.

Dave McKinnis, TAP Director: “Christy will be responsible for helping manufacturers with product development, manufacturing processes, supply-chain development, strategy development, business management and other related issues. She also will work closely with economic development leaders, work force development organizations, governmental offices and university contacts to help companies create and implement their plans for innovative practices.”

Bozic: “The biggest mistake companies make is thinking that they have to move oversees to reduce cost.  There are new, innovative ways to use the incumbent work force. Retraining and keeping new graduates in-state are key.”

If you are interested in keeping up with the Jones (or at least benchmarking your community against them!), this looks like a good resource.

The group is proposing that high school end at 10th grade for many students and that teacher pension plans be scrapped for other benefits such as higher pay and 401(k)s.

The proposals, which likely will be viewed as radical by some, were presented by a decidedly establishment group that includes two dozen ex-Cabinet secretaries, school officials and business executives, along with top government leaders from the major political parties.

…The new group wants to end high school in 10th grade for many students — a point at which students would be able to take exams and go to a community college or, in some cases, stay in school and study for more advanced exams that could earn them a place at a four-year college. Somewhat similar systems are in place in other countries.

The report states that by not spending today’s resources on 11th- and 12th-graders and by making other reforms, the government could save an estimated $60 billion that could be spent on improvements to the nation’s school system.

Those include creating widespread pre-kindergarten programs and boosting teacher salaries.

The commission recommends paying beginning teachers about $45,000 per year, currently the median amount paid to teachers. To help finance the pay boost, the commission recommends moving away from traditional, defined benefit pensions to somewhat less generous retirement plans more commonly found in the private sector.

Another major shift would be to have independent contractors operate schools, though the schools would remain public. States would oversee the funding.

Interesting – the one quote from the article:

Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy, said the panel felt there was no choice but to call for a major policy shift to address problems such as weak student performance and achievement gaps between white and minority students.

“They said, ‘If we don’t try something like this, we’re cooked,”‘ said Tucker, who helped organize the commission.

Let the great public debate commence.

The study states that 50% of our adult workforce has low literacy skills, meaning that they have a hard time with these tasks:

Skills Needed to Get a Job

• Read a want ad and complete a written application
• Talk about skills, abilities, accomplishments, likes and dislikes
• Answer and ask questions

Skills Needed to Survive on a Job

• Follow oral and written directions, ask for clarification or reasoning, and make small talk
• Locate written information, facts or specifications
• Understand technical vocabulary and the enabling words attached to them; for example, “pour the pellets into the extruder”
• Understand and use charts, diagrams and illustrations

Skills Needed to Thrive on a Job

• Give as well as follow instructions
• Participate in group discussions
• Teach others
• Predict outcomes
• State a position
• Express an opinion
• Access and use information from diverse sources

Fortunately, The study did not go unnoticed.

The Lilly Foundation of Indianapolis just announced a $1.25 million grant to address this issue in the Hoosier State through a new program through the Indiana Chamber called Ready Indiana. Here’s a little more:

The Indiana Chamber of Commerce estimates that about 1 million Indiana workers should improve their workplace literacy skills, but only about 20,000 receive additional training each year. So the chamber is heralding a new three-year program – called Ready Indiana and paid for with a $1.25 million Lilly Endowment grant – that will help companies find the training they need for employees.

Some workers need to improve reading levels or technology skills, while others need to improve working as part of a team or following directions, said Ready Indiana director Jane Howard: “It’s not just reading and writing and math, but it’s all of the other skills that go into making a productive workforce.” The program is an important step to help workers get the skills they need in the new knowledge-based economy.

Good work. Not the most glamorous work, to be sure, but perhaps among the most important.