Qualified workforce
WHAT IT IS
Beginning in school, we must prepare our current and future workers with the skills necessary to find good jobs.
Partner Sites:
STRIVE, Success by 6, Greater Cincinnati Workforce Network, Parents Leadership Institute
WHY IT MATTERS
Education is the key to providing economic opportunity for everyone who lives in our region. Far too many of our residents have insufficient skills and are unprepared to enter a career, advance and succeed in life.
We must prepare young people for the jobs of the future in Southwest Ohio as well as retrain workers in industries that are shrinking to take the jobs in industries that are growing.
Businesses move and grow where there are qualified, educated workers. We need to provide them with a strong workforce.
WHERE WE ARE
Our challenge begins at a child's birth and is most pressing in those early years.
In Cincinnati Public Schools, for example, 52 percent of children who enter kindergarten are already delayed developmentally. Research has shown that children who are behind when entering the K-12 system are less likely to succeed.
On the other end of the spectrum, many employers are unable to find the workers they need in order to take on new business and grow, even as unemployment in Southwest Ohio has been rising.
Total manufacturing jobs in Southwest Ohio are projected to decline by more than 5,600, to about 90,653, by 2014, according to the Ohio Skills Bank. Meanwhile, the Skills Bank projects nearly 40,000 new jobs will be created by that year in Southwest Ohio in a wide range of fields: health-care practitioners, food preparation, administrative support, sales, construction and mining, and computer/math-science work.
Compared to many regions, Southwest Ohio has a relatively well-educated population. The number of people in Southwest Ohio who have graduated from high school or college is about the same as that number nationally. About 29 percent of people over 25 have received a bachelor's degree nationally, equal to 29 percent in the Cincinnati metropolitan statistical area, according to the United Way State of the Community 2008 report.
Years of education is an important measure of a community's economic strength because it relates closely to income and job status and is a good measure of workforce quality.
But the State of the Community report also says there is a disparity here between the higher educational attainment in suburban communities and dropping levels in the urban core communities. In the Agenda 360 survey, 84 percent of respondents said providing resources so our youth can attend college is a high priority for our region.
WHERE WE'RE GOING
The work of Agenda 360 recognizes that we must bridge the gap between what our children are learning and what they need to succeed in the world. It is clear that success requires new levels of cooperation and collaboration between educators, parents and employers.
Here are three strategies defined by Agenda 360 for creating a qualified workforce.
Improve the system of urban education from birth to grade 16
The good news is that we have a head start on many metro areas. We already know we need a connected system of support that starts at birth and goes through a career. We know we need to create a system that teaches young people how to think critically.
We need to focus on certain priorities that will lead to better-prepared students and a more ready workforce. Those priorities include:
- Quality early-childhood education.
- Family engagement in learning.
- Teacher recruitment, development and retention.
- Career pathways and responsive post-secondary systems.
Increase college graduation
The United Way says putting higher education within reach of everyone in the region is critical to guaranteeing that we have a robust and competitive economy and can achieve the highest possible standard of living.
The people of Southwest Ohio seem well aware of this critical need. In the Agenda 360 survey, 89 percent of respondents said it was crucial that we support young people from pre-school through high school to prepare them for college and careers.
Align and expand workforce training and job placement efforts
Many groups in Southwest Ohio are conducting various types of job training and retraining. One of the needs identified by Agenda 360 is to bring together the many key stakeholders in workforce training to coordinate efforts.
We also must close the gap between the skills of workers in shrinking industries and the skills needed for thriving industries, help workers prepare for new career paths, and support legislative and policy initiatives that reduce barriers to employment and advancement of a career.
GETTING STARTED
Below are initiatives the Agenda 360 research has so far identified as good ways to make progress on the above strategies for preparing a strong workforce. They are just a start; new programs and initiatives will be found, created and evolve with the changing needs of our community.
Strive
The Strive education initiative is a unique partnership whose goal is to help each child in the urban core succeed from birth through higher education and move into a meaningful career.
The partnership includes educators, nonprofit and philanthropic groups, elected officials and local companies. Their underlying belief is that education must involve a child's whole life, that educators must be accountable and make decisions based on data, that education is a cradle-to-career effort, and that education should allow all children, regardless of circumstance, to find the support they need to achieve their dreams.
Success by 6®
The Success By 6 program began in Minneapolis in 1988 and has moved to 360 communities around the country as they began to see the importance ofpreparing children for kindergarten.
Success By 6 works for change across the educational system, including bringing together the community on the benefits of investing in early-learning experiences, increasing parenting skills and improving the home environment through home visits, increasing access to strong early childhood education and ensuring that all children enter kindergarten ready to succeed.
Success By 6 already is partnering in this region with the Strive education initiative, the Cincinnati, Covington and Newport public school districts, Vision 2015 in Northern Kentucky and the Middletown Area Success By 6.
Strive Promise/Middletown Promise
In 2005, Kalamazoo Public Schools unveiled the Kalamazoo Promise, a scholarship for higher education offered to every Kalamazoo Public Schools graduate. Since then, the multimillion-dollar program has rallied the entire Kalamazoo community around the need for a better educational system, increased public school enrollment, and raised property values. Now it is being replicated in Southwest Ohio and elsewhere as a way to create a better-trained workforce.
In Greater Cincinnati, the scholarship program is being organized by the Strive education initiative. The goal of the scholarship program is to increase the number of students in the region graduating from college by reducing the cost. The Middletown Promise is created after the same model and hopes to improve the economic future of Middletown by creating more educated workers.
Greater Cincinnati Workforce Network
This new regional workforce development group aims to help employers meet their need for a skilled workforce while expanding job opportunities for low-skilled individuals.
The Workforce Network is a partnership between philanthropic organizations, local and state government agencies, employers, chambers of commerce, educational institutions, service providers and workforce investment boards in the region.
The goal by 2011 is to prepare at least 1,500 low-skilled adults for better jobs and long-term careers in priority industries and create a way to continue to improve and align the policies, strategies and resources of the Tristate region's workforce development system.