Ed Morrison · BFD Learning Moment: Workforce strategy in Racine County

June 1st, 2008

Cuyahoga County needs a workforce strategy, but it’s no secret Cleveland’s business, government and foundation leadership is having a tough time putting one together. (It’s not easy.) Here’s a good model to follow.

Racine County, WI released its workforce development strategy last week. The event is notable for a number of reasons.

  • First, it shows how a workforce development organization is moving to orchestrate economic development strategy. The core issue for economic developers in the years ahead will be brainpower. Who has got it? Who knows how to develop it? Who can deliver it to the door step of growing businesses? Effective strategies require bridging the gaps among education, workforce development and economic development. 
  • Second, the report is remarkably free of jargon. Too often workforce development strategies are technical documents that fail to move people to action. They focus on compiling statistics, not telling a story. The Racine report is different. It focuses on a story.
  • Third, the Racine report does a good job of outlining a set of strategic outcomes. How will Racine County be different? We have a sense of a clearer direction than most strategies…which depend too much on vacuous visions or bumper sticker slogans. (For example: “We will match our talent with jobs”)
  • Fourth, the report organizes a relatively small set of high level metrics. Metrics are important for two reasons. First, they can help us understand what’s working. In other words, they are a tool of learning. Equally important, metrics keep our conversations focused over a sustained period of time.
  • Finally, the folks in Racine rolled out their plan with a video. In other words, they focused on telling their story not just in print, but also on the web.

You can read more about the Racine County strategy from this article.

You can download a copy of the report here.

Racine is not the only place where people are dramatically rethinking workforce strategy. Recently in Nashville, folks learned what was happening in Oklahoma, as the state moves from a job training system to a talent development system.

That’s what WIRED (Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development), an important federal initiative is all about. Learn more.

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Category: Cleveland, Economic Development
4 Comments »

4 Responses to “BFD Learning Moment: Workforce strategy in Racine County”

  1. Rick Bohan Says:
    June 2nd, 2008 at 9:48 pm

    Ed,
    I assume that these are examples of what you and I were talking about in our recent discussion, right?

  2. Brian J. Kelsey Says:
    June 2nd, 2008 at 10:54 pm

    Good points as always, Ed. Now if we can just get an equally compelling, jargon-free case made to local elected officials about the necessity of new metrics for economic development success…

  3. Ed Morrison Says:
    June 3rd, 2008 at 7:24 am

    Here are six steps to take that might move us in a more positive direction. I focus on Fund for Our Economic Future because they have stepped forward with their own Action Plan which includes a “talent development” component.

    1. The FFEF/Advance NEO can announce a regional initiative to promote new talent development strategies in NEO. Focus on the alignment of workforce strategies in the region. In particular, it’s time to bring the Cleveland/Cuyahoga County WIB out from the shadows and into the light. That’s the only way to break the patronage lock of Mayor Jackson and Commissioner Dimora over $20 million or so of federal funds each year.

    (To learn more about what a regional talent development strategy looks like, FFEF can get familiar with what’s happening in 39 regions across the country by visiting WIRED Nation. WIRED stands for Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development. You can get an introduction to these new networked based models of workforce development here.)

    2. Send a delegation of FFEF to Workforce Innovations in New Orleans in July. They’ll see the fast evolving world of workforce development and learn what’s working across the country to integrate education, economic development and workforce development. (If you go, stop by and say hello.)

    3. Send an FFEF delegation to the Center for Education Innovation and Regional Economic Development in SE Wisconsin. A remarkable cooperative of school districts is focusing on the integration of secondary education with the world of work.

    4. Send an FFEF delegation to the Center for Excellence in Leadership of Learning (Indianapolis) to learn what’s working in school reform. Focus on what’s taking place in Indianapolis and Ft. Wayne. Funded by the Gates Foundation, CELL is the fastest way to get up top speed on the latest evidence-based models of school reform. (Their annual conference in the fall is well worth attending.)

    5. Create an FFEF-funded initiative to adopt the latest innovations in turning around troubled schools. The latest research is available from a new report out of Massachusetts. Read more. You can also read about what the National Association of Secondary School Principles is doing here.

    To quote: “How do we turn around these chronically low-performing schools when past reform efforts have simply not worked? The answer, some researchers and educators are saying, can be found through innovation and entrepreneurship.”

    6. Create a “Tuition Promise” Exploratory Team to develop alternatives for providing tuition at NEO colleges and universities for students graduating from the region’s high schools. Modeled after the Kalamazoo Promise, this approach addresses the core issue facing the regional economy: low educational attainment.

    A recent analysis in Davenport, IA concluded: “In sum, fiscal modeling indicates conservatively estimated student enrollment increases and community growth resulting from a Davenport Promise program could reduce the combined city and school property tax rates as early as 2014.”

    One easy place to start: The Pittsburgh Foundation’s Pittsburgh Promise.

  4. Laura Steinbrink Says:
    June 3rd, 2008 at 8:56 am

    Ed,

    Thanks for the great ideas. They apply to all NEO, not just Cuy/Cleve. I shared your post with our Regional Talent Network, the name given to those NEO workforce leaders, be they business, education, service, state or related. I encouraged them to read your ideas and share their thoughts in this forum. I think you would be supportive of the network’s work, recognizing that across the 16-county region (and the ‘weak nodes’ on the edges that blur into other WIB/REDD/Adult Ed/industry cluster boundaries) the policy, systems and tactical organizations are collaborating to identify opportunities for more effectiveness and efficiency. And, concurrently, the regional chambers are working together (through TeamNEO) to engage business in this conversation at a CEO-level (as opposed to the lower levels that are currently engaged through WIBs, advisory groups, etc.).

    While FFEF is the convener, this work is taking place largely through Advance Northeast Ohio (ANEO) Partners. It isn’t FFEF people alone that attend to these issues – it is ANEO partners – and they are beginning to do that in a regionally-collaborative-coordinated way. FFEF’s role is to strategically invest resources in the doing that takes place in support of ANEO and FFEF’s members will vote on a resource allocation on Thursday for this purpose – stay tuned!

    I know that St. Lukes Foundation, an FFEF member, is taking a delegation to MI for the Kalamazoo Promise conference and FFEF’s Talent Action Team has that concept on its radar screen.

    The suggestions you make here are quite apropos and correlate to the Regional Talent Network’s work. I look forward to reporting back what NEO has learned from the best practices you shared here – and how we leverage that knowledge to strengthen our region.

    Talk soon!
    -Laura (lsteinbrink@futurefundneo.org)