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Ed Morrison · It’s brainpower, stupid
September 3rd, 2008
What can be done to rejuvenate the state’s economy?
Out here in California, we’re seeing the leading edge of a panic, as businesses cannot find skilled employees. (I’m here at a conference to introduce Open Source Economic Development to the California Workforce Association.)
Some sound bites: San Diego is recruiting machinists from Ireland. Lockheed took a year to recruit 40 machinists in Los Angeles. The state forecasts a need for 11,000 machinists in the next six years. Sacramento employers are losing faith in high schools to provide skilled workers and are increasingly turning to their own training solutions, working with community colleges. Silicon Valley is moving on a new workforce strategy, and USC’s engineering school has launched a very successful business retention initiative focused on applying insights from complex adaptive systems. New networks are forming, like the California Edge Campaign, to deal with the looming crisis.
From what I’ve heard in California, the Greater Cleveland Partnership’s focus on a convention center — in a city with a 60%+ high school drop out rate — is even more astonishing, like a bad Cleveland joke. As one speaker put it today, high school drop-outs earn $290,000 less over their lifetime than a high school graduate and are eight times more likely to end up incarcerated.
As a country, we are running out of the brainpower needed to sustain globally competitive businesses. California’s got some major problems, but at least people are starting to acknowledge the depth of the talent shortages ahead.
Last 5 posts by Ed Morrison
- Managing a regional strategy - February 9th, 2010
- Northeast Ohio and the color of dinosaurs - February 5th, 2010
- Moving regions toward open innovation - February 4th, 2010
- What's next for the Future Fund and the Cleveland Foundation? - February 4th, 2010
- Looking at the Third Frontier - January 31st, 2010
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Here’s what is needed: A better immigration policy that attracts and welcomes skilled immigrants; the end to teacher’s unions and the summary dismissal of ineffective teachers; an expansion of the experiment of Mayor Antonio Villarogaisa of Los Angeles nationwide–he is letting parents vote on whether their neighborhood schools remain under the management of the centralized school district, or can hire their own managers, and eight have opted out of the system.
The U.S. spends more per student than any other country. We’re just not getting our money’s worth.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:24 am
It would be nice (and easy) to be able to blame the public school system and/or the teachers, for the educational failings of our children, for then we would not risk shouldering any of the blame ourselves.
I would suggest we as individual parents limit the TV viewing time for our children to 3 hours a week. Period.
This would teach them to be discerning viewers, and they might even learn to read or otherwise entertain themselves. I would also remove the TV(s) from their bedrooms, permanently. They don’t call it the “Boob Tube” for no reason.
We parents should go out of our (busy) ways to help our children understand their homework assignments, and insist that they do it. (Yes, I know, this might cut into your TV time…, but aren’t your kids worth the effort to re-train your viewing habits?)
We should provide also well lit, quiet working areas for them to work in too – like the area you use when you are working on deciding which bills you can afford to pay?
Lastly, we should support the teachers!
They are hard working professionals, who have chosen the career path of educating our children. Trust me, they don’t do it for the money…
PS, I am not a teacher, but simply a product of a public school system.
September 5th, 2008 at 3:17 am
I agree with pieces of what each of you said in response to the post. I like the idea of decentralizing school systems. It’s tragic how much of a fiefdom each of the schools become. But the blame isn’t on the teachers, it’s the buraucracy.
I do believe school systems went to a corporate mgmt approach. Administrations put up with the need to have parent teacher nights, and PTA’s. But in my experience, they don’t relish community involvement, they just want to be left alone. Granted, I only worked in five schools. And was at none of them for more than a year.
When you talk to the people from places like WIRE-NET they will tell you the same thing they are saying in California. As skilled machinists retire, it’s hard to find qualified replacements. Schools do not all have to look the same or all teach the same subjects. I think in some ways we are attempting to do this but it’s not gone far enough yet.
September 5th, 2008 at 6:16 am
Co-op now–get the high school aged kids out of the classroom and into the workplace.
September 5th, 2008 at 10:52 am
If you have not already, check out ED in 08:
http://www.edin08.com/
and two million minutes:
http://www.2mminutes.com/
September 5th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Bill and Carole, I want to distinguish between “teachers” and “teacher’s unions.” It is the unions and their rules that are in the way of education reform. There are good teachers and bad and some in the middle, just like in every endeavor, but administrators, parents, and students have precious little ability to reward the good and terminate the bad. It’s all controlled by union rules that dictate pay by seniority, not competence or student achievement.
In this regard, unions are as much bureacracies as the administrations which, I agree, are a problem.
My children have experienced bad teachers in public schools, and the only option we have (if we’re paying attention and quick and forceful enough) is to move our kids out of their classes. That leaves some unfortunate kids whose parents are less knowledgeable or engaged or forceful to suffer under incompetent teachers. The bad teachers get shuffled around from year-to-year as each school tries to offload its bad ones on other schools. They can’t be fired, though, unless they do something really bad. And they get paid, meaning they suck up resources that could be productively deployed elsewhere.
Bill, my wife and I already do all the things you suggest, except it’s not 3 hours of TV time per week, but no TV at all until the weekend, and TV is a reward for work done during the week, not automatic.
lmcshane, agreed!
September 6th, 2008 at 12:30 am
A lot of powerful innovations are taking place in Indiana. We are working with a new high school model launched by the New Tech High Foundation:
http://www.newtechfoundation.org/index.html
There are other approaches as well.
The KnowledgeWorks Foundation is promoting P-16 councils in Ohio.
http://www.kwfdn.org/p16/p16_councils/
Akron Chamber is promoting this approach:
http://snurl.com/3nhrd
The point is, though, people have to recognize the need to innovate. We need transformation, not reform.
September 7th, 2008 at 12:14 am
Ed, which of those innovations is being developed, backed, financed, supported, or considered by teacher’s unions?
September 8th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
A couple of weeks ago, Cool Cleveland linked to an article published in BizEd magazine featuring Weatherhead prof. David Cooperrider, renowned for his work regarding Appreciative Inquiry and business.
I was introduced to A.I. several years ago at Case REI Tuesdays with Ed Morrison.
Since then, I have read quite a bit of Professor Cooperriders’ work as well as a number of other authors writings on Appreciative Inquiry. Subsequently, I’ve given a lot of thought to the application of Appreciative Inquiry to the field of public education. It just makes sense.
According to the Case Western Reserve faculty webpage:
“David’s most recent passion is an inquiry into “Business as an Agent of World Benefit” where he believes that sustainable design has become the biggest business opportunity of the 21st century; where every social and global issue of our day can be viewed as a business opportunity to ignite industry leading eco-innovation, social entrepreneurship, and new sources of value.”
The American public education system, and specifically the failing Cleveland Municipal School District, is certainly a social issue that is worthy of Dr Cooperrider’s attention. A collaboration between Case Weatherhead School and CMSD could spark the innovation needed to reinvent public schools to meet the needs of the 21st century. I’m sure funding for such an initiative could be found with relative ease.
What do you think David?