Getting to Work
Educators And Execs Welcome Workforce Development Collaboration
“Our students are not widgets!” Certainly that is the sentiment of educators who see business involvement in schools as “putting in orders” for workers. Yet that refrain might be less common in an era when the whole notion of career and technical education is evolving way beyond shop class. Maybe that’s because each side understands…
A Role For City Hall
Google Fiber, the new streetcar and a booming downtown have all helped Kansas City recruit talented young people, Mayor Sly James said when a group of mayors sat down to talk about workforce development at Missouri Gov. Mike Parson’s Conference on Economic Development. Not so long ago, he observed, people moved to a place because…
Blue Collar Jobs Make (Lots Of) Cents
What would you say to making $18 per hour after less than half a year of postsecondary training? Or $35 an hour in a union job? Those aren’t hypotheticals. Workforce experts say those jobs exist in the Kansas City area, and workers are in demand. One of the biggest hurdles in matching people with those…
Poor Report Card
Educators from around Missouri were brutally honest when they met as a panel at Missouri Gov. Mike Parson’s Conference on Economic Development. Many of the state’s schools, including the ones they lead, are not doing enough to prepare students to succeed beyond graduation. When he came to Kansas City two years ago to lead the…
Building A Better Future
Clyde McQueen seethed recently when an employer — a friend, no less — moved 20 welding jobs to Iowa. “Because we didn’t have enough welding classes going on,” McQueen told an audience at Missouri Gov. Mike Parson’s Conference on Economic Development in Kansas City recently. As the chief executive of Kansas City’s Full Employment Council,…
Climbing The Career Ladder
There is a lot of talk in workforce development circles about “middle skills” jobs, career opportunities that fall between minimum-wage positions and others that require at least a four-year degree. But Ryan Meador has a different phrase for that wide swath of workers in the center of those two occupational poles. He calls them the…
Zeroing In On Jobs
Tennessee has terrific country music, incredible scenery, and world-class whiskey. But that is not why Missouri Gov. Mike Parson envies our neighbor to the south and east. He’s interested in emulating more prosaic things like improved academic achievement, rising high school graduation rates — and the nearly half a million private-sector jobs created in Tennessee…
Schools Tackling the Soft Skills Deficit
Educators around the region are implementing project- and career-oriented learning to engage kids. But in the Center School District, at least, another key constituency is excited too. Neal Weitzel is the director of college and career readiness in the district, which is located in Kansas City, Missouri, and he recounted parents’ reaction at a recent…
Benchmarking Success
Creating an Austin, Texas-type buzz in the Kansas City area means establishing the 21st century workforce that can succeed in the 21st century workplace, said Sheri Gonzales Warren, an economic development official with the Mid-America Regional Council. “If we do a good job of this,” Gonzales Warren said, “ this would be one of those…
Don’t Count Out Human Workers Just Yet
“Robots may be taking over the world, but there’s got to be someone who builds them,” Meg Reinhardt says. And, thanks to on-the-job training she began in high school, Reinhardt plans to be one of the people who keep those robots going. Think you need a four-year college degree for that? Well, think again. Reinhardt,…
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