What Others Say About the Challenges
Journalists, educators, economists and others are part of a growing chorus calling on us to take note of the education and workforce challenges facing Minnesota and the nation. Read about what they are saying below:
Tom Gillaspy, Minnesota State Demographer, in What's our growth plan for the golden years?, Sept. 2011
“Because many of our education and training systems have not kept up with the rapidly changing skills and abilities market, a mismatch between the skills employers are looking for and those available from job seekers appears to be growing.”Anthony Carnevale, Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, commenting on "The College Payoff" (press release, Aug. 2011)
“The idea of getting a high school diploma and working your way up from the mail room to the corner office is a relic of an earlier time. A college degree provides greater career mobility opportunities, greater lifetime earning power and a more promising future. That’s the college payoff.”Jim McCorkell in "Admission Possible: Closing a disturbing divide in Minnesota's educational landscape," July 2011
“The critical idea for what we do as an innovator is not that we are trying to get kids into college. Lots of people have been trying to do that. We were the first ones to try to harness the spirit and power of national service to address the problem.”Lumina Foundation’s James Applegate in the report “Optimizing Talent: Closing Educational and Social Mobility Gaps Worldwide” (PDF, p. 7), spring 2011
“In an economic downturn like this, we hear the stories about college graduates that can’t get jobs, and they’re taxi drivers. But overall we’re seeing, actually, a need for an increase in the number of people with these higher levels of education. We’ve just got to align higher education programs better, so we’re truly meeting the workforce and economic development needs of our country.”Minnesota’s economic health tied to education, Minnesota Private College Council Research Foundation, March 2011
This newsletter story reports that Minnesota’s higher than average share of residents with bachelor’s degrees correlates with our higher than average per capita income. Three experts say that ensuring higher education opportunities and achievement will have a positive effect on productivity in our state.Education and the Economy, a report from the Alliance for Excellent Education, March 2011
"In Minnesota, an estimated 15,200 students dropped out from the Class of 2010 at great costs to themselves and to their communities. Cutting that number of dropouts in half for this single high school class could result in tremendous economic benefits to the state."St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman's remarks, Educators discuss Minn. education gap , Nov. 2010
“If you don’t close the achievement gap, those high-tech companies that are so dependent on educated workers will not have the workers that they need to continue and … they’ll look elsewhere.”Mathematician Jim Simons, Drawing our best math and science minds into the classroom, Nov. 2010
"Today our economic well-being, not just military defense or advantage, is dependent on math and science. All of the world's major countries are our competitors. So far we're not exactly winning."
<<"Major demographic shifts are occurring in this state and country that threaten our economic prosperity.>>
—Mayor R.T. Rybak
