News
Montana Board of Regents devise 6-point plan to boost state’s economy, promote job skills
Almost a year after appointing itself the leader of economic development in Montana, the state Board of Regents and other leaders endorsed six proposals Wednesday that they say will boost Montana’s economy.
By ALLISON FARRELL
Gazette State Bureau
From reorganizing the course offerings of two-year colleges to developing a virtual online university, the regents aim to convince the Legislature to buy into these proposals.
And "buy" is the key word – all six initiatives call for money above the state’s two-year appropriation of $278.6 million to higher education.
"A lot of these proposals are tied to legislative funding," said Regent Mark Semmens of Great Falls. "They can say yea to some and nay to some."
The most controversial proposal calls for a study of the possible structural reorganization of the state’s eight two-year campuses.
"We don’t have a very integrated two-year system," said Dave Gibson of the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity. "It was set up to be more fractured, and we have fairly lengthy and disjointed lines of communication."
The regents say the state’s two-year schools are not offering the high-skills job training needed to propel private industry in Montana. And while some state leaders think the campuses need to become more specialized in their course offerings, others say specialization could further close off higher education to those who can’t travel out of town for college.
"Don’t miss the chance to give people who need it most the skills they need to succeed," Semmens said. "Two-year students are nontraditional. They have a life situation. They are the single moms with two kids."
But Gibson said the state needs to get serious about educating the modern workforce. Gibson said the state’s two-year campuses can not all afford to offer a rich menu of training programs.
"When you look at the kind of training that needs to be provided in the next 20 years, it’s getting more and more expensive and more and more technical," Gibson said. "I can tell you the problem is going to get worse and worse and worse."
The proposal calls on an interim commission to develop proposals to improve the state’s two-year campus, at a cost of about $100,000.
The second initiative calls on the state to come up with $500,000 to $1 million so the university system can develop a single online university. Currently, different campuses offer all kinds of courses through various online platforms.
"We really don’t have a systemwide policy or standards," Gibson said. "It’s disjointed, and in the online world, that’s a fairly big problem."
Using a single Web site, with one Web address and a cohesive platform, would help far-flung students access online education, Gibson said.
Rep. Sue Dickenson, D-Great Falls, said she liked the proposal and suggested that it be embedded in a legislative committee bill. Dickenson and a few other lawmakers from a legislative education committee have been drafted to help the regents develop these proposals.
The third proposal calls on the state to come up with $200,000 for a new three-person office in the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education that would develop business and research partnerships with private industries in Montana.
And while the university system wants to bring private research onto its campuses, Sen. Greg Barkus, R-Kalispell, said the partnership should run both ways.
"I think the university system has ignored the resources in the businesses community itself," Barkus said, adding that campuses could seek out research facilities in the private sector.
The fourth proposal calls for greater collaboration between the university system and the government through a community outreach program expected to ease the flow of information between the two entities.
The fifth initiative calls on the university system to develop an "education culture" by developing a "social contract" guaranteeing at least a two-year college education to students who agree to meet specific academic and social performance standards. The $5 million plan also calls for more state support for two-year education and enhanced financial aid packages for targeted students.
The sixth proposal, at a cost of $1 million, would find the university system developing a major marketing campaign to bring out-of-state students to Montana’s campuses. These proposals will be finalized by the regents in July before they are forwarded to the state Education and Local Government Committee in September.
Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.
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Preparing students for ‘gold-collar’ jobs … Market demand shifts to workers with high-level technical skills, expert says
Students who study advanced academic subjects and take technical courses will be the best prepared for the job market today and in the future, said Debra Mills, a senior associate at the Center for Occupational Research and Development.
By Karin Kowalski
Times-News writer
http://www.magicvalley.com/news/localstate/index.asp?StoryID=9916
Mills spoke to more than 50 educators and representatives of local businesses from around the Magic Valley who gathered at the College of Southern Idaho Tuesday to discuss ways to connect education with the needs of the workplace.
"The world has changed, and unfortunately a lot of our school systems have not changed with it," Mills said.
Many high schools are based around the 1950s philosophy that 20 percent of students will be on the college track to white-collar jobs and the rest will take general education and get blue-collar jobs, Mills said.
The new model is that 20 percent of jobs will be white collar, 20 percent will be blue collar and 60 percent will be "gold collar," technical jobs that will require people to work with their hands and their heads. To prepare for those jobs, students will need high-level math, science and technical classes, not just shop classes.
"If we don’t rev this up, we’re going to lose our middle class," Mills said.
Mills cited data that people who earn two-year degrees consistently earn more than dropouts of four-year colleges. The number of college graduates exceeds the number of job openings in fields that require many of those degrees, so many are underemployed. Mills said this oversupply will continue because of the culture and the fact that the highest-paying jobs require those degrees.
At the same time, the second- and third-highest-paying jobs in areas such as precision manufacturing and specialized repair, have a demand that exceeds the supply. These are the areas that require both hands-on and intellectual skills that students can typically acquire at community colleges, Mills said.
Helping students think in terms of an education two years after high school and find their way to good jobs takes a community effort, Mills said, with secondary schools, community colleges and businesses working together.
"We need to get the message out that career and technical education will be changing," said Cathy Holston, the Region IV assistant tech prep coordinator.
Education and economic development
Mills stressed that education helps with economic development, because having an educated and flexible work force can help attract businesses and improve the local economy.
Greg Rogers, a local labor economist, discussed a survey of local businesses about how people get hired in the Magic Valley. Most are hired for their education and interpersonal skills that they can use to help customers.
"Many of our employers do not require a high school education," Rogers said. "That’s unfortunate."
Rogers said physical labor eventually wears people out and when people lose jobs, it is harder for them to find new ones. Rogers said there is a need to train people in multiple disciplines, not just specific tasks.
Rogers cited the Dell call center as a success story and said he hopes there can be more like it to diversify the local economy.
Beyond the workshop
In Filer, the high school’s technical classes are meant to reach 100 percent of the students, said Pam Lambert, who teaches business, yearbook and newspaper at Filer High School.
"We try to make it relevant," Lambert said.
Cori Jeffs will be a counselor at Filer High School starting next year. She said the workshop gave her a lot of ideas to use to help students.
"I’ll still encourage them to do what they want to do," Jeffs said, but now she’ll be able to let them know about the labor market data and where the jobs are.
LaVonne Peterson, the Twin Falls School District’s curriculum director, said the information about how America compares to other countries is useful.
"It helps us design our programs," Peterson said.
LeIle Poppleton, the family and consumer sciences teacher at Twin Falls High School, said she would like to see more cooperation between technical and academic teachers so they can see how academic disciplines are used in technical classes.
"Let them see how we use those things in our field," Poppleton said.
Times-News writer Karin Kowalski can be reached at 733-0931, Ext. 231, or [email protected].
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