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 The Department of Labor has issued a new $250,000 regional innovation grant (RIG) to a region that includes nine counties in western Kentucky and one county in Tennessee. A group called LEED (Leadership, Education and Economic Development), will administer the grant.  

LEED involves representatives from 27 different organizations. They will focus in three sectors: energy, healthcare, and advanced manufacturing.  Read more.

The region in southern Indiana has launched a new initiative to address the shortage of nurses.

The University of Evansville has received a two-year, $180,000 Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development grant for its nursing education program.The university will use the funding to enhance its nursing education program by adding patient simulation experiences, increasing class size and recruiting nursing students from underrepresented groups, said Lynn Penland, dean of UE's College of Education and Health Sciences.

Funding from the WIRED grant will help support a nurse to coordinate the nursing simulation laboratory and increase public awareness of nursing as a career.

Initiatives will target prospective nursing students from underrepresented groups including men, cultural/racial minorities, and students from the southwest Indiana region.

The nursing simulation laboratory, located in the nursing department, allows students to practice their clinical skills on Sim-Man or other patient simulators - sophisticated computerized manekins who can be programmed to exhibit any illness or injury. Sim-Man is the most recent addition to the UE lab’s Sim-family of training simulators, which already have been available to UE nursing students.

You can read more here.

The governor of Oregon is pushing ahead with plans to promote "eco-friendly" jobs. The emphasis on green technology represents one of the major thrust of the Governor's  economic strategy.

"There's a tremendous opportunity in this region for green technology," the governor says in an interview with The Oregonian. He rattles off advancements in renewable energy, green construction and electric cars. "These are high-tech jobs," he says, and there are lots of them on the horizon.

You can learn more from this interview with the governor here.

This morning, I happened across an excellent radio show on reforming public education. Broadcast on Cleveland's Public Radio staion, WVIZ, you can access it here .

During the show, I blogged some notes for a local weblog, Brewed Fresh Daily. Here are my notes:

1. Claudio Sanchez, NPR education reporter: We are seeing a real renaissance of school reform that entails real innovation. Dan Moulthrop says that in preparing the program, he was amazed at the extent of innovation taking place.

2. Jim Peyser, New Schools Venture Fund: Educational entrepreneurship is emerging. They are engaging systems in transform the nature of public education. New Orleans is transforming with a deep public-private partnership “at scale”.

3. Claudio Sanchez: The war between public education and its critics has been poisonous. The notion of a solely market driven education system is fading. Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Orleans are focused on deeper partnerships that are changing the political climate in which meaningful reform — education entrepreneurs — can take place.

4. Jim Peyser: Effective communities (New Orleans, Chicago, Philadelphia are examples) have a leadership and a policy environment that welcomes entrepreneurs and focuses on what works, not who’s in control. Some key lessons of transformation: Focus on what works, not who is in control…Establish accountability and transparency for results…Promote local political leadership that can insulate transformation from the the toxic effects of local politics.

5. Good discussion on role of parents in education. (Kalamazoo has rapidly become a model of a community that embraces quality public education. The newspaper has compiled a useful “Back to School” section that outlines the appropriate expectations for parents. You can read it here.)

6. Michelle Rhee, DC School Chancellor: Moving toward a different compensation for teachers. Moving intro teachers from $43,000 to $78,000, based on student achievement levels. This plan is different than Denver’s ProComp, because the differentials are based more on student achievement. Foundations are supporting the first five years. After that the district will focus on sustainability through higher productivity (e.g., improvements in transportation for special education). Regaining the confidence of parents will take place over time. Dan asks: Any advice to the Governor? Rhee: If you want to take this on you need to be willing to take on the entrenched groups….the changes are not politically easy. Politicians also often forget that their constituents are also the children.

7. Claudio Sanchez: In 1989, governors were annointed as the leads of education reform, but their political time horizon is too short to guide meaningful transformation. This problem leads to incredible inconsistency n education reform efforts. (Here’s some background on the 1989 summit.)

8. Listener: Raises the issue of funding. Claudio Sanchez: These funding issues are very complex. Often overlooked, however, is the question, “How are you spending the money you do have?” More money in the classroom matters; it translates into better results. Dan Moulthrop heads us over to WCPN interview with Bill Ouchi, author, Making Schools Work.

9. Listener points to the the documentary of 2 million minutes, a documentary that focuses on global comparisons on student achievement. Claudio Sanchez: Points to former governor Roy Romer of Colorado has launched in ED in 08. It’s not clear why these issues have not gotten more attention. Most schools and school districts feel isolated.

10. Chris Gabrieli, Chairman, National Center for Time and Learning. Powerful, simple reform. First year of conversion generated dramatic improvements in student achievement in Massachusetts.

11. Main point: There is not a problem of public education that has not been solved. The challenge is integrating these reforms into a coherent strategies.

Minnesota is a leading state when it comes to developing new approaches to green manufacturing and so-called "green collar" jobs. Here are a couple of articles in a report that update you on what's been going on in Minnesota.

A recent article on apprenticeships helps clear the air on what a "green color job" really means. In fact, the move toward green color certifications in workforce development will not be abrupt. Rather, it will be a gradual transformation of core skills that are already being taught in many apprenticeship programs. Read more.

The move toward green manufacturing is perhaps more significant. With this approach, manufacturers view their manufacturing activities as part of a broader environmental system. For example, in the Subaru facility in Lafayette, Indiana, the factory recycles well over 97% of its waste. (I recently toured the plant. It's really amazing. They grind up florescent light bulbs for recycling and put oily rags in a centrifuge to recover waste oil.)

According to Subaru:

"When you carry out your trash at home on the next collection day, you'll be sending more trash to landfills than the entire Subaru manufacturing plant in Lafayette, Indiana (SIA). The Subaru plant was the first auto assembly plant to achieve zero landfill status - nothing from its manufacturing efforts goes into a landfill. It's all reused and recycled." You can learn more about the Subaru facility here.

In the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the mayors recently announced a new initiative in green manufacturing. You can learn more about this initiative here.

You can download a copy of the green manufacturing report here.

The Kalamazoo paper has an excellent series that outlines how parents can engage their children as they go back to school. We hear a lot about the importance of parents will involvement in children's education. But this is the first series I've seen that really spells out how parents can be involved at different grade levels. You can see the series from this page.

You might want to pass this link on to editors in your own paper as an example of how a newspaper can help shape the public conversation about education.

Hi everyone... some interesting stuff here.....

In keeping with a recurrent theme.... the following have appeared recently either on the net or in the local media here in Indianapolis.
Item 1: "Neil Ahrendt and Brittany Brechbuhl were on track to become typical American college freshmen.

Then they became the subjects of a documentary.

Now the 2007 Carmel High School graduates have taken on roles as poster children for America's inability to compete against China and India……. Complete story can be found at the Indianapolis Star website

Item 2: " About" the film 2 Million Minutes. (It is what's mentioned in the Indianapolis Star article) Direct link to the website of the film 2 Million Minutes

Item 3:Thomas Friedman is coming out with a new book entitled: " Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution -- and How It Can Renew America"

And in the meantime you can receive FREE audio version of his recent best seller, " The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by clicking here: http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/giveaway

We've got some serious work to do in this country to create a true culture of learning..... and it's going to take far more than the current "traditional" institutions of education can do by themselves. We need an education LEARNING revolution, not evolution.

Here's a short article on how the Finger Lakes WIRED is supporting a high tech camp. Read more.

Here's an interesting idea out of Kentucky: employer roundtables. With the State and the University of Kentucky as partners, the Roundtable meets to develop strategies that simultaneously benefit employers and employees.

"Their goal is to help Kentucky's employers become 'employer-of-choice' organizations. They are equally interested in the individual workplace as they are in assuring Kentucky's ability to court and secure viable businesses and talent from around the world," said Personnel Cabinet Secretary Nikki Jackson. 

You can read more about the Roundtable here and visit their web site here.

Indianapolis has a big push on improving high school graduation rates, and bloggers at Smaller Indiana are lending a hand. E-mail to our SI community from Pat Coyle:

A quick note, but an important request: Marion County needs 1,000 volunteers to help mentor local high school students as part of its "Common Goal" initiative. The goal is to increase graduation rates. Check out the main page of SI today for more details.

Visit Smaller Indiana

Learn more about Common Goal.

The Des Moines Register has been running a series of articles on what Iowa and the nation should be expecting from its schools.

How could Iowa — and the nation — have world-class schools?

The Des Moines Register is exploring that possibility in an ongoing news and commentary series. Among the questions we're pursuing:

• What is a world-class education today? In today’s fast-changing international economy, companies recruit employees from around the globe. The Register will ask business people, educators and others what skills and knowledge American students need to succeed beyond high school.

• Who is doing it right? The Register will visit schools in the state, nation and world -- some that have undertaken strategic initiatives to improve education, others that top the charts on international tests -- to find out what's working and what’s not.

• What does Iowa need to change to give its young people the best preparation for the new world that’s unfolding? We’ll look at the culture of expectations that parents, teachers and communities create as well as how public policy can shape Iowa’s future.

You can access the series from this page. 

Well, vacation is over at its time to get back to work. I'll be continuing to post articles on workforce innovation, and I invite your participation.

Here's an article out of Indiana on our Entrepreneurship Academy that we are funding through our first-generation WIRED grant. This is the second year of our Entrepreneurship Academy. It's an exciting way to connect a research university with regional high schools.

Read more.

If you're interested in learning more about how the Entrepreneurship Academy works, please contact Peggy Hosea.