Okcollegestart.org

The OK State Regents have launched a new college-planning tool that is a free resource to all Oklahoma students. If your students have not been introduced to okcollegestart.org yet, let them know about it. There is even a resource for counselors!

Haga clic aquí para obtener más información en español

The Millenials Are Coming!

Morley Safer of 60 Minutes reports on the "millennials." These are students that are in their late teens to early twenties and and some believe could be ill prepared for a demanding workplace. The story talks with millennial consultant Mary Crane, Ryan Heely, co-founder of Employee Evolution, a website dedicated to Millenials, author Jason Dorsey, Jeff Zaslow who writes the column Move On for the Wall Street Journal and conslutant Bob Nelson .

Economic Development 103: An Advanced Course

Here are the reports and references from the Oklahoma Department of Commerce Econ 103 course held this week.

Aerospace Sector Report
Grow Oklahoma
Governors Council for Workforce and Economc Development

LMI Related
Local Employment Dynamics
Location Quotient Analysis

Socio-Demographic http://www.dataplace.org/

Data Warehouse http://www.econdata.net/

State Benchmarking
State Education Benchmarks
State New Economy Benchmarks

Supplementing Publicly Available Date
http://www.economicmodeling.com/
http://www.economy.com/
http://www.econdata.net/

Associations
National Association of Workforce Boards
Corporation for a Skilled Workforce
National Center on Education and the Economy
The Council for Community and Economic Research
Area Development Corporate Survey
US Chamber of Commerce
American Society for Training and Development
Development Alliance
National Infrastructure for Community Statistics

Papers & Books
Using Information to Drive Change: New Ways to Move Urban Markets
Economic Turbulence

Sector Strategies Institute

Yesterday, I attended the Oklahoma Department of Commerce's Workforce Development Advanced Course. One of the events that I learned about is the upcoming Sector Strategies Institute that is to be held in January.

At the Institute, they are looking at ways to collaborate and develop regional strategies within business sectors (career clusters). They will be looking at worker and skill shortages, identify stakeholders that drive the economy, business sustaining planning, regional strategies for collaboration and integration, developing regional implementation plans, leveraging resources, discovering how to implement your regions industry sector program and evaluating and troubleshooting problems.

The Sector Strategies Institute is on January 22, 2008 at the National Center for Employee Development, 2801 East State Highway 9, Norman, OK

CareerTech Receives Spirit of the Family Award

The Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education was recognized recently with a Spirit of the Family Award by Smart Start Payne County.

The Spirit of the Family Award recognizes local businesses that have the best practices in family/workplace policies. The state CareerTech agency located in Stillwater was among eight area businesses to be recognized. The agency was awarded a painting titled "Budding Artist" by Lucelle Raad originally from England, now living in Florida.

The Payne County Smart Start mission is to advance family and community efforts that assure quality experiences and opportunities for children from birth to age six, according to Alisa Oglesby, state CareerTech human resources manager.

"Two of the strategies of this program correspond with the state CareerTech agency by developing an infrastructure for quality childcare that supports, educates, and rewards the childcare workforce and increasing public awareness about early childhood education and public policy," Oglesby said.

Highlights of the ODCTE workplace included the 33 work schedule variations offered to most employees to encourage a healthy work/life balance. Also, an Employee Assistance Program is provided at no cost to employees. In addition, individual departments and staff members show support for the community by adopting local families in lieu of holiday gift giving and with many ODCTE employees giving regular blood donations every 56 days. Approximately 30 employees use vacation time to volunteer in the Stillwater Area United Way’s annual Day of Caring and Special Olympic events. More than half of the state agency employees participated in last year’s United Way fundraising campaign raising $25,965.

"Whether providing career and training opportunities or providing a great workplace for its employees, CareerTech strengthens and supports families," said state CareerTech Direct Phil Berkenbile. "CareerTech is just one of the reasons Stillwater is a great place to work and live!"

A Nation at Risk

A lot of what you read about school improvement at some point references A National at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform from the National Commission on Excellence in Education in 1983. If you want to read it, I have found a easy to read pdf that you can download.

A National at Risk

Doing What Works

The US Department of Education recently released Doing What Works, a website dedicated to highlighting best practices in education. Check it out at http://dww.ed.gov/

Reading List

During XTREME Tech Prep participants were introduced to a number of reports and readings. Here is a list of those books and downloadable documents shared.

Books
Other Ways to Win, Creating Alternates for High School Graduation by Kenneth Gray

The Competitiveness Index: Where America Stands (Council on Competitiveness)

China Inc by Ted Fishman

The 2010 Meltdown by Edward Gordon

Downloadable Documents:

A Shared Agenda:
http://www.pathwaystocollege.net/pdf/sharedagenda_FullReport.pdf

Tough Choices or Tough Times Executive Summary: http://www.skillscommission.org/pdf/exec_sum/ToughChoices_EXECSUM.pdf

The 21^st Century at Work
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2004/RAND_MG164.pdf

America’s Dynamic Workforce
http://www.dol.gov/asp/media/reports/workforce/dynamicworkforce.pdf

The Extreme Future
http://www.theextremefuture.com

Leaders and Laggards
http://www.uschamber.com/icw/reportcard/default

Oklahoma Report Card from Leaders and Laggards http://www.uschamber.com/assets/icw/07reportcard/state_reports/state_report_OK.pdf

Is OK Tech Prep on Target?

During the course of the XTREME Tech Prep Leadership Institute participants were asked to identify whether they felt Oklahoma Tech Prep was on target. Participants could choose from On Target, Mostly On Target, Work to Be Done or Off Target. Of the responses, 29% felt that Oklahoma Tech Prep is mostly On Target and 71% felt that there was Work To Be Done.

XTREME Tech Prep

Seventy-five people recently attended XTREME Tech Prep, Oklahoma’s Tech Prep Leadership Institute. The two-day institute, held at the Francis Tuttle Technology Center’s Reno campus in Oklahoma City, was designed to facilitate conversations about the direction of Tech Prep over the next few years. Participants heard from national and state experts in Tech Prep, Career Majors, Preparatory Services, Professional Development, Accountability and Grant Writing.

The institute consisted of work teams from the consortia so that the participants could work together, gather outside information and develop ideas to take back to their consortia. Notes collected during the two days will be posted to the Oklahoma Tech Prep Blog: http://oktechprep.blogspot.com/

Downloads of the presentation given are available here: http://www.okcareertech.org/techprep/presentations.htm

Information Clearing House

From time to time we receive a link to a quality paper that should be shared. Now, we have a place to do it. On the main Tech Prep website we invite you to read one of the many articles in the Information Clearing House (ICH).

The ICH will be divided into 5 categories. Those categories include Career Majors, Preparatory Services, Professional Development, Accountability and General Education Articles. We hope that this makes it easy for you to read articles that relate to Tech Prep in very specific ways.

Information Clearing House: http://www.okcareertech.org/techprep/ich.htm