LM December 2015

A tale of 199,000 jobs and one very tall task

and one of the most influential people in the world in 2012. State Superintendent Dr. Tony Smith echoed the same theme when he met recently with our IASA Board of Directors, characterizing K-12 schools as “the primary workforce development agency in a community,” and adding that when it comes to our students we need to be looking at not just a test score but also asking “What is their life score?” I think most of the attendees at a Schoolmasters luncheon at John A. Logan College recently were expecting me to discuss the ongoing budget stalemate. But that day I decided to take a different approach. I held up the thick IDES report listing more than 199,000 job openings in Illinois and I posed this question to the educators

I saw some pretty interesting figures not long ago from the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES). It was a report that projected almost 200,000 job openings in Illinois through the year 2022. With all of the media focus on test scores, it seems to me that many people may be missing the larger picture when it comes to one of the most vital roles of public

Message from the Executive Director Dr. Brent Clark

education: workforce education. One of our most important missions is to make sure our focus is aligned to preparing our

students to contribute to the economy of our community, state and nation. According to the job forecast for our state we are going to need to fill

in the room: How are we preparing our students to fill these jobs? Steve Murphy, superintendent of Carbondale those attending the meeting and he had this take: “It was amazing to hear the answers provided. Most centered around two areas -- District 165, was among

“The EPA has a campaign to encourage reuse and recycling. They ask the question, ‘When you throw something away , where does it go?’ I think we need to ask similar questions about the students we serve. Where are they going? That

hundreds of jobs in the health care field. The report also forecasts a need for teachers. Unlike the No Child Left Behind agenda, we cannot abandon the vocational trades. There are significant projected job openings in the vocational areas, and if we don’t fill those positions with skilled workers our state’s economy will never recover. Don’t just take my word on this topic. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, mentioned the need to prepare our students not only for college but also for careers when he spoke recently at the Joint Annual Conference in Chicago. Dr. Hrabowski’s credentials include being named one of America’s 10 Best College Presidents in 2009

visual representation of the stack of paper listing the 199,000 projected job openings drove home the point that educators need to see beyond graduation as a destination and accept the responsibility to provide students the skills they need to succeed in college or the workforce.” -- Steve Murphy, superintendent, Carbondale District 165

innovative use of technology and dual-credit partnerships with colleges and junior colleges to provide training or access to college curriculum. Our own board recently approved a district goal to increase dual credit offerings by 25 percent next year. We are also expanding our CNA (certified nursing assistant) program. “The EPA has a campaign to encourage reuse and recycling. They ask the question,

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