Over the past several years an exciting new initiative has been taking place to launch employer-education partnerships to, in part, align education to advance regional economic objectives through a focus on regional industry sectors.
In 2008, the Morgan Family Foundation launched the California Stewardship Network as a civic venture, investing $ 1.5 million over 2 years in matching grants to 10 economic regions that agreed to focus on breakthroughs led by stewardship teams composed of business, community and government civic entrepreneurs.
California Economic Summit
The first California Economic Summit, held May 11, 2012 in Santa Clara, was an unprecedented gathering of leaders focused on working together to put California’s economy on a sustainable path for growth.
The summits key objectives were to:
• Develop a shared agenda to generate jobs by improving regional competitiveness
• Build upon input from regional economic forums to identify economic opportunities and impediments
• Align regional champions in support of a strong economic development strategy that will attract investment and promote sustainable growth
• Establish the Summit as a valuable process to annually refine and focus the agenda and strengthen the coalition of supporters
Funding for Regional Partnerships
One of the five signature initiatives in the Policy Playbook 2012 is to develop a Smart Workforce by prioritizing workforce-training resources to support growth of major regional industry sectors. Depending on the region, partnerships will include local Workforce Investment Boards, economic development organizations, community colleges, K-12 education, and public and private universities.
Under the Smart Workforce initiative, workforce training activities and postsecondary education would be integrated to create seamless career pathways leading to high-value jobs in target industries. In particular, community college career technical education (CTE) representatives would help align CTE certificates and programs with clearly-defined industry sector based economic and workforce development strategies. K-12, parents, counselors, and students would be engaged early to create awareness of career pathways.
For more information:
Download a copy of the 2012 Policy Playbook here.
Learn how to get involved at: CAEconomy.org