Successful urban plans need to focus on helping everyone in the city learn and not just traditional students – “an error commonly made in today’s over emphasized reliance on “creatives” – to take up the possibility of innovating and making new companies that meet unforeseen demands in world markets beyond the city” (Schramm, 2013). Because poverty can only be reduced through high growth businesses, cities need people with the skills that companies need to grow (Schramm, 2013). Education for specific jobs is important because in many cases the most in demand jobs often didn't exist a few years ago. Further, the biggest challenge facing most high growth businesses, is a lack of workers who have the skills they need. Educational programs have three strategic purposes with regard to economic development:
1-To improve employee productivity so that they can earn more money.
2-To give businesses the skills they need to grow.
3-To attract businesses to your region.
There are five strategies for achieving this:
1-Schools and colleges are likely to be the center of your population’s education, and these are often excellent for prepping people to learn. However, traditional schools often fail to prepare people for jobs, and are even less likely to provide your city with an advantage not found in every other American city, unless you develop a better strategy for dealing with them.
Increasing financial investment in schools rarely has any real impact on how well they run. This is in part because over $9,000 per year is spent on education per student, so it would take a lot of money to increase this by any meaningful amount. Indeed, while Detroit spends $11,000 per student, less than 25% of their students graduate (Lips, Dan; Witkins, Shanea & Fleming, John). The way money is spent and innovative programs, are the only things that have any real impact on education. Of course as a development manager or mayor it may be difficult for you to seriously impact traditional education as political in-fighting between parties, unions, parents, and more, makes getting anything done in schools difficult. Unfortunately, all too often, school heads lose sight of their mission as they fight battles with each other for control and their own interests. To deal with this, there have been some mayors, notably in Boston and Chicago who have taken direct control of the school board, appointing its members rather than having them elected. In their research on the impact of mayoral control over school systems, Wong, Shen, Anagnostopoulos and Rutledge found that this can improve student achievement. Five out of eleven schools taken over by mayors, were making “substantial improvements in narrowing the student achievement gap with their states.” While four more districts showed progress on some measures (Wong and Shen, 2013). Such results are fairly good, given that schools in many other urban areas are getting worse. This tactic, however, is simply a means of starting schools down the path toward success, and often these results come at the cost of more money.
San Jose's mayor has developed innovative ways to improve education without taking direct control; by working to become a "Teacher-Friendly City." He did this by providing teachers with up to $40,000 in no-interest loans to help them purchase their first home, in order to attract and retain high quality teachers. He also developed library programs to train child-care providers in better educational techniques. In addition, he developed a number of after school programs, including homework centers with tutoring and computers. Other programs which San Jose has engaged in include, innovation through Charter and alternative schools, building better relationships with the school districts so that the mayor can better support and influence them. While the efficacy of all these programs is not monetized yet, it’s likely that through measurement and continued innovation they will eventually pay off.
Other cities, states and the Federal Government have tried improving education with tutoring scholarships and free tutoring programs. Sadly, there have been accusations that much of this money has been wasted. Still tutoring can be an effective way of improving education, since tutors can be held more accountable for grade improvements than teachers. Finally, Mayor Bloomberg took an interesting stance by suggesting that students skip college to become plumbers. While this angered many, I would point out that there are lots of college students who graduate and end up with lower incomes than plumbers or manufacturing workers, and massive debt. So options should be explored to help students gain high paying jobs that don't require a college degree. After all, if someone fails to get a high paying job out of high school, they can always try college, but once they are through college they have debts to deal with.
2-Skills training
Some of the most successful educational programs teach people the specific skills they need to get a job. Ohio's department of education has 6-9 month vocational training programs which lead to occupational licenses. Typically this program helps people who have already gone through high school or college and have spent years trying to get jobs, helping increase the likelihood that they will get new jobs. Despite this program’s success in increasing employment opportunities, the jobs create below average wages.
For these programs to be effective they must actually work with employers to insure the program trains people for the skills businesses need (Hollenbeck, Kevin and Anderson, William). Georgia's Quick Start Program has proven to be one of the most effective at doing this, while also allowing manufacturers to get cost free training in classrooms, mobile labs, or in their factories. Jackson, the head of Kia's HR in America, said that the officials from Georgia's Quick Start Program met with Kia and gathered information about their manufacturing processes so that they could standardize these into manuals, worksheets and training programs. This allowed Kia's plant in Georgia to start, at near full capacity, so that it was able to grow and expand quickly (Hans, 2013). This program performed so well that Kia's Chairmen called it a “Global Benchmark” (Dobbs, 2013).
Other factories, like Mohawk which makes filament, have used the Quick Start Program in order to help them expand quickly, allowing them to continue to compete internationally. The program has started to get industry recognition with Expansion Management magazine, naming Georgia the best state for providing workforce training (Willis, John). This program succeeds by working very closely with companies who are looking to hire by moving into the region or expanding. Quick Start builds simulated work environments based on facilities in order to allow people to get real work experience so that they can be ready for the real world.
In Boston, an organization called Pine Street Inn, gives homeless people a stipend while they train with manufacturers, allowing these companies to hire and train workers at a lower cost. In 2012 this program helped 250 people find jobs, although it's difficult to say how many of these jobs would not have existed otherwise (Johnston, 2013). Generally, working with companies and giving people real or accurately simulated world experience is the best way for training programs to be effective. Another program which has had some success is Genesys Works, which helps low income youth increase their chances of getting jobs by allowing them to attend an eight-week technical and professional “boot camp,” after which they work as an intern during their senior year to gain professional skills (Tollefson, Jeff). Although most of these students enroll in college after this program, similar programs could be set up to help students get high paying jobs without college, while those who go to college would still have the connections they need to get a job when they've graduated. Finally, it's possible to create online training programs. Industry Week has reported that Rockwell Automation now has training tools including iBooks and mobile applications in order to help people learn how to troubleshoot problems on the factory floor. Though such programs aren't intended to take the place of instruction they can help speed up the learning process (Fehrenbach, Pete).
3-In addition to the entrepreneurship training and support programs already mentioned, there are three more entrepreneur training programs which are available.
High school entrepreneurship programs are popular; however, there is some debate about whether these programs are effective at creating entrepreneurs. Still, some of them are correlated with higher graduation rates and more degrees in sciences, technology, math and engineering. This may be because the children entering these programs are more driven to succeed; however, it also seems likely that being in such a program helps students maintain their drive. Typically, such programs are designed for youth from low income communities and are designed to teach math and literacy in the context of developing a business plan; though I would argue that ignoring the middle class with these programs makes them less effective. It's likely that for high school entrepreneurship programs to be effective they need to teach not only basic business skills but creative thinking, analytical skills, and communication skills within the context of starting a business. To this end, the University of Delaware has a Diamond Challenge which is designed as a business plan contest for teams of high school students, with some educational contest and prize money, which can be used for scholarships or to pursue the businesses the students dream up.
College entrepreneurship classes are common. However, they can be expanded upon with actual incubation, or similar programs, to allow students who are getting degrees in art, programming, and more to try their hand at starting a business, in a semi-safe environment.
Business incubation programs provide early stage businesses with cheap or low cost work spaces, technical support (which can include lawyers, accountants, marketing experts, etc.), training, and sometimes direct financing in the form of investments. These programs can be effective in building nearby industry. Philadelphia, for example, has opened an incubator for food based businesses with a series of commercial kitchens. Coca-Cola partnered with Georgia Tech University to found an incubator which they call Fizzion which allows them to invest in new companies. Turner Broadcasting started an incubator called Media Camp which lasts for three months and supports media businesses. The idea behind these programs is that they can take businesses with a potential for a lot of growth and help them grow faster. Incubators tend to have the highest costs of any support program outside of college and high school, but they can have good success rates.
I like the idea of kitchen incubators because food businesses are easy for many people to think of, but very difficult to start, thanks to the number of regulations in this industry. This means that it's more likely that businesses started in a kitchen incubator wouldn't have started without it, whereas software and web businesses may very well have started on their own. Similarly, any industry which is hindered by a number of regulations, such as toy design and manufacturing, could likely benefit greatly from an incubation program to help them cut through the red tape that slows their industry.
4-The nurturing of startups through venture capital and advice is one of the primary differences between successful locations and non-successful locations according to Moretti. This is one the primary reason Silicon Valley is so successful; as experienced people often give of their time and effort to helping startups simply because they enjoy nurturing others. I knew one restaurant owner who helped two others get their starts, even going as far as helping them to write their business plans. It may be possible to find ways to help build these connections so that new businesses can be mentored and nurtured by experienced professionals.
4-Retaining skilled workers is vital to a city’s success. Philadelphia, for example, has amazing Universities such as Temple, Drexel, and of course The University of Pennsylvania, which has been rated in the top 5 business schools in the world by Forbes, Business Week, US News, and more for years. Yet despite this, the city floundered for much of that time because their skilled workers didn't want to stay. While a lack of jobs is one reason for this, I will point out that in many other places, young college students with smarts were founding their own companies, which rarely happened in Philadelphia. In other words, skilled workers have to want to stay in an area because it's a place they wish to live. Making a place the type of place people want to live and start businesses doesn't have a magic formula, because it's dependent on the character of the skilled workers in your area. Regardless of this, however, another likely reason why so few startups succeeded or remained in Philadelphia, was because Philadelphia was listed in Business Week, Forbes, and similar magazines as one of the worst places to start a business due, in large part, to its regulatory burden and taxes.
5-Attracting skilled workers has become a popular economic strategy, however, there has been a lot of debate about whether it's possible to attract such without jobs to attract them. Because while retaining skilled workers only requires that they have nowhere else they want to move to, attracting them requires that they go to the expense of moving.
References
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