EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

There are two strategies that Michigan must undertake to address the expected labor shortage. One is to have its educational institutions focus on improving the quality and productivity of the workforce, ensuring that students obtain knowledge and skills that are relevant to employer needs. The other is to make Michigan cities so interesting, attractive and livable that young educated professionals will want to remain in or relocate to the state.

Since manufacturing and other technical fields are where Michigan jobs are and will be, higher education must prepare many more people to work in these fields. Colleges must work with the public schools to ensure that students in the middle through high school years get enough hands on experience with various technologies to evoke interest in these careers. Moreover, educators must increase their effectiveness in communicating with parents about the desirability of such careers and the high standard of living these can bring even without a 4-year degree.

The challenge of recruiting sufficient numbers of Michigan residents for manufacturing and technical careers suggests that educational agencies revamp their delivery system for career guidance. The current system is duplicative, inefficient and ineffective. The new system would encourage students, parents and workers to access career information through the Internet and self-service resource centers, and it would deploy career awareness and counseling services through regional partnerships with industry. Additionally, high schools should embed career information and guidance into their courses (e.g. Career Pathways approach), and short intensive courses that integrate instruction in basic skills with career guidance should be established to help young people transition from school to work (e.g. the Fast Track or Fast Break program). These approaches are far more cost-effective than the current counselor caseload approach and the arbitrary and harmful separation of pre-college and career counseling.

Michigan colleges and universities should also work to establish statewide policies to facilitate better articulation between high school and college. For example, universities should accredit competencies obtained from high school career-technical education (CTE) and community college occupational education courses so that course completers are not penalized unnecessarily in their desire to move through the college curriculum. Whereas Tech Prep is a proven model to encourage articulation between partner institutions, broader policies that cut across institutions should be developed to encourage seamless transitions from high school to college.

The primacy of the workforce development mission in the face of limited public resources and the coming boom in college enrollments suggests that higher education institutions reduce resources devoted to remedial programs while redesigning them to be more cost-effective. For example, they should restructure the delivery system by moving to proven formats that are intensive, team taught, and which integrate instruction in basic skills with computer applications and career and employability skills.

Coming teacher shortages at the secondary and tertiary levels, particularly in math, science and technical fields, will require Michigan to find innovative ways to staff its schools and colleges: for example, higher, wider and differential pay ranges, alternative certification of teachers from industry or the military, signing bonuses, pay for performance, and job sharing among teachers who wish to phase into retirement. Additionally, greater awareness of and respect for teaching careers can be facilitated by exchanges of personnel in education and industry, and through teacher sabbaticals in business.

Finally, to maximize effective resource utilization in a climate of diminished state funding capabilities and divided state government, Michigan institutions of higher education should vigorously support their region's Strategic Partnership for Career Development, which requires joint strategic and operational planning among different community agencies. Partners should annually evaluate and publicize their progress and update their regional strategic plans as the basis for directing resources and aligning their respective activities toward a common vision of the community's future.

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