By Oralia Alvarez, USCM Intern
December 20, 2006

To follow-up the January 2006 Urban Education and Workforce Forum, The U.S. Conference of Mayors held a second forum in St. Louis November 17. The forum focused on the mayor’s role linking education and workforce development.

Participating were city teams comprised of the mayors’ education policy advisors and workforce development directors. The teams discussed how the two offices could assist each other in improving high school graduation rates and readiness for postsecondary education and workplace training. Twelve cities had teams as well as two had observers. Also, two mayors, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and Mobile Mayor Samuel Jones, participated after attending the invitational meeting for mayors on education held the day before in St. Louis. The forum was made possible by grants made to The U.S. Conference of Mayors by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Ford Motor Company Fund.

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, Chair of the Conference of Mayors Jobs, Education and the Workforce Committee, opened the forum by saying, “The city teams participating in this meeting are key to improving the quality of education and workforce development in our cities. You are the ones who do the day-to-day work and are responsible for making sure the programs or initiatives that come from the mayor and the mayor'superintendent partnership are implemented. The working relationships that you have or are developing are essential to this transformation process.”

Participating cities were St. Louis, Philadelphia, Louisville, Los Angeles, Providence, Miami, Mobile, Detroit, Denver, Fort Worth, Newark, Hartford, Oakland, and Albuquerque. Slay ended with the following charge: “The outcome of the conversation today will influence the Conference’s plan for future meetings of mayors, workforce development directors, education policy advisors and others – all of whom have a role in making a difference in the lives of children and young adults in our cities.”

His remarks on the significant role these offices have on the future of the children and young adults in their cities led participants to emphasize the importance of strengthening and broadening existing partnerships and collaborations to improve more effectively graduation rates and readiness for postsecondary education or the world of work. Participating cities shared the challenges they faced in addressing their city’s school drop out rates, out of school youth, and preparing youth for the 21st century work place.

Even though cities face similar challenges, their distinct identities require them to adopt and/or create new strategies that specifically address their cities needs. Robby Wahby, Executive Assistant to Slay, shared her city’s unique challenge. “For the past six years, St. Louis had four different school superintendents creating a lack of continuity and stability in leadership, thus aggravating the implementation of programs focusing to help at-risk and out-of-school youth.” As concerns were expressed by the different cities, ideas and strategies were suggested by cities that successfully implemented programs mading a difference in reconnecting out-of-school youth or kept at-risk students in school until they graduated.

Two of the best examples of creative approaches are Philadelphia and Louisville. Each made presentations about their efforts. Due to travel difficulties, the Philadelphia presentation was made via teleconference and the Internet. Laura Shibulla, President of the Philadelphia Youth Network, described and discussed Project U Turn. The project is a city wide campaign focused on Philadelphia’s drop out crisis and strategies designed to leverage investments in the youth. The research and data analysis conducted by Project U Turn provided additional information to add new and expanded educational options to improve the existing educational programming. As a result, a policy agenda aimed at helping struggling students and out of school youth to continue their education and successfully transition to adulthood has been created.

“We were inspired by Philadelphia’s benchmarking effort of its work against similar'sized cities,” said Michael Gritton, Executive Director of Kentuckiana Works. The metro government of Louisville has adopted the same approach. He explained that Louisville does not expel students, but finds other pathways for them. To align workforce development with Louisville’s education agenda, the city created a one'stop shop in a downtown community college building. It provides education and workforce development services, including GED classes, college access and financial aid counseling, job placement, and career exploration opportunities. All of this takes place on five floors. Kentuckiana Works and the mayor’s office have witnessed positive results including students coming in reading at lower than a ninth grade level, are now earning their GED, and being placed in jobs or pursuing postsecondary education.

After hearing the two presentations, several of the city teams expressed their interest in learning more about the two strategies and adopt similar ones to meet their individual needs. One concern mentioned numerous times was the lack of funding available to implement such programs and the loss of federal dollars from the Workforce Investment Act such as Youth Opportunity grants. But most of the participants were not deterred and stated they would look to other funding sources to address their cities needs. Repeated during the afternoon’s discussion was the commitment to build or strengthen existing partnerships and broaden collaboration with key individuals, groups and agencies to develop a broader based intervention for these at-risk and out-of-school youth.

Because of the success of the meeting, the cities requested that the Conference continue these forums to further improve the working relationships in participating cities and expand the effort to other cities.