Today's youngest and oldest workers share similar traits and habits. For example, they are both less rebellious than Generation X and the Baby Boomers. Both groups are also civic minded and generally have faith in institutions.
Traditionalists, those born between 1922-1945, are today's oldest workers. Millennials, those born between 1981-1995, are today's youngest workers and those who are the future workforce prospects. They are on the extreme ends of the workforce cycle, but can connect through shared values.
These are some of the insights of Sergio Delgado, director of mediation services at the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. Knowing and respecting these similarities and differences can help employees work well together.
Read the Knoxville News Sentinel story about workforce and generational differences.
Tennessee educators will soon be learning new teaching methods and best practices so that they can efficiently adapt to the new education standards that are being implemented for current seventh grade students.
School administrators met this week to hear about the new standards. Further training will begin this summer for all Tennessee teachers.
Knoxville Chamber CEO and president Mike Edwards recently participated in an education roundtable conversation with other community leaders, which was held by the Knoxville News Sentinel.
The group discussed issues facing East Tennessee public education and what steps need to be taken to ensure a bright future for the region.
Edwards said, "Well today … we can't write off 50 percent. So, whatever we've been doing that doesn't work has to end. And I think by the time we strip it all down we're going to have to get to individualized learning and individualized teaching. We've got to build a model that will do that."
Read an edited transcript from the News Sentinel's quarterly business roundtable.
Four University of Tennessee MBA students consulted with the Chamber on issues of data collection and use by the Knox County School system. They found that current practices did not meet benchmarks, currently adopted by other school systems, that would help align achievement goals with individual student information.
For example, the students found that manual data entry of test scores administered by the state was not the preferable method of delivery; an electronic format would be more efficient and have no margin for human error.
In addition, they found that 17 data sources are used in the district to find and analyze student data. This impacts accessibility for teachers and administrators.
The UT students presented their findings to the Chamber and interested parties on April 3.
The students were Alicia Cottrell, Drew Davenport, Eric Edens, and Maxim Shabrov. As part of their MBA instruction, they spent 300 student hours on the project.
They compared Knox County standards to three benchmark institutions and one comparable district. They found Knox County Schools' practices lacking in many areas, including accessibility to data, relevancy of data to goals, connectivity between databases, and having a culture of data information systems and communication.
Read the UT students' final report about KCS data collection and use.
A recent study of the nation's 50 largest cities shows that there is typically a disparity in graduation rates between city school districts and the nearby suburban districts.
Two Tennessee cities, Nashville and Memphis, were included in this study. Nashville city schools were tied for the second highest graduation rate, 77 percent. Memphis ranked 14 with 61.7% of its students graduating.
These numbers compare with a 50-city average of 51.8 percent -- meaning almost half of students in these 50 school districts will not graduate high school.
The Tennessee cities also had a relatively small disproportion of disparity when compared with the national statistics. Memphis actually had the opposite disparity compared with the national average, meaning that the suburban graduation rate was less than the city graduation rate. That gap was 6.2 percent. Nashville suburban schools graduated 5.8 percent more students than its city schools.
The top disparities belong to Baltimore, Maryland and Columbus, Ohio. Both of these cities' schools had rates 40 percent below their suburban counterparts. The average for all 50 cities was a 17.4 percent disparity in favor of the suburban schools.
Our Workforce and Education staff wants to know how you go about training your current employees and potential workforce. Do you have internships and apprenticeship programs? Do you help fund continuing education or offer mentoring opportunities?
Please fill out this form and return it to Ahnna Estes, Workforce Development Manager for the Knoxville Chamber. Delivery information is included on the form.
The Education and Workforce Summit will take place on March 24 at 8 a.m. in the Knoxville Convention Center.
Everyone in the community is welcome and encouraged to come -- parents, educators, students, business people, community leaders and faith-based institutions.
To register, click here.
The goals of the daylong summit are to outline what the region's future workforce looks like, to identify the barriers that may be standing in the way of achieving such a workforce, and for each attendee to leave with a plan of how he or she can individually contribute to the overall goal of developing a skilled and educated workforce.
Note: This release was sent from the National Academy of Engineering, who is launching a new program to help with engineering workforce development efforts, especially for young women.
The National Academy of Engineering (NAE), in conjunction with National Engineers Week, has launched a new Web site to encourage academically prepared girls to enroll in undergraduate engineering programs.
"This Web site is part of a national effort to inform high school girls, and those who counsel them, about engineering through personal and informative sketches about women's experiences as engineers," said NAE President Charles M. Vest.
At www.engineeryourlife.org, high school girls can "virtually" meet young women engineers and learn about their careers. Twelve women tell their inspiring stories on the Web site: about working with their communities; solving real problems; and, how they came to choose engineering as a profession. Eleven engineering fields are described at the site, with information on possible engineering projects, starting salaries, resources, and additional young engineers talking about their careers in their own words. A third section explains how to prepare for college engineering programs, with information on what high school classes to take, the experience of being an engineering student, and choosing an engineering program.
Engineer Your LifeTM is a production of WGBH Educational Foundation and NAE, in partnership with a coalition of more than 50 engineering and educational organizations, including ASME. For additional information, see nationalacademies.org.
In its continuing series of guest columns on education, this week's Knoxville News Sentinel featured Bob Hirche, president of ICMAS Inc.
Hirche's suggestions on education are two-fold: allocate monies to necessary programs such as reading programs for elementary schools, and look at how teachers are respected by students and as seen by the benefits given to those in the position.
Hirche mentioned that Ireland had a superior method of education in which teachers were paid more and were respected by the community and the students.
Hirche writes, "I would suggest that what we need to do to improve public education in Tennessee is already out there; we just need to have the will to adopt and execute."
Science Magazine recently featured a story about a Chicago utility company and its executives donating money to a open a math and science charter high school.
The company hopes to both do good in the community and prepare students for the types of positions the company knows that it needs to fill in the future.
According to the article, the executives are taking a hands-on approach to the school and monitoring its success.
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