Education one of three areas of focus for Innovation Council

This from a 2/26/09 article in the North Bay Business Journal about the Innovation Council's education efforts:

"Without improvements in education levels, pending retirements of baby boomers coupled with a fast-growing Latino population and higher costs in Sonoma County’s communities will create skilled-labor shortages, the council found.

“One objective is to build a world-class work force based on educational achievement, career training and exploration as well as lifelong learning,” Mr. DeCaminada said.

“Sonoma County has an acute problem – only 62 percent of Hispanic high school students graduate. In a recent survey, 66 percent of major Sonoma County businesses had difficulty finding qualified job applicants. The current education system does not fully equip students with necessary real-world job skills,” he said.

“At the same time,” he added, “the availability of career technical education courses offered in public schools is declining. Only 31 percent of California high school students possess some form of career training, and only 25 percent are expected to graduate with a bachelor’s degree.”

This task force will bring together educators, businesses and Latino leaders to determine what needs to be done to provide workplace-skills training and close the education gap by increasing the percentage of Hispanic students graduating from high school. The group will also explore mentoring and tutoring programs, internships and ways to offer more career technical education to more students (MESA, STEM, Math/Science Academy, Algebra Academy, Work-Ready Certificates, Online Career Planning, etc.)."

Click here for the full article