Five key steps to improving future of Wisconsin's labor force

Peter Drucker, the Einstein of management thinking, forewarned that only those countries and communities with well-trained labor forces will succeed in a knowledge-based economy.

Every Capital Region business should be concerned about factors shaping Wisconsin's future labor force and step up to the plate to help drive change.

Here are some important facts for starters:

• Wisconsin ranks 36th in the percent of its population with baccalaureate degrees. Furthermore, our state budget mess will undoubtedly reduce the University of Wisconsin campuses' ability to graduate more students as other nations and states accelerate higher education investments;
• Wisconsin faces a net out-migration of college-educated young adults;
• Wisconsin has the worst black 4th and 8th grade reading and math performance in the nation, and the largest black-white score gap;
• Wisconsin's high school population is forecast to shrink while groups with traditionally lower college attendance and graduation rates comprise a larger share. Without change, Wisconsin will have an increasingly less educated labor force and older population. Our current per-capita income shortfall of $1,600 versus the U.S. and $4,000 versus Minnesota will grow.

Future strategies

Realistic strategies to improve our future exist. Missing are citizens willing to demand change from Wisconsin's state and local government and school leaders. Some suggestions:

• FIRST, fund investments proven to help children growing up in poverty succeed in school. Alarmingly high rates of Wisconsin public school students live in poverty — 41 percent in Madison, 69 percent in Bayfield, 71 percent in Beloit and 79 percent in Milwaukee. A public largely silent about nonwhite school performance and Wisconsin's unnecessarily high black youth incarceration rates may not comprehend that in a knowledge-based economy, white Wisconsinites can't succeed economically if blacks fail at alarming rates.
• SECOND, increase financial aid to enable more high school graduates and working adults to attend college, just as many other nations and states are doing.
• THIRD, accelerate creation of high-paying jobs. The Capital Region's small start-up base gave rise to Epic, TomoTherapy, JellyFish.com, Virent and other successes offering terrific job opportunities. Increase start-ups one-hundred-fold, and we'll retain and attract far more college graduates. Tax incentives, investment capital, UW research investments and exposing more students to entrepreneurship classes are key catalysts.
• FOURTH, dramatically improve science and math training, while enhancing writing skills and appreciation of all liberal arts -- requirements for a knowledge-based economy.
• FIFTH, deploy a hidden asset: the recent UW graduates and alumni residing outside Wisconsin who are eager to live in Wisconsin, were high-paying jobs available. UW sends more computer science graduates to Seattle's Microsoft complex than any other state university system. Our governor and mayor could mitigate this and other exoduses, to the benefit of all Wisconsinites.

The foolhardiness of a state government that's allowed prison spending to absorb needed education resources then wastes three months in budgetary politics is not lost on this writer. A client, CEO of a thriving Wisconsin-headquartered company with suppliers across the globe, says it best: "I wish all our leaders would spend a month in China to understand the economic risks facing Wisconsin … and the truly discouraging implications for our grandchildren. How can we solve our problems if we're not even asking the right questions?"

Political activism is now a high-return investment in your business. When did you last contact government leaders to sway their thinking? Asked Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC) and Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) to be less self-serving? Voted for the most forward-thinking politician, whatever his or her political party?

Kay Plantes is a Madison economist, strategy consultant and executive educator.