An increasing number of jobs in Missouri require some level of training or education beyond high school, but rural students are less likely than their urban or suburban peers to enroll in and complete college.
The RootEd Alliance wants to change that, bringing professional counselors into school districts to supplement the work guidance counselors are already doing. They can focus on student opportunities after graduation, from a work card or bachelor’s degree to the military.
Hal Higdon, president of Ozarks Technical Community College, a rootEd partner, said it is expanding from having counselors at just eight schools to 135 statewide.
“A lot of our rural students are first-generation, so they don’t have a mom or dad who’s already been through the college process — it can seem very daunting,” Higdon said. “What we see is that students with no plans have plans, students with plans have even better plans. And then quite a few go into the military as well.”
Higdon added that college attendance rates increased at all schools associated with rootEd. National college enrollment numbers were down in 2021 from pre-pandemic levels, but up 7% at schools with a rootEd advisor.
Noa Meyer, president of the rootEd Alliance, noted that the statewide expansion will serve 15,000 students or more. She explained that learning what is available, filling out financial aid forms and identifying the right option takes time and experience.
“The guidance counselors are doing a great job helping students with a wide variety of issues they face,” Meyer said. “And as a result, they don’t have as much time to help students with the plans they need to develop for life after high school.”
Higdon emphasized that Missouri faces real labor shortages across industries, arguing that now is the time for high school graduates to develop skills to get good-paying jobs in their communities.
“The need for skilled workers, from Allied Health to plumbing, HVAC, carpentry, advanced manufacturing, it’s all there,” Higdon said. “And those students in rural areas are fantastic employees, so we have to connect them to the workforce not just in Missouri, but in every state.”
Support for this report was provided by the Lumina Foundation.
get more stories like this by email
A new report finds that technology is changing many industries in Massachusetts, and the state needs to improve its workforce development capacity to adapt to the change and help people get better jobs.
The study, from the state Commission on the Future of Work, established by the General Court in 2020, noted that the typical worker in Massachusetts is now expected to hold more than 12 different jobs over the course of their career.
Sen. Eric Lesser, D-Springfield, who co-chaired the commission, said Massachusetts needs to at least double its current workforce training channels to keep up with the technological transformation.
“So it’s very important that our workforce training be more agile, more flexible, more iterative,” Lesser said. “Credentials can be ‘stacked’ on top of each other to build skills over time as technology changes.”
The report recommended investing heavily in technical training, apprenticeships, work-based apprenticeship programs and in the sector. He also stressed the importance of expanding programs to bring people who are often left out of the workforce into the workforce, such as those with disabilities or re-entering society after incarceration.
More jobs require post-secondary degrees or credentials. And while gaps based on income and race for graduating from high school and going to college have narrowed in recent years, college graduation gaps have widened.
Minor workplace disruptions during COVID have had a huge impact on women and people of color.
“As we look around the corner here, through COVID, to the future of our economy and our workforce, we must maintain an emphasis on equity and inclusion in all its forms: racial equity, gender equity, and geographical and type of equity of the workers,” urged Lesser.
The report found a widening gulf between professional workers who are able to do their jobs in hybrid or fully remote environments, and frontline and service industry workers who have borne the economic strain of the pandemic. He also highlighted the need to support the basic requirements that allow many people to work, from child and elder care to housing, broadband and transportation.
Support for this report was provided by the Lumina Foundation.
get more stories like this by email
Labor groups are highlighting the critical role education support professionals play in Commonwealth public schools, and advocating for better pay and working conditions.
ESPs include paraeducators, custodial and maintenance workers, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, security officers, IT support workers, and more. The vast majority of ESPs earn less than $30,000 a year.
Yahaira Rodriguez, a paraeducator in Worcester, said many ESPs live in low-income housing or struggle to meet other basic needs.
“I have a bachelor’s degree,” he said. “Most of these educators are also very, very educated; they even have master’s degrees, bachelor’s degrees, associate degrees, and we’re not paying them what they deserve.”
The Massachusetts Teachers Association crafted what it calls the “ESP Bill of Rights” to demand a living wage, affordable health insurance, paid family and medical leave, job security, and recognition as educators, among other things. The ESP Bill of Rights also calls for an affordable way to get more education and pay off career-related debt.
Today and Saturday, the union is holding its annual ESP conference for professional development and networking.
“Sometimes it feels like a vicious cycle, not being able to get out of the trap of earning that unsustainable salary,” said Katie Monopoli, a paraprofessional in Shrewsbury with many other jobs in addition to attending graduate school in clinical mental health. health counseling specializing in dance-movement therapy. “So, I’m taking out loans, which causes a lot of anxiety, of course. Balancing all the jobs and also higher education seems like a lot.”
Many ESP contracts do not have auto-renewal language, 90-day probationary periods, or “just cause” protections against termination. During the pandemic, Rodríguez said, many ESPs lost their jobs.
“If we’re not there to help our autistic kids go to the bathroom, or we’re not there to support our English learners, who’s going to do the job? One person can’t do the job,” he said. “We have to do it collectively.”
Outreach: The Massachusetts Teachers Association contributes to our fund to inform policy and budget priorities, children’s issues, civic engagement, education. If you’d like to help support news in the public interest, click here.
get more stories like this by email
Education leaders from across the state are debating the merits of a bill to change the way schools are funded in California.
Senate Bill 830, introduced by State Superintendent of Schools Tony Thurmond, would stop the current system of funding schools based on average daily attendance (ADA) and count enrollment instead.
Erin Simon, assistant superintendent for school support services for the Long Beach Unified School District and president-elect of the California Association of School Administrators, said the current system penalizes low-income school districts where attendance is lower.
“Those districts are already receiving less money for a population that has more needs,” Simon said. “I think we have to do better.”
Experts attribute the lower attendance rates to things outside of the districts’ control, in neighborhoods where families face a lack of transportation or higher rates of asthma and, more recently, COVID. California is one of six states that uses an attendance-based formula.
Carrie Hahnel, senior director of policy and strategy at the nonprofit Opportunity Institute in Berkeley, said the debate over how to fund schools ignores the big picture.
“Making a switch from ADA to enrollment is not a solution to the declining enrollment crisis,” Hahnel argued. “It could provide a short-term Band-Aid for some school districts that are really feeling the fiscal pain that comes with lost enrollment.”
The State Department of Finance projects a 9% drop in enrollment between now and 2031, a drop of half a million students, a phenomenon linked to the high cost of living in the Golden State.
Julien Lafortune, a researcher at the Public Policy Institute of California, said Los Angeles has been hardest hit.
“(Los Angeles) County, for example, has seen a 12% drop over the last decade and is actually projecting an even larger decline, around 20%, over the next decade,” Lafortune noted.
He noted that parts of the Central Valley, Bay Area and Sacramento Valley, which have seen growth in recent years, are now projecting slight declines. Districts in the Sierras and the northern Sacramento Valley are projecting modest increases in enrollment.
get more stories like this by email
.
