Connecting Workforce Development, Education and Economic Development Through ClusterBased and Career

1
Connecting Workforce Development, Education and
Economic Development Through Cluster-Based and
Career Mapping Strategies

• The National Association of State Workforce Board
  Chairs
• August 25, 2003
• New York City

2
Presentation Objectives

• Provide an Overview of Career Clusters.
• Provide an Overview of Economic Clusters.
• Discuss how we can strengthen the connection
  between Career Clusters and Economic Clusters

3
Overview

• Career Clusters

4
Career Technical Education Connects to

• Education Reform
• Workforce Development
• Economic Development

5
Career Clusters Definition

• Career Clusters represent a grouping of
  occupations and broad industries based on
  commonalities.

6
Career Clusters Titles

• Agriculture, Food Natural Resources
• Architecture Construction
• Arts, Audio/Video Technology Communications
• Business, Management Administration
• Education Training
• Finance
• Government Public Administration
• Health Science

• Hospitality Tourism
• Human Services
• Information Technology
• Law, Public Safety Security
• Manufacturing
• Marketing, Sales Service
• Science, Technology, Engineering Mathematics
• Transportation, Distribution Logistics

7
Career Clusters Model

• Organizes the occupations, within each cluster,
  into pathways that group the cluster occupations
  based on commonalities.

8
Career Clusters Purposes

• The 16 Career Clusters are an organizing tool
  for schools to offer a broader, more durable
  preparation for the world of work.

9
Career Clusters Purposes

• Establishes a common language a common
  framework for conversation between education,
  employers and government
• Provides better information about careers for
  parents and students, thus better alignment
  between the jobs we have and the workers we have

10
Career Clusters Purposes

• Vehicle for improving CTE
• Alignment to the needs of the workforce
• Improved and expanded program areas
• Identifies academic, technical employability
  skills for a well-prepared, qualified workforce
  for employers
• Cross-training, re-tooling and retraining the
  workforce
• Preparation of the emerging workforce

11
Career Clusters Advisory Committee

• Membership includes more than 300 members on the
  11 advisory committees.
• Membership includes business and industry,
  associations, government agencies, labor and
  secondary and postsecondary educators.
• Membership is broad-based in terms of geographic
  location.
• Membership reflects occupations within each of
  the pathways.
• Membership is responsible for material
  development.

12
Status of Implementation

• Broad awareness
• Alignment of state clusters to 16 clusters
• Statewide implementation
• Local implementation
• Use in program approval
• Use in broader high school efforts

13
Overview

• Economic Clusters

14
Defining Clusters

• Geographically bounded concentration of similar,
  related or complementary businesses, with active
  channels for business transactions,
  communications and dialogue
• Share specialized infrastructure, labor markets
  and services
• Faced with common opportunities and threats
• Source NGA Governors Guide to Cluster-based
  Economic
• Development

15
Why Economic Clusters?

• States should build sustainable competitive
  advantages for economic development.
• Concentration, or clustering, gives businesses an
  advantage over more isolated competitors
• Access to more suppliers and customized support
  services
• Access to experienced and skilled labor pools
• Access to innovation, knowledge and
• know-how

16
Types of Economic Clusters

• Sector-Centered
• Healthcare
• Information Technology
• Advanced Manufacturing
• Transportation, Distribution and Logistics
• Science/Technology-Centered
• Biotechnology
• Product-Centered
• Wine cluster
• Furniture cluster

17
Career Clusters and Economic Clusters

• Making the Connections

18
Why Make Connections?

• Economic cluster growth and development depends
  on a globally competitive, specialized, and
  highly agile labor force at all levels in 21st
  century workplaces (See Figure 1)
• Skill breadth and depth
• Economic cluster systems knowledge to work
  effectively in extended enterprises and
  customer-supplier networks
• Entrepreneurial and agile
• Vertical and horizontal career mobility

19
Figure 1 Work and Careers in 21st Century
Workplaces

From To  Management

Centralized Decentralized
Functions
Separated Shared  
Professional/Technical
Centralized Decentralized Knowledge

Specialized Integrated

Some Workers All Workers   Work
Design
Jobs Functional/


Cross-functional Teams   Organizational Structure
Vertical
Customer-Supplier
Hierarchies
Networks   Employee
Job Task
Work Unit Performance Responsibility
Performance
Business Process Management   Career Progression
Vertical
Vertical and Horizontal

Limited Range Full Range Source
Adapted from Schray and Sheets (2002)
20
Why Make Connections? (cont.)

• Provides a broader, more durable foundation for
  building public-private partnerships and engaging
  business and industry
• Engage business and industry leadership
• Manage curriculum integration and change
• Provides a better context for addressing
• All aspects of industry
• Career development
• High-level academic integration
• Secondary/postsecondary alignment
• Coordination with workforce development (e.g.,
  career advancement projects)

21
How Do We Make Connections?

• Coordinate Economic/Career Cluster Initiatives
• Business and industry leadership
• Interagency teams
• Statewide and regional coordination
• Build career cluster curriculum frameworks to
  support economic clusters
• FoundationSystems addresses all aspects
• PathwaysFocus on managing critical business
  functions and end-to-end processes (Figures 2
  and 3)
• SpecialtiesFocus on occupations most critical to
  competitiveness of cluster

22
Figure 2 Level and Scope of Cluster Foundation
and Pathway Curriculum Content
  Scope of Application
23
Figure 3 Addressing Complete Functions and
End-to-End Processes (e.g., product realization,
software development life cycle)
  Occupational Roles
24
Connections Recommendations

• Address the missing link in states--Align
  economic and career clusters
• Coordinate cluster initiatives
• Economic development
• Workforce development
• Career and technical education
• Build career cluster curriculum frameworks to
  support economic clusters and provide broad-based
  career opportunities

25
Contact Information

• Career Clusters
• www.careerclusters.org
• Kimberly Green
• 202.737.0303
• kgreen_at_careertech.org
• Pam Stacey
• 405.743.6850
• pstac_at_okcareertech.org

• Economic Clusters
• A Governors Guide to Cluster-Based Economic
  Development http//www.nga.org/center/divisions/1
  ,1188,C_ISSUE_BRIEF5ED_4063,00.html
• Bob Sheets
• 630.505.4100 ext.229
• rsheets_at_niu.edu