business

Let's just say we could convene Minnesota's estimated 465,000 tax-paying businesses, representing nearly 2.7 million workers, and ask them about their economic future.

I believe two words would urgently be expressed: workforce preparedness.

Independent planners who study such things estimate that Minnesota employers will experience up to a 20 percent shortage of qualified workers by 2020 as a result of new job creation and the wholesale retirement of baby boomers. A migration of new, qualified young workers relocating here is not anticipated. In fact, as we grow older, Minnesota will likely lose population.

The achievement gap and poverty are well understood; business leaders know that nearly one-third of Minnesota's future workers are -- and have been for some time -- on a pathway that will prevent them from achieving economic self-sufficiency.

Right now, it looks as though some Minnesota businesses, however reluctantly, will have to relocate from the state to achieve their growth goals.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress has reported that almost two-thirds of Minnesota's fourth-graders and eighth-graders were "not proficient" in reading.

Businesses are coming to understand an eight-letter word that is the linchpin to turning the workforce preparedness circumstances around: L-I-T-E-R-A-C-Y. It may not be sexy. But the successful teaching of the age-old skills of reading and writing to very young children is what matter's most. "First you learn to read by third grade and then you read to learn after that," as the adage goes.

Business also understands only too well that its future is directly linked to reaching the so-called "at-risk" youngsters early enough that each one learns to read. But this is far easier said than done.

Among the obstacles is an education system that formally begins when a 5-year-old child enters kindergarten. Many business leaders are becoming familiar with the economic payback of early-childhood education. The Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank's economic studies have asserted that effective early-learning and school-readiness investments with pre-kindergarten children return $8 for every $1 in tax money invested. One key indicator of the success of this effort is if a child can read by third grade. Without achieving that milestone, businesses know that "workforce preparedness" does not happen.

Minnesota Reading Corps

A quiet, below-the-radar program that has thrown itself forcefully into the "literacy by third grade" effort is the Minnesota Reading Corps (MRC). The MRC strategies are designed exclusively for 3- and 4-year-olds and students in kindergarten through third grade -- called the "age 3 to grade three" demographic. The program, which serves only struggling young readers who are on a pathway to failure, places trained AmeriCorps members into public and private early childhood centers and school classrooms to implement a pioneering, research-based, early literacy program. The group offers its value-added literacy services only to those programs requesting it. The costs for the program are fully incurred by the MRC.

There is a science behind the whole thing, mostly developed in partnership with University of Minnesota experts. Such goals as phonemic awareness, phonics and fluency are emphasized. And I can tell you from firsthand experience, these young kids love being in the program, usually receiving 15 to 20 minutes of individual attention every day.

The MRC recently released its own report card, tabulating the results from the behind-the-reading-curve youngsters who were served in the 2008-09 school year. The group partnered with 165 schools, involving 362 AmeriCorps members.

The success rate has been impressive. Statewide, 74 percent of MRC students who were initially judged to be at significant risk passed the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment for reading. This compares to the overall average pass rate of 78 percent. In nearly half the school districts, 90 to 100 percent of the MRC kids made the grade. In the most challenging schools, the MRC pass rate exceeds the average. For each MRC child to learn to read last year, the Minnesota taxpayer cost was $114 (8,800 kids enrolled); this coming year it will be $98 (14,000 kids enrolled).

Two-year plans call for 1,000 AmeriCorps members to reach 25,000 eligible Minnesota youngsters. The current state appropriation of $2.8 million, combined with an anticipated $2.3 million in private funds raised, will leverage $17 million to support the growth.

The group is serious about "continuous improvement." With a long-term goal that calls for all MRC students to meet reading standards by third grade, the AmeriCorps members in the field and school staff at the sites are provided with ongoing coaching from literacy experts. AmeriCorps members work daily with students and, within a year, most students catch up. What's more, if a child meets grade level reading proficiency and then falls back, the youngster is automatically readmitted.

The MRC was begun in 2004 with a state grant of $150,000, as sponsored by Minnesota Department of Education Commissioner Alice Seagren when she served as Education Committee Chair in the Minnesota House.

Serve/Minnesota CEO, Audrey Suker, who oversees the MRC program, reports "with our success over the last five years, we are becoming a national model and we do have plans to take this to scale."

With an estimated 72,000 Minnesota kids between age 3 and grade three at risk, Suker notes, there is much more to do here in addressing the workforce preparedness solution.