Stakeholder Council

In January 2008, Education's Next Horizon convened its first Stakeholder Council, comprised of education, government, and business leaders dedicated to studying key education issues. The stakeholder council was tasked with developing recommendations for board consideration related to state policy change or new state initiatives. The Council chartered three workgroups: Bridging the Skills Gap, Early Childhood Education, and Preparing Students to Graduate. The latter led to the creation of Louisiana's Promise as a statewide initiative on dropout prevention. Recommendations of the Stakeholder Council were released in March 2009 through the publication, Framing the Debate for Systemwide Reform. That month, the Stakeholder Council and Board of Directors reconvened and voted to make the following recommendations top priority.

Early Childhood Recommendations:

• Implement a recommended definition of "school readiness" for children, families, schools, communities, and stakeholders with specific performance expectations and benchmarks.
• Develop a "scorecard" of school readiness.
• The school readiness definition recommended by the Stakeholder Council is being used by the State Department of Education as a foundation for the development of a comprehensive literacy plan for Birth-4 year olds. A definition for “kindergarten readiness” was adopted by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education in January 2011. Our work continues in advocating broad-based support and implementation of the definition.

The workgroup had numerous follow-up meetings to discuss ways to build consensus on the school readiness definition among key stakeholders, including the Governor, the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, Head Start Programs, Louisiana Department of Education, Picard Center for Child Development, Louisiana Department of Social Services, childcare providers, early childhood education coordinators, school superintendents, and other stakeholders. In May 2010, the Picard Center for Child Development released its "Defining School Readiness Survey" as a first step toward gaining broad-based public support and endorsement of a common definition of school readiness.

Bridging the Skills Gap Recommendations:

• Develop key messages and identify appropriate communication mechanisms for a statewide multi-agency communication initiative that informs parents and students about the value of education and about job growth trends, skills demand, career options, and postsecondary opportunities.
• Align career and technical education with high demand jobs by revamping the occupational forecasting conference and aligning Career and Technical Education with forecasted regional job demand.
• Expand the utilization of LA ePortal.
• The plan was later presented to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and submitted to the Board of Regents. Our work continues in advocating that students, parents, and teachers be better informed about postsecondary and career options.

Education's Next Horizon facilitated follow-up planning meetings with key stakeholders to develop strategies to move these recommendations forward and assist in their implementation. The work of the Bridging the Skills Gap Communication Team culminated in the development of a communication plan put forth in its final report, "Bridging the Skills Gap Communication Plan."