Former Bucyrus CEO Tim Sullivan has long championed worker training as a key issue for growing Wisconsin’s economy.
Now, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, he is “drafting set of recommendations that will change how Wisconsin allocates hundreds of millions of dollars each year in federal job training funds and simultaneously reform the state’s education system.”
“It’s a big task with a lot of moving parts,” he told the newspaper.
Is it ever.
One key part of Sullivan’s work is taking a fresh look at high school curriculum, better matching student skills with companies’ needs — something that I know the South Milwaukee School District is already focused on as part of its long-range planning process. From the newspaper:
He cited a study by Georgetown University that found that Wisconsin will need an estimated 925,000 skilled workers by 2018 just to replace those on the verge of retiring or meet the creation of new jobs. At least 588,000 of those jobs will require a minimum of a two-year technical training degree.
But the state’s schools don’t produce those numbers – which is all the more troublesome in a state that leads the nation in per-capita manufacturing employment, Sullivan said. Starting in the 1980s, many high schools discontinued shop classes, industrial arts, and trade and technical schools. Educators, parents and students focused on curriculum that prepared students for four-year college degrees, even though a degree in the humanities will not land anyone a job on a production line, he said.
That will require a new approach to the way high schools structure their curriculum. It also means a renewed educational push in grade school to supply high schools with students that have basic math and reading skills.
South Milwaukee Blog 
As to Mr. Sullivan’s comments, yes. All this and more!
Memo to Mr. Sullivan:
I need you to stand up when your party slashes funding for tech schools and K-12 schools. You voice was silent when the State budget was being written.
In hard times past we found a way to buy oil for the engine; we did not eat the seeds. Schools are the engines. Our children are the seed. Our grandparents found a way to fund schools in hard times. So can we. Stand up. Great nations are built on bedrock. Our bedrock is our schools, our children. We will do this.
The key is to spend money wisely and not be slaves to teachers’ union demands. The governor and legislators have done just that, bringing benefits in line with private businesses, giving districts more flexibility (assuming they choose to utilize it).