We Mean Business. Illinois Business.
 
 

Business and education team up to encourage kids to Finish First
By ALAN J. ORTBALS

   Three out of four state prison inmates did not earn a high school diploma.

   Adults in Illinois without a high school diploma are nearly four times more likely to be poor.

   People living in poverty are at a much higher risk for poor health because of no health insurance, living in substandard housing and teen pregnancy and infant mortality.

   According to Vicki Stewart, president and chief executive officer of Vermilion Advantage, these are some of the realities that spawned a program called Finish First administered by the Vermilion Advantage in Danville, Ill.

   Vermilion Advantage is a nonprofit organization that was born in July of 2002 as Vermilion County's economic development, chamber and workforce development offices all came together under one legal entity.

   Stewart said Finish First came out of discussions between the economic development team and area businesses.

   "We have a very aggressive existing business program and it didn't matter who you talked to - quality of workforce, availability of workforce, do they have the skills you need - were foremost in the discussions," Stewart said. "We felt that it was probably one of the single most effective things that we could do."

   Finish First is one of several components associated with the Advantages Workforce Clusters program. All together there are about 70 businesses involved in three workforce clusters: manufacturing/logistics, healthcare and technology/services.

   The clusters focus on working with the K-16 educational system to promote career education. It's a multi-media effort that gets businesses involved in education as early as the third grade.

   According to Stewart, Finish First focuses on keeping kids in school in order to decrease the dropout rate and thereby improve the graduation rate.

   "It pulls all kinds of businesses together from McDonald's to the hospital to key manufacturers and everything in between," she said.

   There are two tiers of membership. Tier 1 employers agree to require all applicants to have a minimum of a high school diploma or GED certificate as a basis to employment.

   Tier 2 employers will hire high school dropouts, but only with the stipulation that they will get their GED certificate.

   "They negotiate with the employee depending on the life circumstances," Stewart said. "If it's a single mom with three kids or something and time is going to be an issue, they'll negotiate what timeframe is reasonable - six months, a year, do they need help with child care, what are the circumstances."

   Generally the employer pays for the test, said Stewart. There's no charge for the course. There are several different satellite locations.

   "It's been a way to raise the bar to hire someone who doesn't meet the standards but to say to them, 'This is important for you and it's important for me and you need to agree to do this,'" she said.

   Business participants in Finish First also agree to require a high school transcript if that is the last formal education that an applicant has achieved.

   "The schools really like this," Stewart said. "It's a hammer for them to say, 'Your discipline, your attendance and how hard you worked on classes - everything goes on there.' It's a blueprint of the pattern you set for yourself. Students know that and the word has really gotten around."

   Marketing is a major component of the program. Participating businesses chip in a total of about $100,000 a year to support it.

   "We've produced television ads that have been written by students," Stewart said. "We put them on MTV. We have posters that go out into the schools that feature local grads who had to work to get through high school and now they're either on their road in a community college - or they have a very good job and they're working their way up, or they may even be enrolled in a four year college program. But it wasn't just handed to them. They had to make the effort to accomplish whatever they're doing. They act as a testimonial on how making that first milestone of graduating from high school was such an important part of leading them to where they are now. They're stories of local people who kids know, so it's a motivator from that perspective," she added.

   The other side of the program deals with the incumbent workforce.

   "We try to send the message out that it's really important for every adult, no matter how old they are. Every adult is a role model for some child somewhere," Stewart said. "They need to send a message that it's important to go back and get their GED."

   Vermilion Advantage produces posters that are placed in the workplace.

   "The posters feature local people whose stories tear at your heartstrings," said Stewart. "These are people who have overcome such incredible challenges and barriers in their lives. They've ultimately pulled themselves out of the doldrums. And most of them that we have found have not only gone on and gotten their GED, but they've gotten their associate's or bachelor's, and in a couple of cases, a PhD."

   Vermilion's most recent poster features a local attorney.

   "As he put it," Stewart said, "until he was 20 years old he never made a good decision in his life. Then he figured out he had better change his ways. It's to show the incumbent workforce that it's never too late - that lifelong learning is here with us to stay, and it's part of the process."

   The program is just in its fourth year and already is showing success, but any percentage dropout rate is unacceptable to Stewart.

   "Most kids drop out because they've lost interest in education," she said. "They think it has no value. They'll just go get a job and make money and life will be great. But obviously, it's not quite that simple."