Author: Ile Strategies

Policy Insights – Addressing The Health and Climate Crises Requires Fixing STEM Education

Local Economies

STEM Education in the US

The United States seeks to expand tech competitiveness through a number of policy measures and fund allocations in the coming decades. However these measures, from our analysis, does little to address the challenges of those who largely comprise our future workforce, including current middle, high school and college students attending public schools. Millions of students across the country live in what has been termed STEM deserts  –  lack of tech access, meaningful STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education and face increasing tech-driven marginalization. 

More important than our quest for tech dominance is having students well-equipped for work in STEM fields to avoid workforce deficiencies in numerous sectors important to citizens’ wellbeing such as health care, climate change resilience and cybersecurity.  

These challenges exist in a school system that was not designed to promote equitable opportunities and outcomes. 

The existence of STEM deserts is a critical equity issue in education and overall economic wellbeing, particularly for students in urban and rural communities, where access to high-level math and science courses are often out of reach. A small percentage of schools across the country offer computer science instructors and well-equipped technology labs required for adequate instruction. The pandemic and the need for remote learning revealed the staggering number of students who have limited access to secure and consistent broadband and personal computing devices. These challenges exist in a school system “that was not designed to promote equitable opportunities and outcomes”, as stated by Pamela Cantor, AFT.  

Soon, the impact of students learning STEM deserts and inadequate school environments will not only be reflected in those students’ high school and college completion rates and career prospects, but it will also take a toll on the country’s economic competitiveness technological leadership and national security.

Policy Insights : US Innovation of Competition Act of 2021

The US Senate recently passed the US innovation and competition Act of 2021 a $250 billion bill focused on investments in the technology sector with the aim of bolstering the country’s global competitiveness in advanced technological development. The bill also provides directive for an overhaul of the National Science Foundation a federal agency that promotes and advances scientific research.   Though a quarter of trillion in US-backed tech investment is nothing to sneeze at, China’s  investments far exceeds that of the US. China has a massive plan to surpass the US as a premier tech producer 2050. According to an analysis by the FBI, China allocated 15% of its gross domestic product on improving human resources from 2008 to 2020. China has already exceeded many strategic priorities for recruitment in foreign talent and state-backed venture capital investments. Comparatively the US innovation and competition Act of 2021  is a drop in the bucket representing a little over 1% of US GDP. 

Investment in developing and recruiting STEM must include significantly more funding and investments in education and technology access for all citizens. 17 million Americans lack access to broadband technology. And millions more are “under-connected” with limited access to devices or unreliable broadband access. According to a report by New America the majority of students learning remotely this year experienced disruptions in their education due to being under-connected. More than half (53 percent) of remote students experienced one of these type disruptions at some point during the past year.

Fund allocations should include support and rewards for entities working to improve equity in STEM education access, including local and state government agencies, community-based organizations and small businesses.

As explained in a 2019 Code.org Advocacy Coalition report: in most states, computer science is a new subject. In order to make computer science a fundamental part of the education system, states will need to create roadmaps to address a number of policy and implementation issues.  Having articulated goals for computer science education and strategies will be key. Equitable access to K–12 culturally-relevant and affirming computer science education must be at the foundation of our states’ plans. 

Computer science education is crucial for processing vasts amounts of data that will contribute to greater understanding and monitoring of pandemics, climate change and resiliency measures, cybersecurity among other important societal issues. 

Boosting Public Investments in Holistic STEM Education

 If our gaps in STEM education are left unaddressed, we will continue to exclude entire populations from this fast-growing field and miss out on the innovations and contributions that diversity promotes.

While academics continuously conduct advocacy and research around high quality STEM education access efforts to to date lack engagement of parents and communities. Students’ communities are the the environment in which students live, play and socialize. These environments play a major role in student success in STEM learning. Community-based organizations have a large role to play here. They are on the frontlines of filling gaps in public services. They provide safe spaces for children after school, with homework and tutoring support. They connect families job training and social benefits.  While there are some successful partnerships between schools and CBOs providing supplemental tech training, these relationships are not institutionalized and lack sustainable funding needed for such collaborations. 

School environments are typically staff-centered with minimal community engagement. Culturally-relevant and affirming curricula is frowned upon (i.e the highly politicized debate around critical race theory). Test scores rule with little attention to whether students retain and apply knowledge. Schools have limited capacity and time for student engagement, but are often giving the green light to out-source admin and “innovative” learning projects to external corporate contractors. Students and teachers who fall out of line with this model are punished. Black children in particular suffer greatly under this model.  

As Pamela Cantor poignantly outlines a framework to guide the transformation of learning settings for children and adolescents in the Fall 2021 issue of AFT’s magazine to create holistic environments for learning that centers students’ experiences and communities. Cantor sites guiding principles such as positive developmental relationships, environments filled with safety and belonging, rich learning experiences and knowledge development, development of skills, habits and mindsets and integrated support systems. 

Applying these principles in a STEM classroom would require student-centered teaching using inquiry and project based learning in classrooms and in enrichment programs in their communities. In lieu of test scores, knowledge proficiency could be measured using frameworks such as Funds of Knowledge and Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences which personalizes learning. Finally local community organizations and small businesses would be engaged in providing additional coaching, mentoring, safe spaces to study and apprenticeships. 

A Note on the Infrastructure Bill and the Build Back Better Act  

At the time of this post, the $1.75 trillion infrastructure bill that President Biden hopes to get through Congress is supposed to expand job creation and generate opportunities across many industries. It also includes efforts to expand access to broadband for communities with limited or no connectivity. The paradox here is that among the industries to be tapped to complete this work (namely construction and tech workers), there is a labor crisis due to the rapidly dwindling workforce to complete the work outlined in the bill. 

The Build Back Better Act according to the House Committee Education and Labor highlights many key areas of social support for working families. And while it addresses much needed funding for preschool and higher education there is limited fund allocation for K-12 education and STEM education. 

We will continue to update this post as these details unfold. Are you an educator, advocate, tech worker or small business? Email us and share your perspective.

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References:

US News. The US Must Address Disparities in Access to STEM Education. (2017)

US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs

Staff Report: Threats to the US Research Enterprise: China’s Talent Recruitment Program

Advocacy.org 2019 State of Computer Science

Cantor, Pamela, MD All Children Thriving: A new purpose for education. AFT, American Educator, A Journal of Educational Equity, Research and Ideas,  Fall 2021

Build Back Better Act Education and Labor Committee Provisions. November 2021. https://edlabor.house.gov/imo/media/doc/2021-11-03%20Ed%20&%20Labor%20BBB%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf

 

 

We Need Business Cooperatives Now More Than Ever – A Slideshow

Local Economies

Data published by the Small Business Administration (SBA) late last year revealed that more than half of PPP funding went to just five percent of recipients. As reported in the New York Times a quarter of the dollars disbursed went to the top one percent despite the $349 billion program’s aim to ease some of the financial burden for the nation’s smallest businesses.

Public policy drives wealth in the United States. Business cooperatives are proven models for lifting up and sustaining marginalized communities during crisis. In our featured slideshow we highlight the economics of cooperatives, the role of public policy in wealth inequality and how shifts in public funding can expand access to collective economies for those who need it most. 

The post below has been presented to corporate and community-based leaders with aim of expanding understanding of cooperatives and their role in the global economy. 

How does the current economic crisis fit into historic context (i.e. the Great Recession) and what will be the long-lasting economic consequences for everyday citizens.  – Brookings Report July 2020

In the USA and overseas, cooperatives have excellent track record of economic resilience and success that should be targeted for public and private funding and procurement opportunities.

5 Pillars of Capacity Building

Strategic Planning

Capacity-building strategies facilitate the development of organizational infrastructure and assets needed to efficiently and effectively advance an organization’s mission long-term. Capacity building is not a short-term process. It is future-focused and ensures the organization can continue to generate social value and produce positive community outcomes well into the future. 

Capacity-building efforts can include the following five focus areas: 

Personnel development which equips all members of the team with the training and resources needed to complete their tasks. Building team capacity also includes leadership succession planning to explore the organization’s future needs and begin mapping out a strategy to prepare current staff or recruit new staff to fulfill these roles. 

Technological development ensures that the organization has access to the hardware and software available to serve their community, measure program impact, and report the results through multiple channels of communication. 

Community engagement can be a powerful, multi-faceted capacity-building tool to ensure that the organization maximizes social and human capital. Often nonprofit leaders overlook untapped talent in our communities such as senior residents with valuable knowledge and life experience or professionals that offer quality pro bono services. Community engagement can also create a future board or workforce pipeline and create opportunities for grooming future leaders and team members of the organization.

Board development can ensure that each board member has a specific role that is clearly defined and aligned with their talent, resources, and interests. Each board member should have a performance rubric for tracking and progress reports. 

Finally, as the pandemic and other recent crises have demonstrated, capacity building strategies must include disaster resilience.  Any organization serving vulnerable populations such as low-income families, seniors, or special needs communities should assess organizations capacity scenarios during pandemics, cyberattacks and natural disaster emergency operations. This preparation might include using your facilities as a shelter or staging area for emergency personnel, preparing non-perishable foods for distribution or purchasing generators or solar panels as back up during power failures. Obtain access to multiple buildings and vehicles across a wide radius in case your main facilities are inundated or compromised during a significant storm event or other natural disaster. Coordinate with other organizations, businesses, and building owners in the area to ensure access to multiple locations for sheltering displaced populations and for, storing and staging food.

Based on our experience, these are five of the essential capacity building focus areas that organizations must consider. Depending on your organization -the people you, serve as well as emerging trends in politics and demographics – there may be variations on the strategies presented here. 

Capacity building efforts should begin with a meeting with your team, your core constituency and key stakeholders to discuss concerns about the present and future needs of your community.

 

Entrepreneurs and Local Economies

Local Economies

 

Entrepreneurs and Local Economies 

Several years ago, one of our co-founders, Anasa Laude, had the unique opportunity of collaborating on a project with Professor and Entrepreneur, Ray Garcia, and his colleagues at the University of Pisa focused on promoting entrepreneurship among students in Italy. The project resulted in a publication of articles written by educators and entrepreneurs, including myself, as well as video lectures and case studies.

Entrepreneurship can be a viable vehicle for social and economic mobility for traditionally marginalized groups. Often, when we hear the term entrepreneurship, we tend to think of the Zuckerbergs and Gates of the world. However, entrepreneurs come in many shapes and sizes. Beyond the titans of the social media industry, there are everyday men and women providing goods and services in our neighborhoods – the hair braiding shop, the restaurant, the tailor, and the corner store.

These enterprising individuals help create viable local economies. They provide local jobs, creating opportunities for groups who often struggle to find work such as ex-convicts and new immigrants. In addition, business owners contribute to local tax revenue and add to the vibrancy and safety of their blocks.

They are neighborhood anchors upon which culture and traditions are created – the safe, fun pizzeria for kids to gather after school, the buffet where families celebrate birthdays, the food truck line where colleagues catch up, or the bodega that serves as a rallying point during emergencies.

Launching and running a small business is not without its challenges. The hours can be grueling, capital for start-up costs, and ongoing operations are not always readily available. Also, ebbs in the external economy impact disposable income and consumer spending. These issues create a situation wherein businesses are often unable to predict revenue and cash flow – money needed to pay employees, purchase supplies, and inventory while keeping food on their tables.

Mitigating the vulnerabilities of small businesses requires continued public support in addition to deeper tax breaks for lower-income entrepreneurs. In the USA, though limited, there are grants and low-cost loans for small businesses administered through philanthropic institutions and government agencies. When and where they occur, these public investments have tremendous social and economic returns for neighborhoods as a whole.

In Fall 2018, ILE Consulting Group launched an economic initiative in Harlem. We facilitated a series of focus groups and workshops with residents, business owners, nonprofit organizations, and elected officials. Participants shared their concerns, their dreams for their neighborhoods, and the role they want to play in expanding economic opportunities for future generations. Drawing from these discussions, ILE Consulting Group designed an economic initiative. We will be sharing more about this work in the coming months.

Below is a link to the book I referenced earlier, entitled Startup Social Dynamics. To make it widely accessible for educators and NGOs, it is available free as a PDF. Take a look, let us know what you think. #

 

 

A Recruitment Plan for Uncertain Times

Resources

For most organizations, recruiting the right leader is a grueling process. A poorly designed recruitment process will yield applicants that aren’t the right fit and prone to turnover if hired. Making the wrong choices can be very expensive and time consuming. Not to mention the headache and stress of having to manage the termination process. 

The average cost of firing and replacing nonprofit executives is 10%-20% of the annual salary or the position or $10,000 -$50,000. Yikes! This cost includes losses in productivity, loss of contracts, staff time, hiring expensive consultants to fill gaps and recruitment, hiring and onboarding costs. If you run a small to midsize nonprofit organizations this cost represents a large portion of the operations budget. Having to repeat this process within a short time frame can deal a huge blow to your budget. 

Beyond finding the right fit in this moment, our team at ILE urges leaders to recruit with the future in mind. This includes hiring candidates that will expand organization capacity long-term by bringing new competencies, skills and industry connections, while demonstrating potential for future leadership succession -you also want to ensure that the candidate will stick around long enough to see all of this to fruition. 

To ease the process for leaders immersed in recruitment, ILE has created a series of worksheets that can be used to design effective and efficient recruitment strategy and processes.

Below, we’ve shared one of our worksheet that outlines competencies and corresponding behaviors. 

We suggest selection committees focus on specific behaviors and outcomes when evaluating candidates’ stated competencies. For instance have candidates describe examples of how they have demonstrated any competence or skill listed on their resume and the specific successes and outcomes yielded as a result of their actions.

Selection committees can use this worksheet to rank the top competencies required for short- and long-term goals; develop job postings, generate interview questions and questions for references. 

Our list of competencies is not exhaustive nor ordered. So use this worksheet as a reference. Share it with your team, constituents and stakeholders. Add additional rows and rank  competencies and behaviors based on order of importance for your organization and your community. Use the last column to evaluate the candidate on each competency and relevant behavior. You may decide to edit a few sections to suit your organization’s needs. 

Competencies

Behaviors

Rank Top Skills & Explanation

(Complete this section for each candidate) 

Critical Thinking

Connecting the dots, consistent reflection, applies data and knowledge in the right context.

  

Talent Management and Development

Efforts result in good hiring and retention outcomes.Onboard, train and directly coach and mentor personnel or effectively assigns mentorship. 

Keep inventory of expertise and skills, effectively and efficiently delegates responsibilities, able to evaluate personnel performance and provide guidance on professional development.

  

Communication

Manage the production of internal reports for staff and stakeholders. Can produce publications and presentations for diverse audiences (clients, stakeholders, general public, founders).Communication promotes/reinforces organization brand and vision.

  

Organizational Skills

Plan, prepare and prioritize day to day operations and special projects. Anticipate problems and preemptively develop solutions.

  

Quantitative skills

Benchmark and quantify operations and program issues. Can balance the use of qualitative and quantitative data.

  

Technology

Direct or train staff on technology needs. Establish policies on the appropriate use of software applications. Proficient in three or more software applications commonly used by nonprofits for productivity, project management, database management, web content management or social media.

  

Regulatory processes/compliance

Direct and manage staff and consultants in completing reports for fund and contract compliance, state and federal reporting and filings.

  

Information Management

Direct and establish procedures for compiling and safeguarding, distributing and deleting organization information, files and artifacts.

  

Creativity

Marshall resources toward their most productive use. Foresee and plan for the future. Effectively communicates vision and successfully oversees its implementation. Demonstrates agility, converts challenges to opportunities.

  

Growth Mindset

Embraces challenges. Focuses on amplifying assets within a community or organization to overshadow and mitigate deficiencies.

  

Systems Thinking

Maps internal and external systems and the interplay between the two. Maps systems interaction and impact on organizational practices, people, policies and vice versa.

  

Change management

Manage culture shift (behaviors, practices, rewards and repercussions) required to facilitate change. Establish benchmarks and metrics to track progress and impact.

  

Collaboration

Practices shared leadership, shares decision making with others. Values diverse voices. Seeks consensus and compromise wherever possible.

  

Personal Growth

Practices reflection and personal goal setting, constantly pursues formal and informal professional development. Pursues coaching and mentoring. Effective at work-life balance.