World's Best Workforce Rationale

• What is the World's Best Workforce?
  The World’s Best Workforce bill was passed in 2013 to ensure every school district in the state is making strides to increase student performance. Each district must develop a plan that addresses the following five goals:
• All children are ready for school.
• All third-graders can read at grade level.
• All racial and economic achievement gaps between students are closed.
• All students are ready for career and college.
• All students graduate from high school.
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  How do we report our World’s Best Workforce and Achievement & Integration plan?
  Under Minnesota Statutes, section 120B.11, school districts develop a World’s Best Workforce Annual Report and report summary for each school year. This summary documents the WBWF student achievement goals that were established the previous year, the strategies and initiatives the district engaged in to meet the goals, and the subsequent progress made on those goals by the end of the school year. Districts post their reports on their district website, and submit the summary report to the MN Department of Education each year. 
• (Source: http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/dse/wbwf/
   
  Why is Minnesota focused on this idea?
  According to MDE, in order for Minnesota to be competitive, we must have students who are college and career ready and students who are poised to lead the state’s workforce. This is important for a number of reasons:
• Our population is aging.
• Seventy percent (70%) of jobs require more than a high school diploma.
• We don’t have qualified candidates to fill many good-paying jobs.
• The fastest growing segment of our future workforce is students of color, and they currently have the state’s lowest graduation rate.
• Minnesota has one of the worst black-white achievement gaps in the country.