Investing In Omaha's Children & Youth
The SRI Master Plan Study
May 22, 2007
By all measures, Omaha is a great place to live, work, and raise a family. Strong economic foundations and a competitive cost of living have produced a vibrant, diversified economy and a high quality of life for Omaha’s residents. Forbes ranked Omaha as the 11th best city for business and careers based on economic and quality of life factors, and Child magazine rated Omaha as one of the 15 best cities for families nationwide.
With strong prospects for growth in business investments and high-paying, high-tech jobs, Omaha’s government and business leaders view its youth as a vital economic asset—the human capital that will make Omaha prosperous and competitive in the global economy. Accordingly, community leaders are asking themselves whether Omaha is doing all that it can to maximize the potential of its youth.
Within this context, Mayor Mike Fahey and a group of concerned Omaha citizens, led by Richard Holland, Michael Yanney, Susie Buffett, Andy Holland, Wally and Barbara Weitz, Dianne Lozier, and Jerry and Cookie Hoberman, launched an initiative focused on improving academic performance, raising high school graduation rates, and rewarding every economically disadvantaged high school graduate in the Omaha Metropolitan Area with the financial means for an education after high school.
The first step was to commission SRI International to prepare a comprehensive catalogue of impediments to high achievement and high school graduation, inventory existing efforts and resources to support youth, and devise a broad-based plan that could bring together the entire community - public and private, business and labor, academic, and religious - in a common effort to transform the Omaha Metropolitan Area’s educational system into the best-performing one in the nation.
SRI Master Plan
Click here to download the 'Investing In Omaha's Clildren And Youth' Master Plan study by SRI International.
You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the document. If you do not have Acrobat Reader, you may download it for free by clicking here.
The goal of the study was to find out what more could be done to ensure that all Omaha youth receive the education, training, and support needed to enable and motivate them to seize economic opportunities and achieve a productive future.
The SRI Master Plan Study (which is available for downlod in its entirety using the PDF download link above) is the result of that work. It begins with an examination of the developmental pipeline of Omaha’s children and youth, the opportunities and the challenges and threats they face from the time they are born to the time they become productive citizens, and the cost to Omaha and the nation of letting youth fail. The second section highlights six areas where action is warranted - for each it defines the scope of the challenge, inventories key community resources, and suggests strategic priorities to address the challenge. The final section lays out a plan of action for implementing these strategic options. The first step in the implementation phase will be the formation of several Task Forces that bring together leaders in the different initiative areas to consider the strategic priorities laid out in this document, assess all the options, and make specific recommendations for actions to overcome the barriers facing Omaha’s youth.
Investing In Omaha's Children & Youth
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| Date | Subject | Posted by: |
|---|---|---|
| 05/24/2007 | I am so happy to see that Omaha's... | Frank Goldsmith |