High Level Thinking

Dr. Tom Ryan, the former Chief Information Officer for Albuquerque Public Schools is pioneering education reform from within the system, moving into 2012 as a lead education strategist for Innovate+Educate.  Education 360 emphasizes a blended learning model where students have access to highly qualified teachers and learning resources 24/7.  The results have been incredibly positive. Three years ago the initial school, eCademy started with 40 students under the new model. Today eCademy serves over 2,000.  All of these students have failed in the traditional system. This past summer students had a 93% passing rate in classes they had previously failed.  

Jami Grindatto of Intel Corporation is dedicated to showing the critical role industry has to play in working with education to prepare the future workforce.  Despite a national unemployment rate of 9% nearly 52% of employers surveyed in a recent Manpower study reported having difficultly filling open positions because candidates lack the skills needed to do the job.  As a high-tech leader, Intel understands the need to solve our national skills-gap crisis and find a way to create more STEM-trained workers.

Innovate+Educate believes that more meaningful collaboration at the state level between industry, education, philanthropy and state-level government is critical to addressing the issues we face in education and workforce.  Only by aligning industry and public dollars we can begin to transform education and produce a qualified workforce.    Industry must focus on their ROI and how they can make their investments meaningful for the transformation required.

2012 will continue the work that began in New Mexico and is now scaling to other states, bringing together meaningful industry partnerships with the leadership in States.