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We are continually confronted by the myth that there are lots of good-paying jobs that don't require higher education. "Not everyone should go to college," people claim. While that's true on a personal level--not every person will benefit from college, and people find fulfillment on the job in a myriad of ways--on a community level, it's a dangerous message. The…

This post is about what good-paying jobs focused economic development should look like. About what it takes to grow, retain and attract high-wage jobs. It draws lessons Michigan can learn about winning in the 21st Century from our posts on Austin, Denver and Northern Virginia. Clearly economic development is just one component of state and regional economic policy and programming.…

Northern Virginia quite literally won economically in the 21st Century when Amazon chose them as the location for one of two HQ2s. Winning what was described by pundits as the Super Bowl of economic development competitions. HQ2 brings to Northern Virginia a commitment for 25,000 jobs with an average salary of $150,000. (Amazon also chose New York City as the…

If you ask students and families what they want from education, what do they say--and is our system providing that? Godfrey-Lee Public Schools is a district on the west side of Michigan that we've talked about before. They adopted the 6Cs (from Becoming Brilliant) as their framework for learning as the result of a human-centered design process that investigated the…