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Recently I’ve been smacked three times with the notion of accountability and forced to ask myself the questions: Who is accountable? What is the people’s role? Reading the Naples Daily News on vacation in “Southern Ohio” I saw under the headline: “… schools stand to loose accreditation”, I learn that Ms. XXX YYY, Executive Director of Accountability for the Florida Schools, the power to take away the district’s accreditation. Reminded me of the Ohio Grantmaker’s Forum even in the winter where John Zitzner of E-City stood up and asked “who in Ohio is accountable for every student in Ohio graduating from High School?” I ask, who is accountable in Ohio? Do titles matter? Can government hold itself accountable?Situation 2: I’m in a meeting this week about a regional talent framework in Northeast Ohio and discussing who should lead, what role do our state partners have and the like. The concept is thrown out that business should lead as business is the largest consumer of the workforce system. Right – business is the largest consumer of the workforce system. People are the workforce. I ask, “Who do people hold accountable for their lifelong learning opportunities so that they have lifelong employability? I ask if people can hold business and government accountable for creating opportunities for lifelong learning and lifelong employability? I ask how do people hold others accountable?Situation 3: And to build on that thought, I got an email this week reminding me of a 10-year old Brookings Institution report on Reinventing Government. An excerpt from the report goes like this: “Reinventing government has often been presented as a revolution in government management. In truth it is less a revolutionary than an evolutionary movement. To its great credit, reinventing government has evolved to the point that it has recognized the central dilemma: redefining accountability for performance in the many programs where government’s partners share responsibility for performance.” I ask, what is our opportunity as people, to redefine how people hold others accountable.
Currently, government and business are hard at work to reform the state’s workforce system. The Fund for Our Economic Future is helping to convene business and workforce and government leaders on a regional basis to ensure a regional strategy with local, industry-led solutions emerge.
We know that people are the holders of accountability. Where are the people in the dialogue about workforce on a regional level? How should we convene?
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