Daily Lumina News 030221

As technology and artificial intelligence bring sweeping changes to the modern workplace, workers must develop their knowledge, skills, and abilities for human work throughout their lives and careers.
At the same time, the nation needs to expand its capability to meet adult learners at different stages of their lifetime learning—whether mature adults or ambitious 20-somethings. Programs designed to serve such students will play an increasingly vital role in preparing people for “human work”—the work that machines will never be able to do.

There are more people sentenced to prison for life than the entire prison population in the early 1970s, according to a 2018 report by the Sentencing Project. That’s one in seven prisoners—more than 206,000 people.
And yet this sprawling population is often left out of conversations about prison education—and sometimes barred from programs altogether. Advocates like Jule Hall argue that educating students with life sentences doesn’t just benefit them but their entire prison populations because lifers serve as a unique support system for other students.

The numbers are distressing: Some 10.1 million Americans are unemployed and looking for work.
Mayor Greg Fischer of Louisville, like other local leaders around the country, is dealing with those numbers—and with the aftermath of 2020. His agenda is clear: Controlling the pandemic and training students and adults alike for meaningful work. Louisville's approach to reenergize its workforce and the quality of life for workers includes programs that prepare people for careers in technology, collaborations with local businesses, apprenticeships, and more.

Over the past few years, Lumina Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, and CivicLab have designated various communities throughout the country as "Talent Hubs" for their focus on educational attainment, racial equity, and economic mobility for today’s students, many of whom are people of color, the first in their families to go to college, and from low-income households.
Now, some of the lessons from these 26 Talent Hubs have been compiled in a 10-step guide to building local talent and to inspiring and informing other communities that want to boost their educational attainment and develop their workforces.