West Michigan Strategic Alliance was awarded a WIRED grant in 2006. One of the "innovations" in the WIRED grant was WorkKeys. Bill Guest was appointed the "Innovation Champion" and work started in Spring 2006. Very quickly a concept developed as a result of an intersection of WorkKeys, the Kent ISD Guaranteed Diploma program, and Career Readiness Certificate programs around the country.
WIRED partnered with Grand Rapids Community College and Rachael Jungblut was named the program manager for the project. Bill attended the National WorkKeys Conference in May 2006. The sessions at the conference solidified the concept of introducing the Career Readiness Certicate in Michigan. Bill met Cindy Leyrer and Ann Stanton at that conference. We decided we should work together to drive adoption of WorkKeys and the Career Readiness Certificate state-wide.
We formed the Michigan CRC Advocates in the Summer of 2006. At the founding meeting we agreed that it was in our best interest to form a long-term partnership with ACT. The National Career Readiness Certificate was launched by ACT in October of 2006. We immediately changed our name to the Michigan NCRC Advocates and shifted our focus to the adoption of the NCRC in Michigan.
Cindy invited Irma Zuckerberg to join the MI NCRC Board and Irma helped us expand the NCRC to all high schools in the Mid-Michigan WIRED region. This gave us a "coast to coast" reach across the State of Michigan.
We all worked hard within our own regions and met regularly to share best practices. Funding streams were separate and designated for use within specific regional boundaries so we were limited in the amount of work we could do together.
Then, in Fall of 2007 we were approved to use some funding to build state-wide support for the NCRC. It was recognized by the WIRED teams that long-term sustainability of the NCRC would require State of Michigan involvement.
By working together we were able to launch regional implementation teams that covered all 83 counties in Michigan. We were also able to cooperate with Lansing to add the third test to the Michigan Merit Exam and to get Council of Labor and Economic Growth (CLEG) approval of the NCRC as Michigan's workforce credential.
The story is still being written. Check out the blog's for the latest.